Welcome to the Fellowship of Friends Discussion.
For previous parts of the discussion please visit AnimamRecro or the Main page of this blog.
For sites in Russian and Italian, click http://fofway.narod.ru/ and http://laliberastrada.blogspot.com/ respectively.
If you decide to interact as well as digest, feel free to start here.
And as always, enjoy and have fun.
Hi Folks.
In Relation to the petition and signatures idea, I am prepared to begin collecting them on the address below.
edward@fourthwaywork.net
Please include your name.
How many years you were in.
Country.
Zip- post code.
however……. If anyone else has time to figure out which addresses to send the collected E-signatures to please send them to me on the same address.
Also perhaps we can discuss what form an introductory accompanying statement should take?
“Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible,
and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” – Francis of Assisi
jack.
Another story, although compared to some of the stories I have heard here, this particular one is quite tame…
I was travelling down LA way and sharing a car with C and M. We had travelled a bit through the desert and finally stopped off at this restaurant for what was essentially a piss break. C and M started to talk to me about Robert and his like for sleeping with people who travelled with him. In my naiveté, I thought nothing of the remarks or indeed why they were telling me about it. This was my first “travelling” trip and I was trying hard to overcome a recent split with my wife. We arrived at a hotel just outside Palm Springs (if I remember rightly) and basically relaxed at the hotel while Robert went shopping with some others. If memory serves me rightly he was shopping for stuff for the small condo in La Chintta.
Anyway to cut a long story short, after dinner that evening Robert deliberated over who was going to be the lucky boy to share his bedroom. Well chucks, that first night was to be my lucky night. I remember going to retrieve my luggage from the room I was sharing with M, feeling quite nervous. What on earth was I going to talk about?
I remember going into the room and Robert saying, “You can ask me anything you want dear”. After a moment or two I asked him why he had asked me to stay in his room. Something along the lines of “I was so aware of how much you were in essence at dinner dear”. What a bedside manner, I mean…
Next thing I knew it was bedtime. I get changed and into bed, fully expecting my teacher to go into the other bed. Of course not, he slides in beside me with TV remote in hand, puts his free arm round me and starts flicking through the channels. I’m now starting to feel very uncomfortable trying to concentrate on the channels passing me bye. Next thing I know is his face is in mine trying to stick his tongue down my throat! I freeze in absolute shock.
He stops realising, presumably from experience, that this is going to go nowhere. He gets out of my bed and into his own and then says, in a somewhat disappointed tone “I hope you don’t snore, if you do you’ll have to change with someone else later”…quite a “normal” reaction don’t you think?
To Jack #594:
One thing we do know is this: many people who experience interactions with psychopaths and narcissists report feeling “drained” and confused and often subsequently experience deteriorating health. Does this mean that part of the dynamic, part of the explanation for why psychopaths will pursue “love relationships” and “friendships” that ostensibly can result in no observable material gain, is because there is an actual energy consumption?
“My biggest frustration and source of anger, is at those who have refused to take a stand when they see the abuse . No matter how outrageous his behavior others often stood by and inadvertently fuelled his grandiosity and denial… although denial is too mild a word for it.”
“I have finally come to the conclusion that they cannot change, so all we can do is to refuse to participate in their sick drama and leave the stage.”
________________________________________________
Many of us have noticed that the boys in the harem seem like “zombies”. Their trance-like gaze and general demeanor is sad and scarey. It’s one reason that I quit going to receptions or other events with Robert and his boys a long time ago. I felt disturbed by their state but almost as disturbed by the rest of the students who were acting like this bizarre arrangement was invisible. It is just too strange for a normal person to feel comfortable around.
1 jack
Hi Folks.
In Relation to the petition and signatures idea, I am prepared to begin collecting them on the address below
——————————————————————————-
Hi Jack,
I went on line last night and searched how to do petitions, here is one address: www(dot)petitiononline(dot)com
We need a statement and some other things. (native English speakers, or anyone who can write really well, please help!)
The idea is that each of us signs on the site, but I am open to any other methods as long as it works. Who are we addressing the petition to BTW?
Just passing info.
Jack,
I would only sign a petition that had already been drafted. We have to agree to the wording and the purpose of the petition before collecting signatures.
Your 4Bits,
I thought we’d get some rest, go into some kind of truce to replenish the amunitions before we start going at each other again but it seems there is no rest and we just have to keep pealing out.
You sound like those cops that would ask a woman who’s just been raped to go and heal herself before she denounces the rapist. These women usually can’t muster enough self confidence to do so but a few can and that is what they find healing in. Not revenge, but getting into civil householder with whatever legal action the society can still offer her.
Your reference to Galleria dinners, meetings and everywhere I tried to give a different angle to what was being indoctrinated in the Fellowship of Friends, for I never did anything but that, is unfortunately one that does not give me enough confidence in the love with which you are preaching my lack of credibility.
Do you think that after seventeen years of not having counted with the credibility that was necessary to participate in the Fellowship of Friends as a rightful member, it matters to me whether you, who are the same people, have any credibility for me now? Do you think I have any on you? Aren’t you the same people who would rather label me as an opportunist Colombian trying to get a position and a visa marrying Girard Haven? A position playing the saint looking after Dorothy? A position screaming louder than anybody else on this blog because you can’t think about anything but the position you’re loosing while someone else risks her guts? Those guts that you carefully pet? Are you not the same people who would hide from others in the Fellowship of Friends to tell me how you so enjoyed my speaking from the heart and still send me private e-mails encouraging me to continue (with the exception of a handful) because you are still afraid of standing up for yourselves and have to lean on each other’s credibility to live an indecent life for thirty five years and roll your eyes because someone is actually threatning everything you wish to include in your imaginary picture?
“So, why is it that you lack credibility, despite your obvious suffering, your good causes, and your excessively (and sometimes obscenely) self-advertised play in the Fellowship of Friends?”
You think you’ve nailed it down beautifully don’t you, but have you considered that you are happy to call on my obscenities disclosing your thirty five year old conscious beings whose obscenities you denied to look at, you buffered unconditionally, you kept silent for ever until I started screaming about them? Probably because they made your own obscenities look like magic? Are you not a male, 4 bits? For males loved it so much better than women and if you are a woman, how could you give me a rest, when I am another woman?
You think this is about me and my self advertised play because that is all you have come to understand and have forgotten what it is like to stand up for any cause other than your self.
There is no doubt that it much mattered to me whether I was appreciated or not for a long time, probably until two days ago. Yes, it continues to matter but not at the price of a place in any hierarchy that would expect me to shut down or up.
Your love is seventeen years late and it is still tainted with the eyes rolling up trying to accomodate me into the conditioning limitations of your structures. I live in the public square and not in the greater fellowship or any other club, because it is here where you cannot put barriers on me. Here we stand as equals not because we like or dislike each other but because we are willing to live under certain civilized premises whether we like each other or not. Civilized enough to put a criminal in jail when we know he is a criminal, even if it is my husband, our teacher and with all pain I would even include my own child. Jail or whatever payment is required.
The crux of our time is that people are willing to suffocate their consciousness in the name of love and in the Fellowship of Friends, suffocate their love in the name of consciousness. Fellowship of Friends students are doubly damaged, what credibility do you think is needed amongst such concurrence?
You again, like everyone else here, who cannot have a decent conversation because they are too busy fanning each other about the words and the music and the popularity status, focus on my person to question my credibility because you are as willing to buffer what I am really saying as you were willing to buffer what Robert Burton was doing. And while both the poetry and the music are ever so welcome by me who have not spoken a word against them, they have their place in a discussion in which crime is really what we are talking about.
Your Robert Burton and Girard Haven addiction, for only twenty or so people went to Girard’s dinners consistently and not one of them, was free of the addiction to sit close to a conscious being who could not even allow them to speak their word, no matter how motherly he sounded, is where your level of credibility likes to rest not in the truth of your consciousness.
You focus on my intensity, passion and literacy because you are unwilling to focus on the deeper issues I am posing here. Essentially, the question of the individual and the community and how this last one cannot be determined by likes or dislikes nor can it determine the individuals freedom by hierarchies conditioned by likes and dislikes.
Are these not the same patterns we observe in regular societies everyday? Those in which one quarter of the population gets together to say that three quarters of the world belong to them at the cost of the rest because they like each other or are like each other? People who only give jobs to their friends no matter how many more talented people may be at it, so that they can fill their ego and not their consciousness?
One day, we will be conscious enough to understand that everything belongs to everyone and the issue will not be whether a few got more than they needed or could use but that everyone got what they needed even if everyone got less than he liked. The metanoia needed for such condition must start in our consciousness before it can be actualized in the practice of our lives. And what people need more than anything is to belong to a community willing to respect them, not just to like them. We will learn to love each other when we’ve learnt to respect each other independently of our nationality, class or education. When we understand that it is our humanity not our rank what matters and when we understand that as long as we can’t feed the last child on this planet and protect the old, we are nothing but another miserable generation of damaged adults who lost the opportunity to brigde the interval for humanity that their time offered.
You might think I consider the turmoils of the Fellowship of Friends the primary concern in my life, but the Fellowship of Friends simply revealed all the spiritual poverty that a generation of people from everywhere in the world were willing to descend to. It is that spiritual poverty that I think needs redeeming so that we don’t end our lives in the worst possible demoralization that I am talking about, whether you like it or not, believe me or not, or care to fight for it or not. What matters is not whether you have credibility on me, I have plenty of my own, but whether you have any credibility on yourselves and can clean up your household with the support of the guests that you never hosted because you thougth we were your latin maids.
You justify everything Girard Haven did to me because it is all in the same mentality that you condone and those still inside the Fellowship of Friends continue to condone the fact that each person in each center is being ripped off because you give a damm how much money is taken from people who you consider “inferiors”. You think my question: “What does it feel like to have a naked woman offer herself to you and have you turn around and buffer it and look at the shoes under the chair, is about Uno’s marriage, instead of the fact that that IS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME WITH GIRARD HAVEN FOR FOUR YEARS AND WITH THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS AND WITH THIS BLOG PROBABLY, BECAUSE I AM NO LESS NAKED HERE THAN THERE NOR AM I OFFERING YOU MY MOST PURE NAKEDNESS ANY LESS. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT I AM NOT VULNERABLE ENOUGH TO ALLOW YOU TO BEAT ME UP OR IGNORE ME, I’LL KICK YOUR BALLS WITH THE SAME VIOLENCE YOU KICKED MY INTEGRITY.
I will continue to use myself, Girard and all the obscenities I can think of, to make this play vivid enough to shake your mind. I deny to talk proffesionally and with dissected intellectuallism to convey the horrors I’ve seen, that is what you men did but I am a woman. I will scream while I give birth to this baby I was raped to have, while you hide behind the shades with terror remembering how you kept silent and watched and still keep silent and watch while others are consistently abused, take advantage of their victories to form groups and deny them the right to participate.
Deleted — ES
By the way, Allan S. — thanks for sharing your story. I appreciated that. It convinced me to do the same.
YMUT 584
Thats your interpretation, not my intention
If I may, I will now try to concentrate on more relevant issues than defending myself.
Gabrielle, 583.
Thanks for your post. Indeed, the older people, both ladies and men much need to be considered when anything legal is taken to its limit.
Steve and X-Ray,
You recently offered money to get a legal process going against the Fellowship. I do not conceive of divisions in this area so I will not ask you to support me to go ahead with this action but I will invite you and whoever may have any interest in considering the possibility of exploring legal action against the State of California for allowing a cult like the Fellowship of Friends to go unchecked for thirty five years.
I have no idea what the possibilities here are but I would be very interested in exploring this option and if at any point in time we decide that we need to spend some money on it, we can offer what we each can.
I have a friend willing to open a site for that, it will be an open site for I don’t think it matters who looks at how legality is explored.
I will post it here shortly, you don’t need to answer to this post if you need to keep your anonimity but you can log on to it when it is ready.
600 Xeeena/ 2 Allan
Thanks for the stories. It’s helpful to be reminded again (and again) about the utterly ghastly weirdness that surrounds Robert Burton.
The ball gown “octave” (absurd word) was particularly bizarre. I reminder lurking in a corner at a reception, getting wasted on the free booze, and watching the arrival of the first batch of females wearing these extraordinary creations – they were hideous (the ball gowns, I mean). The women looked like a group of transvestites at a costume party with the theme of 1950s suburban grandmothers. The scene was way beyond Fellini-esque, and called for another two or three glasses of Renaissance plonk.
And the ladies were so grateful to their Conscious Teacher.
PS Elena – My4bits was spot on, sorry to say.
9 Nuthead
Which reminds me of the time the first mass tuxedos octave began. This was when Via Del Sol it was “the ranch”. RB bought out a tuxedo rental firm. They were all put up at “the barn” and all the salaried students were required to buy one. I remember everyone reluctantly jamming themselves into the room to find parts of tuxs to try on. It was theater of the absurd. Of course they were almost all the same passe styles, some fairly worn. I hated mine and rarely failed to find an excuse to not attend functions purely concocted so RB could stand there and look at the herd for sexual culling. We looked like penguins. That’s when RB started buying shirt studs to bribe students with, along with the cameos. It was the same time salaried students with glasses were directed to get contacts, whether they wanted them or not. I tried mine on once and said fuck it. There wasn’t any area of one’s life at the ranch (or raunch) that was one’s own.
4 Veramente.
hi Will check out the address you suggested and get back to you.
Re who are we addressing the petition to .
In 1 above I ask for help in finding that out and in writing an accompanying letter to preface the signatures.
5 .Draco .
The people who have allready sent their signatures dont seem to agree that one has to agree to the wording and the purpose of the petition -before- collecting signatures.
Perhaps like me they are anxious to set the shining of a little light onto the Fellowship of Friends in motion.
However I too would like to have a letter with which to preface them A.S.A.P. How about posting your suggestion for such a letter.
I am just about to check Veramente’s suggested site, amongst other things in order to check if one needs the whole address, as one doesnt with Avaaz, just the postal code or zip.
Will post as soon as this is established.
Meanwhile I will sell the collected addresses to the highest internet bidder…..so expect spam about infallible cancer cures, cheap viagra and penis enlargement.
jack x.
Someone suggested Michael Moore recently, which is not so far off. His sister lives in Nevada City and he comes here often. Someone might want to put a bug in their ears about creating a movie on the subject of cultism in America. Plenty of material.
HI folks,
The petition on line site is an option, but it means that one sends the person or persons one wants to read the petition, to that site to read it, which doesnt seem as effective as sending it to their own in-box. Imo.
I know that if someone sent me a message to go to another site and look at my complaints I might conveniently not get around to it.
Only the actual person sending the petition has to give a mailing address others only need to give a valid E-mail address or one can stipulate what information signers have to submit.
They point out that the more information one requires the less people are likely to sign it.
So if anyone would like to give it their best shot and write a prefaratory statement……please do and post it here, the more we have to choose from the better.
So just to recap.
In order to proceed we would need – a list of people to send it to- and i suggest one of them could be the current Governor of California, is that still mr Terminator?
The Board of Directors of the Fellowship of Friends could be another.
AND That damned letter to preface it.
meanwhile I can still collect E-mail addresses of those who wish to send them at the address at post 1 above remember it doesnt need a mail address or phone number if you dont wish to give that, just a name and valid E-mail address and perhaps Zip code or post code.
Jack.
“He called me a rapist and a recluse.
I am not a recluse!” Mike Tyson.
Elena, you wrote:
“I will continue to use myself, Girard and all the obscenities I can think of, to make this play vivid enough to shake your mind.”
What convinced you this is THE way to shake minds?
Your way, no matter how sincere,
because of your idea of what is “vivid”
and what it takes to make it ‘vivid’
can just be contre-productive!
(see the irrelevant post of mine on previous page)
Thinking of the end?
How do you see yourself, in perspective?
The way I see it, together with others,
goes towards being examples, inspiration,
light-holder persons,
for everyone to feel and see that reality:
learning, developing, growing, does occur “out there” !
We are people with, from experience of the “in there”,
the capability/responsibility to be selective
and allert enough to distinguish,
keeping the vision in heart and mind,
between what serves and what dis-serves.
Each one of us as Ghandi’s of some sort.
With him, the word “patience”, for instance, has mass, meaning and force.
30 year of prisony did not distorted his “vision”, “mission”, “work”.
Without cristal ball, I foresee that the signature initiative will have much effect. Its origine determines its future: calm, organized, focussed.
But, who am I? Have it your way!
After all, eventually, we will get to understand
why this charactere called Elena has to exist
and why you have to play it!.
And if not, it is fine since
(and this is an Open Secret I heard)!:
“All is This and This is All!”
(This last one was for you Bass, together with a kiss).
“All is This and This is All”
To read outloud, real slow, while rubing your thumb against the other fingers
and sensing the effects of “aliveness” flowing through you…
Cosciousness has a body…
“All is This and This is All”
Coooooool !!!!!!
Could not deny the validity of ending “light”
(joy, you know, does that to one…)
Gratitude.
Oops……
How are petitions delivered?
At PetitionOnline.com, our policy is that delivery of petitions is at the discretion and by the hand of the petition authors, rather than us, the hosting service.
Petitions can be delivered electronically, simply by emailing the petition URL with a note of explanation to the petition recipient. Or the petition pages can be printed and delivered physically. For maximum impact with a successful petition, we recommend doing both.
Again, at the discretion of the petition authors, petitions can be delivered repeatedly as they gather more signatures. In general, we would recommend against this — since the first delivery will have the most impact, it is probably better in most cases to wait until a maximum level of support has been recorded. In the case of an urgent issue, there may be a stronger argument for delivering early, and then delivering again later when more support has been demonstrated.
Because of the power of the press in spreading the word, perhaps a very effective strategy would be to send the petition URL relatively early to various appropriate media, with a note of explanation that the petition is still very much in progress. This could bring it more into the public eye, and begin to influence public officials (or other intended recipients), without diluting the impact of the actual petition delivery to them later on. The final delivery to the petition target could then wait until an overwhelming response has been received.
Assistance in printing petitions for delivery may be provided to petition authors on a fee for services basis. Please contact PetitionOnline Customer Service for more information.
Jack.
Nuthead #9,
About the ball gowns, and Robert’s hatred of women:
I used to work with Nette in 1996, and clearly remember her frustration with those hideous and ugly used gowns that we had to repair and hem before they would be sold for $15-20 to FOF women. Nette thought these gowns were the way the teacher was ridiculing and diminishing women, forcefully making them look exactly as you said:
“The women looked like a group of transvestites at a costume party with the theme of 1950s suburban grandmothers.”
Those gowns were so bad, cheap, disgusting, out-of style, unsexy, gross! Covered with cheap glitter and sequins, they were truly horrible. The colors and styles were disgusting. It made women look like tasteless village peacocks.
And almost every woman had to wear this crap in public as a “gift” from her Teacher, even though she had to pay for it.
Once Nette raised her hands in frustration and exclaimed: Why is he doing this? Why does he hate women so much???
I understand why. Because women are his immediate competitors when it comes to men. Because any of his boys would gladly chose a woman over an old gay – he can never ever win against an attractive woman, and he knows this.
Because he is a jealous self-centered old gay man, that’s why.
He hates women and tolerates them in the school only as a bait for young men to join the school.
At first he was not allowing women to get pregnant and have kids, so they would not be stealing men from him to take care of their families.
To make women look unsexy and unattractive he invented infamous “pant” exercise. Women had to mandatory wear skirts on the property, even if they were working on landscaping and it was clearly not practical to wear a skirt while working. Young attractive women looked like a bunch of village grandmas in those stupid long skirts…
To further make ladies look like hags he purchased those ugly gowns and dressed most Apollo women in them AND made them feel obliged and thankful to him! At every formal event women in those idiotic dresses had to thank and thank their Teacher for his kindness…
Then he came up with an exercise of not coloring aging grey hair for women, so to let them “naturally” age and look old and unattractive. All of the “infra-sex” exercises were against women and their natural beauty.
Then finally he came up with anti-serving exercise in 2006, saying that men shouldn’t serve women at the table anymore, because it is feminine dominance.
He always “punished” women much more severely and cruelly than he did men – sending them away to remote centers, excluding them from school, fining them heavily or taking their “octave” away.
It has nothing to do with anyone’s evolution, it’s simple basic hatred and jealousy.
I can’t believe that women in FOF are still putting up with this crap. Don’t you see this?
JANNA
What about the sex exercise……?
Sex only within the marriage, just to keep the boys from other attractions….
The petition sounds worthwhile I hope it gets done.
If you ever wish to explore suing the state of California, send me an e-mail at tablut@une.net.co and I’ll give you the site name.
Elena
Robert Burton is a dangerous psychopath and his place in jail.
2 (5) 594 Jack
Thank you
8 Elena,
You would be better off exploring legal action against the Fellowship and Burton, not the state.
16 Janna
Thank you. Right in the Balls!
Re: Post 17, Pensate un Attimo
Dear Pensate,
Yes, a very good suggestion for a blog discussion. The “sex exercise.”
I’ve been thinking about my experiences with this exercise, as I sit here, alone, on Thanksgiving Day. My memories of this almost 20-year period are poignant, painful, and confusing. It is part of the ‘raw underbelly’ of my Fellowship experience, as I am sure it is for many others.
Anything I can say about my feelings and experiences are admittedly those of a one-time “true believer” and cult member. Not as a believer in Robert Burton per se, but as a believer in “the Ark” and what I then considered to be the historical mission of the Fellowship as an esoteric school tasked with “bridging an interval in the cycle of civilizations.”
What were we not willing to sacrifice for this supposedly noble cause?
I recall some sort of angle from RB that went like this: It is better to marry than to ‘burn with desire.’ Aaarrgh! Yes, we were given the choice: to marry or to burn. It was up to the individual to decide which was the preferable form of hell. Some students were better suited for one form, others for the other.
I tried both, and both were, predictably, hell, in the context of the Fellowship. In another world, things would — or might — have been quite different. Years 30 through 50 were spent nobly resisting or suppressing sexual attraction, both inside and outside of marriage.
I bought in to the line that the exercise would have the positive result of revitalizing the “institution of marriage” that had lost its value in this “age of tramp.”
I can attempt to justify the good reasons why I submitted to the exercise — sublimation of sex energy to channel instead to Higher Centers, developing the King of Hearts, working on tramp and against the drain of infra-sex. But, in retrospect, it makes me very sad and resentful. Yes, angry. VERY ANGRY!
Honestly, I was not capable of sublimating sex energy for some higher purpose. I was too naive. Instead, I only managed to re-direct the energy into wrong work of one kind or another.
I can’t even begin to evaluate the suffering my “work” in this area caused others, but I know it to be considerable. For this extreme vanity, I am so sorry.
And now as I begin, with the help of others, to see and understand the “big picture” of these years — the flaming hypocracy of which I only saw glimmers — I can only wonder what I may have lost during those years.
Honestly, I cannot say that I gained anything spiritual from those decades of faux-sacrifice. Instead, I lost counteless opportunities for intimacy, comfort and emotional warmth, intense communication and sharing, the deeper experiences of lasting marriage, and true evolution fueled by the higher hydrogens of sex.
Having perhaps missed important ‘windows of opportunity’ in life to learn certain valuable lessons about relationship, I am trying to learn them now, after these milestones have come and gone, and when my level of sex energy is beginning to flag.
Lost life. Lost opportunity. Lost love. True, but there is always the seed of new love! And I feel exceedingly grateful that there is, even now, the possibility of redemption and renewal!
I refuse to become a bitter ‘hack’ that regrets having lost “the best years of his/her life!” pursing noble dreams promulgated by a psychopathic narcissist and sexual predator. I made my choices. Period.
“The moving pen writes, and having writ, not a tear can wipe out a word of it.” (paraphrased from some author).
20 my4bits
I think the whole thing is:
The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on
Nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
Omar Khayyam
from the Rubiyat
my4bits
Your candor, with us and with yourself, is fresh air.
Your anger is your friend. Feel it, own it, let it energize you.
You are the master of your destiny, now more so than ever.
3 Vena:
‘Many of us have noticed that the boys in the harem seem like “zombies”. Their trance-like gaze and general demeanor is sad and scarey…’
Vena, if you were a male and a member (no pun intended) of the brothel/whorehouse/bordello/harem/seraglio
(whatever you want to call it) of the Galleria Isis œuvre, and were having the sperm sucked out of you on a regular and unconditional basis by Robert Earl Burton and company, plus the sexually transmitted disease issues, in addition to the usual adversities the Fellowship of Friends experience delivers upon a person, you would understand why ‘the boys in the harem seem like ‘zombies” and what gives rise (again, no pun intended) to ‘[t]heir trance-like gaze and general demeanor’ that ‘is sad and scarey.’ Robert Earl Burton’s appetite knows no limit except that it might stop just short of being a full blown Hasnamuss.
10 brucelevy:
Bruce, with the risk of revealing this posters true identity, let me go as far as to say that I know how the ‘tuxedo octave’ was conducted. RB did not buy out a tuxedo rental firm. The retired (read: old and unwanted) formal wear from rental firm(s) was/were negotiated for on a consignment basis. Complete outfits were sold for $44, as I
remember. What was not claimed/bought was returned to source. The rest, as you state it, was accurate and I agree ‘was theater of the absurd.’
12 wakeuplittlesuzywakeup:
One exFoFer told me there is someone writing a book tentatively titled: The Darker Side of the Light. This is to be a compendium of corruption activities in new age, and not so new age, spiritual and religious organisations; a kind of ‘tell all’ to inform the spiritual seeker what to avoid. The author was purported to live in the Grass Valley/Nevada City area and have collected much data on the Fellowship of Friends, among numerous other organisations, going back some 30 years. That could be a valuable resource for a Michael Moore type film.
But, a Michael Moore type film in this area might better be focused on cults in America in general since there are many ‘political’ cults also. This would be an excellent film for an election year that could show how cults attempt to manipulate so much of the social environment.
16 Janna
Don’t you understand, ’sequins’ is all the rage in the Fellowship of Friends now and the women that had the opportunity to suit up with sequins at that early time were doing advanced work? [Said, tongue in cheek.]
Also, regarding: ‘I understand why. Because women are his immediate competitors when it comes to men.’ This very issue is the reason why certain women in the Fellowship of Friends were PERSECUTED FOR LIFE by Robert Earl Burton and his minions of flying monkeys. One of them you know personally, Janna. I do not name names so that the innocent are protected – which includes me not revealing who I am. But, just one transgression in this area of depriving Robert Earl Burton of his prey was sufficient to black list a woman for life; talk about account keeping – Robert Earl Burton is expert in this area and does it with secrecy – all the while imploring his followers to drop accounts (and their pants).
Don’t forget the beautiful soprano singer A. M. that Robert Earl Burton put out of the Fellowship of Friends when it was found out that she got into the harem – not just ruined for life, but all future possibilities of evolution (including beyond this lifetime) disrupted and/or denied (according to Fellowship of Friends doctrine) as punishment. And, this was regardless of how much Robert Earl Burton cherished her, long sought after, singing capabilities. [Such singing capability has not appreciably been seen in the Fellowship of Friends since then, except on rare occasions (and at considerable expense), as a sort of Karmic debt incurred.]
20 my4bits:
Sorry for your new found ‘awakening’ to the TRUTH; but glad to see your acceptance and moving on. Remember: ‘Don’t get mad; get even.’
The above demonstrates real debauchery, if you ask me, in hindsight (again, no pun intended). Makes you wonder who the real turkey was on this Thanksgiving holiday – gobble, gobble.
3 Vena
I really don’t think that we can restrict this to Robert Burton’s boys. My experience is this…When I was at a centre meeting and returned to my family, my mother always used to think I was like a zombie. She didn’t know what I was into but knew I was somewhat detached from her vision of reality. When we used to get visits from people staying at Renaissance I used to think, they are very different. Thinking about it now, something in me probably thought God, they are like zombies. When I went to Renaissance myself and started travelling with Robert, people at Renaissance seemed to react to me differently. Either they thought “He’s in a different state”, or “God he’s like a zombie”. I’m detecting here that it seems to be all relative…differing degrees of zombieness. When I returned from Renaissance to see my mum after all my adventures, she was really concerned. I think she thought I had become an ameba.
Perhaps the more you come under the influence of Roberts’s brand of Feminine Dominance, the more zombie you become!
This message is addressed to those visitors who are now reading this blog while seraching for inner work on themselves.
Dear visitor,
The Fellowship of Friends is a school for reaching Divine Presence within one. It is led by Robert Burton, the spiritual teacher and founder of the Fellowship of Friends.
The art of reaching Divine Presence is the highest art on earth. Man in his ordinary state of consciousness cannot even imagine what it is and what is possible for him.
In order to reach Divine Presence and prolong it one would need reaching a much higher place in oneself.
However, one has another part in oneself that dominates one’s life and that is the Lower Self. This part is not interested in the art of reaching Divine Presence and if one attempts to seriously work in order to reach it, the Lower Self would do anything in order to ruin such work.
This blog is presenting posts of many former members of the Fellowship of Friends who left the school and started slandering it. This is a sheer example of how the Lower Self works after it takes over and crowns sleep to rule, sometimes forever.
Our Teacher has asked his students not to enter this blog in order not to give even more space to the Lower Self beyond what it takes anyway.
I am writing these lines in order to create a small spark of opportunity for you if you are interested.
So you are invited to visit the Fellowship of Friends web-site:
http://www.beingpresent.org
Posts 7 and 8 are newly moderated.
Psychic: I have a question for you. Could I please advertise this blog on the Fellowship of Friends websites? – ie. http://www.beingpresent.org – if you aren’t the right person to contact in this matter, who is?
TODAY’S DAILY CARD:
Sir Walter Raleigh said, “We die in earnest, not in
jest.” In death, the joke is on us, if we have not
been serious with our lives.
Love, Robert
Omar Khayyam: Come! Seize one passing moment joyfully.
ANY COMMENT?
Psychic
It’s highly unlikely, but just in case you care about what us simple asleep folks may think…
I have been keeping track, just for fun.
Post #25-395 contained 4 “Divine Presence” and 8 “Lower Self”.
Post #25-429 contained 2 “Divine Presence” and 7 “Lower Self”.
Post #26-27 contained 4 “Divine Presence” and 3 “Lower Self”.
Have you by any chance being taking some courses on hypnotic marketing?
Or has your conceptual framework unconsciously shrunk to the point of being totally taken over by these two silly abstract and unverified concepts?
Either way, the repetitiveness and poverty of your expressive means makes your posts sound like a sad caricature of the worst kind of religious and political scary propaganda.
One major problem is, when you say stuff like
“The art of reaching Divine Presence is the highest art on earth. Man in his ordinary state of consciousness cannot even imagine what it is and what is possible for him.”
we know quite well that really, you don’t have the slightest idea about what Divine Presence might be. It’s a magic slogan that has been pushed down your throat and now you are trying to force-feed it to some other imaginary gullible beings like you.
Presence is one very simple thing, and putting a sacred sounding adjective in front and capitalizing it, does not change one bit the fact that you are referring to an art that is actually NOT being taught in your school, as we all can testify.
Good luck to you.
Psychic-
you are such an example of brainwashing and indoctrination…
you believe in concepts, if Robert Burton tomorrow will tell you that the Lower Self is not Lower anymore you would believe it, if he will tell you that the Higher self doesn’t exist you would believe it, if he will tell you that the sequence is now composed of 9 instead of 6 you would agree…..whatever but not thinking with your own brain.
psychic…you cannot reach presence and even less prolonged it …simply because you already are it!!It is really the searching that prevents you from this realization! It is already all here….but you are too indoctrinated to even think about this!
RB will keep you in the wheel forever….you will never do enough efforts, you will never be worthy….
WAKE UP!!!!
7 & 8 Another Story
Thanks to you also. Your story started some strange yet familiar stuff moving inside of me.
Psychic:
Good for you Psychic, your lower self presents the point beautifully, indeed quite artistically if I may say (well apart from the spelling). It is so sad that your teacher considers the lower self in such poor esteem as though it were something to be looked at with disdain. Fortunately, true divine presence, is very much inclusive, not exclusive. Consciousness brings both natures together, it does not separate them it includes them. Your teacher is a living testament to exclusion and his life, actions and oh yes lets not forget beautiful words are there for all to see. I hope this is read not as if I express anger but rather a deep feeling of remorse.
I would like to think that when people feel a need for spiritual guidance that they be very, very, aware of false prophets. Read and research (yes with your lower self) and then listen very carefully to something deep inside. Yes Visitors, even Robert Burton has a lower self but unfortunately for the uninitiated, the crudeness of its manifestations, even your lower self could not imagine.
Sheik,
I do not know about the link since I am not an official representative of the Fellowship of Friends.
You posted a previous response stating that it is too late to try and balance the blog’s negative impact and then on your last response you remarked about adding the blog link to the Fellowship of Friends web-site…
On the other hand, you showed remarkable tolerance towards extremely violent and slanderous expressions in this blog and towards posts with links to other esoteric organizations alongside with positive recommendations about them. I do not recall any similar posts of yours regarding adding the blog’s links those sites.
The Fellowship of Friends is only point of discussion here and it receives 100% negative posts. I guess it would be fair enough to allow one post out of many dozens presenting a different point of view.
33 Psychic
My God, what can one say to such a gullible, new age moron like yourself? How bout… you need to sit down and have a nice tall glass of go fuck yourself.
“Divine presence”… an expression from a tasteless, gag reflex inducing flaming fairy with no conscience.
Sidekick, you’ve got no fucking clue, and you’re not even worth addressing as a normal person.
29 Pensate un attimo
TODAY’S DAILY CARD:
Sir Walter Raleigh said, “We die in earnest, not in
jest.” In death, the joke is on us, if we have not
been serious with our lives.
Love, Robert
——————————————————————–
The joke will be on him!
This is the kind of interpretation Robert Burton is fond of to keep people in fear. Another False Prophet attempt!
Psychic :
Please try and tell me something honestly, and try to use your own words.
What are the dynamics of the thought processes that you use to dismiss what you read here? Not just with your ready-made ideas from the fellowship of friends; but when the day is done and you are lying in bed, alone with your thoughts, how do you justify and reduce all of these people’s experiences? In print you simply say ‘lower self’ and ‘negativity’, but by now, it must take something more than just a couple of phrases to try and cancel out all of what you have hopefully read here. Try to see what the fellowship of friends has done to your critical thinking and your ability to discriminate about what comes to you in the way of experience. Hundreds of bright, intelligent, people have told stories about the fellowship of friends and Robert Burton, and are you truly able to dismiss them all with a couple of phrases and the feeble argument that they have all told their stories for no reason other than to slander your innocent school and teacher? Do you really think that if seekers come here they could do that so easily? Can you stand back just a step or two and listen to yourself? It is not too late, my friend.
Don’t forget to go back and read newly moderated comments such as these:
#7 2(6) “Several years ago, a friend told me that he had suffered the consequences of a prolonged sexual relationship with Robert Burton. He said he had lost all faith in Burton as a teacher, and that he was leaving the school. He said people were in denial, and that no so-called “conscious being” would have behaved as Burton had behaved toward him. He talked to me as a friend in hopes that I would listen — both in hopes that I would open my eyes for my own good and for the good of others within the Fellowship, but also in hopes that I would open my eyes for him, and for our friendship.”
And the Divine answer from Psychic:
#27 2(6) However, one has another part in oneself that dominates one’s life and that is the Lower Self. This part is not interested in the art of reaching Divine Presence and if one attempts to seriously work in order to reach it, the Lower Self would do anything in order to ruin such work.
Who’s lower self? Who’s Divine Presence?
Maybe these questions are some Psychic may want to ponder.
34 – Bruce
Or, maybe you are right, and it is ‘too late’ to address him as a normal person.
38 James McLemore
He’s clearly what we call lunatic..valuing the wrong thing, with a serious tunnel-vision problem. He’s where he should be.
Psychic: Does anyone in the FOF still understand humour? It might be a relevant exercise to re-introduce humour into the FOF programme. What do you think?
40 the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion
Humor is not encouraged or cultivated in the FOF. Except when RB gets a unfunny joke stuck in his craw, which he then tells and re-tells to every student he bumps into that day, with the students politely smiling, giggling, or even being able to evoke a plainly false guffaw for the old queen.
I wonder, does he still cover his mouth when he does his little girl laugh?
# 18 Janna
In the 90’s, I lived in Apollo.
I remember seeing that I was suddenly becoming all what I did not want to become:
I got married.
I was not able to use all I learned professionally for several years.
I was no more financially independent.
I was dressed following all the given instructions, which I never liked.
I was obliged to be in a bourgeois mode of representation while living at the same time in extreme poverty.
I had to bear this world of men, taking all the decisions, and power.
No area of personal development possible for me, there.
A vision of nightmare.
When I was a teenager, there were all these movements for women emancipation, I was thinking that the privileges were acquired and not questionnable anymore, and that we could think about the “rest”, but unfortunately I am obliged to reconsider this.
The school has brought women back 50 years ago if not more.
Deleted. — ES
Actually, I believe the name of the cult has been the Fellowship of Friends from the beginning to the present. It’s the name of the property in Oregon House that has kept changing and they are: The Ranch, Via del Sol, Mount Carmel, Renaissance, Apollo (with one p and two l’s) and Isis.
Sheik and Bruce,
There’s even an “exercise” to avoid humor (the “wit exercise”). Not sure if that one is still happening, or if occasional jokes are allowed these days as long as they are sanctioned by the Minister of Propaganda.
Speaking of which…
Folks, before the latest blog debunker (psychic) takes up too much of your attention, please take a look at “Another Story” at Post #7 above. Nothing earth shattering. Just one more story to add to the collection. I’m sure that mine is one of a few hundred more that could be told.
lauralupa (30): I loved your post. Very cogent observations about the use of the language, the use of repetition, and the use of capital letters to make certain terms seem “very profound” and “very important.” For example: Very Profound and Very Important.
It’s Creepy Propaganda.
I’m fairly sure of the Actual Identity of psychic. He writes, “I am not an official representative of the Fellowship of Friends.”
Translated: “I am an official representative of the Fellowship of Friends.”
#37: I meant whose lower self. Whose Divine Presence. Yeegads! Moo!
40,41 Sheik and Bruce
LOL, Oh come on Sheik and Bruce. The humour is in his name, surely you can see how funny that is? It reminds me of the story Robert kept telling about presenting a pillow to Lord Pentland, oh how I chortled…
There was another story Robert told during dinner in some diner in San Francisco, my first tasting of Oysters Bingo. When he was younger he had a girlfriend, hard to believe I know. She had apparently dumped him but it would all be fine because he would get his revenge in 1998…oh how we all laughed!! Coming to think of it, if it were a true story then it would explain quite a lot wouldn’t it?
Psychic.
Dear…..you have made a bad choice of name, as, if you were truly psychic you would take one look at your pseudo guru and see the truth.
Perhaps “sidekick” is more appropriate.
ps are you for real.
Jack
Jack (43), that’s an outstanding first draft. Very well written.
You may have mentioned this already above, but is there an email address to which we can send our suggestions, ideas, and feedback on the letter?
thanks xeeena
j x
43 Jack
Excellent!
Allan.
Another Story
ta, you can post them here or Im at
edward@fourthwaywork.net
good luck j x
Deleted. — ES
Thanks Allan and Another Story for sharing. What more can one say?
Allan, God, I remember so well the shock of first hearing your stories about Robert, the cringing, painful feelings they evoked, the sense of disgust for his pitiful act.
One thing that for some reason really struck a chord was the image of you poor guys religiously studying restaurant receipts, looking for 2006 and 1998 and stuff like that. I saw how he was trying to turn you into little children, lost in a world of dreams, a real form of hypnosis, IMO. It’s so liberating to find you here, after these years, and to see that we are both now in such a better, healthier inner place, restituted to a world of real possibilities of growth.
aline, thanks for that. I also experienced all of the above. I buffered the whole situation by recluding myself in the absorbing role of newlywed mother, but at one point the whole reality I had created finally blew right into my face. I guess it wasn’t a reality after all. I had been dreaming of being the perfect mother, student and wife, thriving in the face of adversity, and in fact I almost killed myself in the process.
I also could see that I wasn’t the only one, either, in fact so many women and couples were struggling and unhappy. So many affairs and strange pairings, so many break-ups. Also, at times I felt that almost everyone around me was somehow sexually dysfunctional (me included).
The few healthy people really stood out…
So anyway, thank you Robert for castrating our sexual and instinctual lives so that you can swimmingly carry on with yours, thank you for the collateral emotional physical and intellectual damage, we really owe you one, don’t we?
Do you believe in boomerangs?
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=a-E51rVb3xk
I sometimes wonder if we (ex-fofers) aren’t all a little too strident in our warnings to seekers concerning the Fellowship Of Friends. Like everything else nowadays, isn’t the modern (or perhaps that should be post-modern) seeker, a little smarter, a little more savvy, a little bit better informed than we were in our starry-eyed, Age-of-Aquarius, psychedelic-informed days? Isn’t there more information available everywhere concerning all the various permutations of human thought about life’s meaning? Isn’t today’s seeker a more sophisticated consumer of spiritual rhetoric and soul-growth methodology? (Please, no Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, or Wayne Dyer jokes)
So, what’s the harm of someone going to the three sacred, divine presence inspiring perspective student meetings? Shouldn’t the twenty- or thirty-something seeker of esoteric knowledge smell something funny at those meetings? Does a twenty- or thirty-year old even know who Sammy Davis, Jr. is (Inside joke for us oldsters)? Perhaps Psychic would like to post an outline of those meetings right here on the blog.
And, so what, if said seeker is charmed and impressed by the sincerity of his hosts (as I was) and ends up joining (as I did)?
After a short while inside, shouldn’t anyone with half a brain be able to see exactly what is being offered in Robert Burton’s current teaching? If they can’t, I don’t believe that anything written here would persuade them otherwise.
So, to the wayward visitor who may have come here seeking information about the Fellowship of Friends:
Make what you will of all our stories here, but we can’t save you from yourself.
27 Psycho
Dear Visitor
Most of us writing here have heard Psycho’s nonsense before, so we tend to dismiss it easily. But take care – it’s actually quite clever, in a sick way.
It’s not too difficult for a spiritual seeker to begin to believe that “Divine Presence” and the “Lower Self” actually exist, or at least that they might exist. And then the trap closes. Every thought that disagrees with Fellowship dogma is from the Lower Self and therefore to be ignored. Everything that Robert Burton does promotes Divine Presence, and so his every whim must be obeyed and his every thought, however crazy, is Holy Writ.
Slowly common sense is eradicated and another zombie emerges.
There are countless groups that can be helpful for the spiritual aspirant. The Fellowship Of Friends is not one of them. Avoid it like the plague.
re petition– I don’t think we should limit the petition only to former members. Perhaps it could read — “…..from people and friends of people who…..” or some such.
Kid
LOL
come sit right here and sleep while I slip poison in your hear…
“we are dancing a black waltz”, isn’t that a powerful image?
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=16VYlCxWwLI&feature=related
sorry, I meant in your “ear”
53 Wingspread,
Great, thanks! I had reservations about calling him gay and your other points are spot on too.
a few tweaks and it might be ready soon, then I’ll have Abe give it a once over…..Seriously though does anyone know an American lawyer who could peruse it once finished?
57Xeeena. Good point to open it up to those who through their connection with us, also felt the less than benign influence of the Fellowship of Friends.
Jack x
Dear 2bits
Thanks for sharing,
regrets,
yours, mine, others
so many
humbleness
is the soil where thanksgiving can thrive from.
pains, yours, others, mine.
regrets
a passing by
watching, sitting with it
NO mind
I old you and others
and myself in my heart
watching the sun
time will do the healing job.
Love to you…you are not alone.
Grazie Lauralupa!
And the scores for our Ultimate Fighters are:
“Divine Presence” 4, “Lower Self” 8
“Divine Presence” 2, “Lower Self” 7
“Divine Presence” 4, “Lower Self” 3
http://crackle.com/c/Funny/ULTiMATE_FiGHTER_KiSS/1854605
As you said, just for fun…
Sad though!
Gratitude.
Just realised that the link to Ultimate Fighters leads to a lot more I did not expect.
Ups!!!!!
Sorry! Just in case… Even if…
Oh well, things happen right?
Gratitude.
#27 Psychsick
You’re back. Your absence was divine. Please return to it.
#34 Bruce to 33 Psychsick
And chase that down with a hot cup of shut the fuck up!
Below is from the Sheik and worth repeating.
Soooo much thanks. No words can describe my appreciation.
(maybe I should hit the pay pal button)…
Psychic: I have a question for you. Could I please advertise this blog on the Fellowship of Friends websites? – ie. http://www.beingpresent.org – if you aren’t the right person to contact in this matter, who is?
65 Yesri baba
Now now Yesri, I didn’t tell him to shut the fuck up, I told him to go fuck himself. That wouldn’t have been magnanimous of me.
Laura
I do not know how to express in words my feelings, even after a few Vodka and Iron Bru’s (sorry it’s a Scottish thing). I must say I do feel very liberated and very content. In my current state, I’m filled with associations that place me in the Lodge! I remember those days of serving drink in the bar and awaiting the arrival of those from the Art class and of course the pizza. Needless to say, all the rest as well…So thank you for doing that.
There are many things that bring all of this together. It is amazing to listen to people on this blog who I know; you, Charles T and Jack, who I think I know “Another story”, who I do not know but were legends during my time in the FOF; Ames and Joel to name but two and many more who are simply a mystery to me but make me laugh and whose post I really enjoy; Kid, Bruce, Yesri, James, kaakaka?? et al…
Another Story
A moment in time…Does this mean anything to you…The CH Hotel, a meeting and a mirror?
Laura
When I see you say “ear” I hear you say “hear”.
Psychic, see if the shoe fit…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F4JbdqWmcU
Gratitude.
Original from ‘I’ll never tell’ on page 2(5):
Yeow, Psychic, know this:
‘Psychic’ is such a word that indicates a non-material, meta-physical, capability that would not necessitate the use of this blog, or any blog, or words expressed THROUGH THE LOWER SELF. You are in fact using the lower self to get your message across via this medium. You are, most decidedly, NOT A MEDIUM. We are all using the lower self to communicate here in the blogosphere. So, firstly, your name is a lie. And, your message is a lie. (Let’s see, one of the basic premises you work with is that lying is one of five barriers to attaining self-remembering, a.k.a. prolonged Divine Presence. How do you explain that conundrum, hmmmm?)
If, you were really ‘psychic,’ you would know the real reasons that the Fellowship of Friends is in the death throws that it is: THE LOWER SELF RULES in the Fellowship of Friends and Robert Earl Burton is the king of the lower self (read: king of clubs motivated to have his (or its) way with anyone, anything and everything, no matter what). The past and current actions of the Fellowship of Friends, Robert Earl Burton, and their enablers, including your appearance here, Psychic, is all part of the karmic pain body looping back on itself – Instant Karma, if you will – and there is no escaping it. Your own LOWER SELVES created it and now you must eat it. It’s called humble pie – I hope you had it for Thanksgiving. If not, you will eat it eventually.
‘The work to reach and prolong Divine Presence involves a sincere struggle with lower parts in oneself.’ Which means that YOU, Psychic, must stop reading this blog and stop posting here – just what Robert Earl Burton told you to do – what are you willful, or something? – maybe lunatic? – maybe above the law? Work on getting your ‘prolonged Divine Presence’ and ‘psychic’ message across by meta-physical methods and leave us alone here to wallow in our lower selves.
And, BTW, a real school does not need a defense. Just like the truth needs no defense. They are their own defense. It is: a priori.
[Secret work idea: Best way to deal with lower self is to not work on it directly. Therefore, Psychic shows the real knowledge, being and understanding attained in almost 30 years by doing the opposite in appearing here.]
———-
So, Psychic, you do NOT see Robert Earl Burton’s private sexual escapades as ‘extremely violent and slanderous expressions’ when he wantonly forces persons disinclined to engage in such activity to compromise their better judgment (read: conscience) and succumb to HIS LOWER SELF DESIRES? How naive.
Hi, folks, in case you are missing the new teaching, here are some Robert’s thoughts current students hear every time they go to an event. Hope you don’t get a headache…
“Rama strung his bow and said, ‘It is wrong for people in love to be separated!’ He shot, and his arrow went through seven old ironwood trees as strong as towers.” [Ramayana]
Be and Hold have been separated, and it is wrong for “people in love”—the sequence—to be separated: they must be united. “As strong as towers” refers to obelisks—short Be and long BE. A wall painting from the tomb of Meresankh in Giza depicts a procession, in which the last figure on the right represents long BE. We are familiar with this image, as we are familiar with the images of Christ on the cross with his arms outstretched in long BE. However, an image that is new to us is a rock painting, dating to 5,000-4,000 BP, depicting an archer. The Giza procession depicts a traditional long BE; however, the prehistoric archer, which was painted many millennia before, is more advanced. The archer holds two arrows in each hand, representing the four wordless breaths. His bow is upside-down, because long BE has been reached.
“Let your silence be long.” [Egyptian Teaching of a Man to his Son]
Let your silence be long BE. This is the teaching of a “Man to his Son”—of the third eye to the steward. A wall painting from the tomb of Meresankh in Giza depicts a procession of six figures. It is one of the best images we have for showing Be and Hold—the first two figures on the left—as being separate, but together. The third figure, Back, was put intentionally in the third rather than the fourth place. The distance of the first five figures together, representing the first half of the sequence, is the same as the distance of the outstretched arms of the sixth figure, representing long BE.
Similarly, a bronze state of Shiva has five limbs on the right, representing the first half of the sequence; while the sixth limb on his left represents long BE. The first fifteen flames surrounding Shiva represent the first half of the sequence, which lasts fifteen seconds, and the second fifteen flames represent the second half of the sequence, which also lasts fifteen seconds. Like the Giza procession, the distance of the two halves of the sequence is the same. The Naqshbandi Sufis considered safeguarding the heart for fifteen minutes—which actually means for fifteen seconds—from evil thoughts—imagination—to be a remarkable achievement.
“Let your silence be long.” [Egyptian Teaching of a Man to his Son]
We need to use relativity to understand these verses. Here, quite surprisingly, the third eye is called “man,” and his “son” is the steward. Let your silence be long BE. The wall painting from Giza portraying a procession of figures is one of the best images for showing Be and Hold—the first two figures on the left. Although they are two separate figures, they are connected together as one. Schools were very clever for our benefit. They put Back in the third, rather than in the fourth place, so that we do not take them on faith alone. However, they put Back in the fourth place often enough for us to know that is where it belongs.
“Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles, and move continually to what is right—this is the way to exalt one’s virtue.” [Confucius]
“Sincerity” is the sincere desire to complete the sequence. The “first principles” are Isis and Nephthys— Be and Hold. In a wall painting portraying a procession, from the tomb of Meresankh in Giza, the first two figures, who are close together, represent Be and Hold. The length of the rope held by the first five figures is the same as the length of the cloth held in the outstretched hands of the sixth figure. This is the same cloth as the one worn by Tutankhamen on his gold mask. Because it is made of gold and lapis lazuli, we forget that it actually represents a garment that covers his head. In Journey Forth by Day, it is written, “Take your garment, your staff, your loincloth, your sandals, and all your weapons.” All of these objects represent the sequence.
“God has the last word.” [Ibn Arabi]
Five steps belong to the first half of the sequence; work ‘I’ number six belongs to the second half of the sequence—the state we are in. “God has the last word.”
A fourth-dynasty wall painting from the tomb of Meresankh III in Giza portrays a procession of warriors. The first five figures represent the first half of the sequence. The distance of these first five figures together is the same as that of the last figure with his arms outstretched. The third figure in the procession, with his back turned, represents Back. It was usually put in the fourth place, but here it was put in the third place in order to hide the key.
This links to an article that I found very thought provoking, again thanks to the amazing reality sandwich website.
lots of love
http://www.realitysandwich.com/wild_fire_feminine_perspective
73 somebody
Does he speak these things or are they only written?
For me, it has been almost 30 years, and still I can fairly vividly picture him, sitting there, his head slightly turned, hands folded in his lap, that look of humble, but secret knowing on his face, as he softly and unselfishly speaks to those of lesser understanding.
And then the worst part of what I picture: the silent crowd hanging on his words. Holy Shit!!
To all responders,
I will try and add one comment per PART so your next chance to act in the same predictable stimulus-response mode will reappear in part 2(7).
Psychic 76
predictable stimulus-response mode?
wow, man that was brutal. I’m shaken to the core.
nite nite, everyone
to 75
There is a large digital screen in the corner of the room on which the images are shown. The quotations are read by the students and repeated by Dorian after which Robert comments… I honestly tried to understand, but it gives me a headache. Does it make sense to anybody?
29 Pensate un attimo:
TODAY’S DAILY CARD:
Sir Walter Raleigh said, “We die in earnest, not in
jest.” In death, the joke is on us, if we have not
been serious with our lives.
Love, Robert
Omar Khayyam: Come! Seize one passing moment joyfully.
ANY COMMENT?
——————————
Yes, I would like to know how these people can speak about dying when, obviously, they are still alive, when making the statements, and have not had the experience of dying. They speak as if they did have the experience! This is a lie in the simplest of terms.
Psychic, I’m so glad to see you’ve decided to keep reading and keep posting. I knew you couldn’t stay away. It really helps us out to have a real live example here of what we are talking about.
73 somebody
May the farce be with them. And it is.
Psycho
Why don’t you give us your name so we can turn your sorry ass in to the Princess. Unless of course you’re officially unofficially sanctioned. In either case, go fuck yourself.
78 somebody
“There is a large digital screen in the corner of the room on which the images are shown. The quotations are read by the students and repeated by Dorian after which Robert comments…”
I that before or after Dorian cashes in the trade for a voucher with some unknowing students wife?
Should be “Is”.
76 Psychic
To all responders,
I will try and add one comment per PART so your next chance to act in the same predictable stimulus-response mode will reappear in part 2(7).
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Psychic, haven’t you noticed that your replies are stimulus-response? You are responding to the messages on this blog. And predictable? They are certainly very similar to replies from other FOF hardliners.
whew, just checked in and there’s lots of activity. I really like the idea of an email petition and liked the last version. It would be good if a lawyer could review it.
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Psychic, oddly I was thinking the blog is unbalanced also. But I think it is too pro fof. I mean the fof is actually a rather sorry small (and kind of creepy) cult in California (how predictable).
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Somebody, it is almost impossible to understand anyone writing that stuff – or buying it. It’s painful to read. Come on, you current members, you are way smarter than that! Seriously, –you will be unexpectedly delighted at the level of divine presence as you become unencumbered by the fellowship of friends. If you really like reading nonsense (like where the key-er writes that fifteen minutes actually means fifteen seconds) then perhaps you would like reading Jack Handey.
“How come the Dove gets to be the peace symbol? Why not a pillow? It has just as many feathers and it doesn’t have that dangerous beak!”
Sidekick is actually just a tape loop.
Or maybe a tapeworm.
Psychic: I don’t know, man, sure, a lot of the people here are acting in a ‘predictable stimulus-response mode’, you among them. You see, all of us can ‘predict’ what your next words will be, including what you will write in part 2(7). You are far from unpredictable, you see, you must be suffering from the same disease as us life people.
But then again, some of the people here are not acting in a ‘predictable stimulus-response mode’, some people here are asking you questions, trying to make you ‘think’ about what you say. You see, some people will try to make you see another angle, another view, to broaden your horizons. Whether you see this as something good or bad is up to you, I guess.
Sorry if it seems judgmental, but you seem to be throwing words out that you have stopped thinking about, it sounds like an old, oft-too-repeated mantra that has lost all meaning 30 years ago.
I for one tried to initiate a discussion with you, I am genuinely interested in your views on humour (and on the importance of humour in personal growth adn well-being), in the idea of the Fellowship of Friends advertising on this blog and me advertising on the Fellowship of Friends website (perhaps me putting a banner and a link for the FOF website on the main page of the blog if the FOF does the same for this blog on their webpage). You know, dissemination of information and all that. By the way, have you had a look at the wikipedia page of the FOF lately? You remember what i said months ago? It won’t work, baby, it won’t work.
And lastly, how is the weather in Amsterdam these days?
I am hoping for an answer to some of my questions, or at least an attempt at a dialogue, in 2(7). See you then. Nothing stirs up the masses like a psychic does.
#67 brucelevy
Yes, that is what you said. Sorry if there was any confusion.
I must give credit where it is due.
I was reading your post and laughing. My girlfriend asked me what I was laughing about and I quoted ‘a tall glass of go fuck yourself’.
She said she hadn’t heard that one but had heard ‘a hot cup of shut the fuck up’.
It just seemed to me these two beverages went together in this case.
Dear Sheik,
You rock!
Sheik, Actually the teaching and the language of the Fellowship of Friends has changed substantially over the last 30 years. When I left in 1994 I don’t remember much talk about divine presence (or Divine Presence) . The emphasis was more on self-remembering and dividing attention. Perhaps someone who has left more recently (or is still officially in) could tell us when this Divine Presence idea took root. Is it actually talked about at meetings that much or is it just part of the online public relations propaganda?
#78 Somebody
Yeah, it makes sense to me. Especially the part where 15 minutes is 15 seconds.
C’mon, they’re just yanking your chain. Then they go out the back door chuckeling all the way till they blow each other.
———————————————————————
Higher self: “That was mean-spirited. Those interpretations are highly plausible.”
Lower self: “C’mon it is all a hypnotic load of crap. Look at all of those dorks walking around talking to themselves all glazed over. Be, hold, long be, short be… blah,blah,blah…..”
Higher self: “It could be argued that long be is awareness and short be and hold is an effort of attention to clear the mind and bring it into harmony.”
Lower self: “Then what about all that crap about creating a soul?”
Higher self: “You got me there. Maybe it’s that carrot thing.”
Lower self: “You’re such a douche!”
My most recent experiences point to the efficacy of one-on-one communications with those we know who are still members of the Fellowship of Friends.
When possible, let us confront our friends and acquaintances with our most recent, and most potent, realizations using personal channels. This way, we can circumvent the stigma and limitations of the blog.
Let’s speak to our ’still in’ friends. Let’s tell them what we are experiencing ‘out here’ in conversations, letters, emails! Let’s go directly to the source(s).
So many poets and beautiful souls on this blog! So much powerful information! Perhaps we can increase the volume of our message by whispering directly in our friend’s ears…
Recently, I experienced a ‘musical evening’ at a former student’s home. It was warm and wonderful — more enjoyable than any staged Fellowship event!
My4Bits–I’ve noticed that your valuation for your contributions here has recently doubled. Was this because your old name was already being used when you went to officially register or because your coin has 2 heads so it should be worth twice as much? I found much to value in your post 22 yesterday. Thank you for it.
My4Bits ”
Ditto with what Xeeena just said about your post 22. I gave you the text of the rubiyat quote, but forgot to tell you how powerful the post itself was. Thank you.
Dear Zeeena and James,
Wish I could hug you…
Thanks.
About the petition, letter…
I too wonder what impact such a letter, no matter how well written it is, might have on its recipients. On the one hand, I am not at all convinced it will produce the hoped-for results. On the other hand, far from me the idea of discouraging anyone to try.
The Fellowship of Friends is slowly eroding. Not as fast or as spectacularly as some have claimed, but eroding nonetheless. The confidence of the chosen has been shaken. All the voices heard and lines written here are echoed in conversations with those who do not read this blog. These exchanges slowly penetrate the minds and hearts of those still in the FOF and do their honest work, awakening the conscience of those who are still able. It is the redeeming value of all that soul-baring by the few courageous enough to represent the many others who endured and suffered. That to me is what is effective. Short of a spectacular blow-up (INS, IRS), this continued dissonant voice is what will eventually make the psychic/RB go away.
Sheik said to Psychic in 87, “And lastly, how is the weather in Amsterdam these days?”
Why do you ask that, maybe I missed something in a previous post of Psychic? or Sheik knows something of Psychic we don’t know because he is privi to that info. Excuse me if I am mistaken but that would not seem right in protecting someone’s privacy? For you outed my wife who is a former student and our connection by revealing the posts were comming from the same computer. As a moderator, it seemed strange you would do this and annoucing it on the blog is such a manner. Psychic is right in that you are very bias. Please don’t get defensive. It is OK.
By the way, humor has it’s place, FOF students lauph and joke, but at the same time see that it is a mechanism that can keep one asleep. Lauphter can be a good release, that is needed at times, and on the other hand it can be a buffer.
And lastly, both of you seem a little childish about this swapping of advertising on each the other’s website; come on with the games, get real. Oh, it is a full moon!
Boy! Sheik, you are dangerous !
What was this “Amsterdam” thing?
By the way, it is raining, of course!
Psychic,
better be “intelligent”, to the point(s) and,
perhaps, awake enough to remember who your host is and, why he opened his house and table.
Explore, question, discuss…
Do you remember?
Studying the “origine” and “the cause of the origine” for any object, in order to learn to “think in definite order” (Gurdjieff).
Your first attempts to solely address “potential seekers”, continuous expression of deep desdain of your actual audience and repeated use of them to ridicule and moque,
without engaging any real dialogue,
do not make your contributions
as “clinical” as you might want, and,
as “efficient” as you might hope.
Clumsy they are and as Sheik remarked, will not work!
You have a “cause”? Very well, defend it, be responsible.
Unless you are fated to belong to the parasites spieces, mature other ways to “Act”.
Hey! What about creating your own blog!.
It’s free, modern, and can be unexpectidly successful…
(see Sheik, your host!).
If you are looking for a good name, even an Avatar,
do not hesitate… Lots of Artists here!
Gratitude.
Jacques Brel, Amsterdam.
Waited a long time for the right circumstance…
Thank you Sheik!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI1Lqmly2HM
Gratitude.
Fat Boy: I have announced numerous people here posting from the same computer (former and current students), this step was aimed at minimizing the number of people here using multiple personalities. It worked. You were far from the only one.
And what is childish about advertising this blog by the FOF if I allow the FOF to advertise themselves here? I think that it’s only fair, as both sites discuss the same subject matter. I am sure that someone from the FOF must still be watching, well, tell me what you think. By now the blog probably gets more traffic than the FOF website (discounting current FOF students).
Deleted. — ES
“Res Ipsa Loquitur” ahhrg.. must be the moon.
Heres how to deal with the lower self or the reptile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgDefywtLQM
j x
GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD
I have noticed when students start taking personal responsibility for their lives they are photographed or observed as being negative or in the process of losing the school.
Love, WULSWU
Jack 101
…”who have all been subject for various lengths of time to a high intensity, high control, new religious movement, called the Fellowship of Friends, led by Robert Earl Burton. This cult has been responsible for much destructive….”
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Hello Jack,
I have been traveling but see you are making progress on the letter thanks to some other people here, I just wanted to tell you it is getting better and better and glad you took away the “gay” word.
I wonder though if someone or you could substitute the “high intensity” definition, and am not even sure I agree with “religious movement” simply because the FOFeffers think (or used to) they were never a religion although we know better….
Thank you for your work! I so much appreciate you doing this.
On another note I was in Las Vegas for a few hours yesterday and was really thinking of Robert Burton and Isis…another las vegas in the foothills for sure…
103 wakeuplittlesuzywakeup -
I guess some things never change.
I was living in a teaching house on 10th ave in S.F. and planning my escape; trying to save enough money for a first, last and dep on an apartment (I had already stopped making teaching payments). I was already investigating some other types of work on myself. I had spoke to no one of my plans, and yet it is odd how something about my appearance must have changed. I was approached by two different students in the house, telling me it looked like I was ‘losing my work’, and encouraging me to go to the ranch, which was the last place I wanted to go. I was a little stressed and yet felt excited and positive about what was coming. I was photographed as being negative.
anyone :
Sorry I wasn’t paying attention earlier when someone asked about the exchange rate between UK pounds and US dollars. I was about to make a contribution to the Sheik. Can someone give that info again?
97 Fat Boy: “And lastly, both of you seem a little childish about this swapping of advertising on each the other’s website; come on with the games, get real.”
Interesting that you consider this idea so absurd. You’re right, but only because the Fellowship authorities are afraid of free speech. What a different organisation the Fellowship would be if an uncensored dialogue could take place between between current members and former members. How healthy that would be! But the Fellowship viewpoint is indefensible, and you know it. The emperor has no clothes and is terrified that his subjects might see the truth.
“By the way, humor has it’s place, FOF students laugh and joke.” Fat Boy, you lie. Students occasionally grin sheepishly, but outright laughter is frowned upon – a manifestation of the lower self.
James- a British pound is currently worth 2.0564 American dollars.
My Four Bits and YMUT
I understand I have offended your multiple prides as you have offended mine, as women and men, as students of the Fellowship of Friends and as nationals of different countries.
I assume full responsibility and do not regret a word I’ve said. We may not be in more harmony but we’re at least more even. We might not have come to love but I will settle for having achieved distant respect, enough of it to help you reconsider your next blow.
There is no love without respect but the servilism people in your position are so eager to demand and people in mine, so willing to bend and get fucked for. Friendship cannot develop under such conditions. As long as we continue to establish relationships determined by our nationality, class or status, the human spirit will continue to struggle for freedom for it is imprisoned by those conditions.
When we come to respect each other as human beings we will work together to grant each other basic human conditions, no matter what country we belong to and then maybe, love will develop between us. When we bring our consciousness to that understanding, our being to that reality, no one will lack food or shelter or a place to speak his word. The first two are essential for the development of individual dignity and the last one for the development of human culture. There is no social dignity without all three of them. It is not the lack of food or shelter what makes a man a slave, slaves are clothed and fed, it is the lack of civil space in which to develop his being, what makes a man a slave. All forms of poverty spring from here.
It is no coincidence that the richest nation in the world economically and at the cost of others, would give birth to cults based on greed as its spiritual expression. The Fellowship of Friends and everything that happened within it, is the microcosmic expression of that same phenomena. Forces move in and out from the society to the individual and back, in a macro-microcosmic flow and the being of the individual determines the national activities as much as the being of the nation conditions the particular manifestations.
The aim of consciousness is not a freedom independent of the human processes but the freedom of the human being from materialistic determination. It is clear that there is enough food and shelter and space for every human being to live a decent life in, and the fact that this is still not happening is the expression of our unconscious will, not of the lack of generosity of the Earth we are unwilling to share. Our individual instinct stands against our human development.
We will continue to die and kill for these differences whereever and whenever it is necessary. The death of individuals is nothing but the sacrifice of cells for the life of humanity.
You could beg for a Ghandi but I doubt you’ll ever attract such mercy. England never relished on its cruelty nor tried to hide from it.
Those of us who came to the Fellowship of Friends hoping to find the development of the richest nation on the planet in its spiritual expression, have left appalled at the amazing potential for dictatorship. Should it be left to flourish, fascism will look like children’s play in comparison.
Rare are those who are prophets in their own land or time. If they are truly good, they are quickly crucified. It must be an interesting contrast to the faggot you intend to leave as profit or prophet. But of course, with the mentality of a Forrest Gump, how would you recognize the difference. Your naivete and your lack of credibility is the most dangerous asset you’ve ever made a bet on. We will learn to live as equals or continue to die as enemies.
You could take a look at a more realistic picture of yourselves presented by Robert Redford in Lions for Lambs, which also makes an interesting parallel to the blog.
104 Vermente.
Hi, do you feel like adjusting it to what you think is better?
The way that part is now was changed previously at someone elses suggestion, from dangerous cult but just go ahead if you want!
You dont have to type the whole thing just copy make the adjustments then paste back into the comment box, Im sure you know that so excuse me for being pedantic.
I will copy the final version when its to everyones satisfaction or at least the majorities and then set it up on the petition web site. so those who wish to can sign it.
Heres something to lighten the moon.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cA-pWKRyyG8&feature=related
tss tss tss.
Jack. x
110 jack
God will fuck you up.
I love it.
REGRETS.
A while ago we spoke about regrets on this blog.
I still work through those and just observe when they come….let them be and some times a sprouts, sprouts.
This morning I saw that regrets lead to pain (mostly emotional) and so much pain that we do not want this anymore…we want change….or I want change.
This desire in me evoked/ sprouted/ forgiveness. Or at least an attempt to work with forgiveness. I realized that because of this pain, something in me does not want to go back and have resentment and pain…something wants to be/ sorry BE, live in the moment, not in the future , feeling that what I do now is….IS, IS.
This wish for a certain independence emotional, intellectual, physical…to avoid hurts in all these areas.
I know that this is not 100 % possible and yet it is partly possible and it simply feels good.
Hope this is fun to write now.
Joy to all of you.
Not long ago, there was a post making reference to “L.W. and K.W.” I can’t locate the post and am hoping the poster can tell me which page it appeared on.
Many thanks!
109 Elena
wow, man, that was interesting but the intensity made it almost unreadable.
Watch it, girl, don’t let yourself be turned into a Joan of Arc.
110 Jack
Brilliant. And now, let the wrath of the gods be upon us.
Nuthead 107,
I believe in free speech very much even though I belong to a group that is very controlling. I do believe this control is prevelant in any type of corporation, and/or organization, with FOF not being different. Some will say the control is there so RB can self preserve his greed, sex, and so on. But for me I see and have verified control, and exercises are necesary to observe and understand oneself and ultimately to help one be more conscious. I really don’t like to be controlled in anyway and fight very much this but in the end I do see it is somewhat necessary. Of course it is absurd that an organization would advertise something on their website that is ultimately out to destroy them Nuthead.
Nuthead, I do not lie about lauphter, and you are right that outright lauphter is frowned upon. I outright lauph all the time, but at the same time I see that I am completely identified with the object. I believe what is encouraged is gentle lauphter rather than cackling.
97 Fat Boy
“Psychic is right in that you are very bias. Please don’t get defensive. It is OK.”
_______________________________________________
A bias is a prejudice, usually in the sense of having a preference for one particular point of view or ideological perspective. However, one is generally said to be biased only if one’s powers of judgment are influenced by the biases one holds, to the extent that one’s views could not be taken as being neutral or objective, but instead as subjective.
Fats, if you read the Sheik’s very first post from a year and a half ago, you’ll see that he started this blog after forming an impression based on his experience at a prospective student meeting. His perspective was made plain from the beginning. Whether that perspective is “biased” or based on an accurate perception of reality is open to debate. Plenty of people on this site have indulged whatever little interest you have had in actually debating that question (personally, it has seemed to me that your greater interest has been in chastising people for what you consider bad manners and attracting attention for its own sake, but I could be wrong).
If you’ve also read even ten percent of all of the posts that followed the Sheik’s original post, and you still feel like debating whether the Sheik is biased, it may be because your own ability to view the reality of the Fellowship of Friends has been so influenced by Mr. Burton’s well-practiced techniques designed to maximize his financial well-being and sexual opportunities that it’s possible–just possible–that you have become biased. If you spend a few months away from people who share your view of the Fellowship, who knows–you may actually have a chance to see for yourself who is biased. You know–verify.
But if you would prefer not to, please don’t get defensive. It is OK.
115 Fat Boy
“I believe what is encouraged is gentle lauphter rather than cackling.”
_____________________________________________
In my day at least, the expression was “gentle mirth.”
So Fats, have you verified that people have a choice about the way in which they laugh–that Mr. Burton, for example, could, if he allowed himself, “cackle,” instead of doing that little tee-hee he does in response to his own jokes? Have you verified that someone who has always responded to humor with a big belly laugh could, if she chose, adopt a mincing little giggle? Has it occurred to you that the reason Mr. Burton made this exercise is that he naturally laughs a certain way, and that the real exercise is to act like Robert Earl Burton naturally acts?
And have you verified that people who laugh one way are more conscious than people who laugh a different way? Have you verified that telling people how to laugh is more effective than suggesting that people just be aware of themselves, however they are, without trying to ape Mr. Burton?
115 “Of course it is absurd that an organization would advertise something on their website that is ultimately out to destroy them”
That’s how fanatical, obsessively defensive cult members think. Open minded, fully alive human beings are not afraid of dissenting viewpoints. They even encourage them. That’s the path to mutual understanding.
“I believe what is encouraged is gentle laughter rather than cackling.”
Come on, be honest – what is encouraged is putting your hand over your mouth when laughing so that your teeth, representing the lower self, don’t show. Of course it’s a complete coincidence that this is the natural way of laughing for a decrepit old queen. Cackle, cackle.
Also Fat Boy, try laughing out loud without judging yourself. What does it actually feel like without all your conceptualising? Does it really decrease the beauty of the present moment? Can you see the moment when the “work I” comes in and makes you feel bad simply because you’re manifesting healthily and naturally?
117 Just Another Voice Out Here
“Has it occurred to you that the reason Mr. Burton made this exercise is that he naturally laughs a certain way, and that the real exercise is to act like Robert Earl Burton naturally acts?”
I think it’s more that RB has a uncontrollable need to control everybody and everything within his sphere of influence. It’s unmitigated greed, narcissism and psychopathy.
Jack,
It seems a list of some of the practices in the Fellowship of Friends should be included such as:
The Teacher of this cult has gotten involved in the intimate lives of the students to the point of suggesting when and to whom they should get married and divorced, when to have children and when to abort or give them away, what to dress, when to laugh, how to eat. Students have no institutionalized channels to communicate with each other. Only three people have been allowed to speak officially to the students for long periods of time: The Teacher himself, Girard Haven and a new recruit known as Asaf Braverman who has recently not been allowed to re-enter the United States because of a fake marriage suggested by the Teacher.
The practice of importing young men from centers all over the world has gone to the point of having center directors chose candidates for the Teacher’s homosexual harem with which he consistently travels mostly to Europe.
Women go from the extreme of being treated as second hand citizens to super executive money makers. Those who wish to move from the second hand treatment HAVE to become the executive money makers.
It is clear that a huge amount of the money that has been payed to the Fellowship of Friends by the students from the very beginning, has been used for the private and illicit enrichment of the Teacher,
The humiliating sexual practices of Mr. Burton have been related in detail by many of the participants in what is known as the Fellowship of Friend’s Blog on animam recro at………..
Laura, there is not much intensity any more, the hopes have vanished.
Laura,
P.S. Joan of Arc already burnt last week and many like you didn’t even notice the smoke. You were probably playing youtubes, thank God.
Please keep rocking.
121 Elena
I think there’s some useful stuff in your post. Very succinct description of one part of the perverse dynamic at work, while illustrating clearly how money may be illegally used.
Maybe some of it should be incorporated into the petition.
When I think about a “petition” I wonder if that form is as effective as a “recipient focused” letter (or series of letters to specific govt. functionaries) signed by a mass of people who have their own real life experiences that can be called upon when and if “something” takes off (INS, IRS, etc.).
I just get the feeling that too frequently a petition just evokes “oh, shit, another petition” especially if it’s meant to put a fire under a govt. agency to open an investigation.
I could be completely wrong, but that’s how it feels to me.
Government agencies want facts, not emotion or opinion. They can’t do anything with the latter. They need the former.
To current members of the fellowship of friends.
Nearly every ’student’ of the fellowship of friends shares a number of qualities: you are dedicated, earnest, intelligent, open to community, a good friend, a pursuer of truth and of bettering your spiritual world and work, appreciate refinement, and are willing to set your ego concerns aside for a greater cause. And you also lack common sense and confidence, and wish too desperately for a savior, and fear too much an ‘ordinary’ existence. You judge yourselves very very harshly. There is no shame for having spent time in a cult – so many of us have gone thru that. There is no shame to leave it and reenter the greater world of living and awakening. There is so much for you to gain altho it may be hard to see from ‘inside’.
—————————-
Fat Boy ” I believe what is encouraged is gentle lauphter rather than cackling.” Now, that got me laughing. I have to admit that when I really laugh hard (which is rather frequently) I snort. I do try not to snort in polite company, but sometimes it just happens.
I think signatories of anything written should be willing and able to provide their personal facts if needed in the future. Or dividing the signatories into those who just want to sign, and those who actually have facts and experiences that illustrate to the specific recipient facts behind the charges.
It’s important to not be off point, which is why I feel that any and each signed statement should be specifically drafted for the intended recipient, within their narrow focus (IRS-taxes, INS illegal immigration, Cal. State- exempt tax status).
If we’re going to do this, we need to learn to “play the game” at a higher level.
Hi Jack: Thanks for taking the initiative for getting the Petition going. To me it seems like the best way to promote change. I regularly sign petitions going to Washington regarding environmental issues and it seems to make a difference. Just getting someone’s attention and making someone aware that the problem exists is a step in the right direction.
WULSWU
126 ak0aka0ka
Fuck that demure laughter bull shit. It’s a small symptom of a larger, soul crushing, demeaning disease. RBitis. There is a cure. Slip out the back Jack, make a new plan Stan, get on the bus Gus and set yourself free.
There’s no need to discuss much.
Maybe you’ll find you have diamonds on the “souls” of your shoes.
It might be time for a name change for Isis….how about Atlantis? Sort of a nice ring to it.
126 ak0aka0ka
“and fear too much an ‘ordinary’ existence.”
*********************
I wonder if one of the main ‘hooks’ that got us all, has to do with that element within us that one might call ’specialness’. I suspect we each have/had our own variety of this. It seems to be one of the cornerstones, or ‘last stands’ in the dynamics of that thing we could call ego or false personality. It is an element that reappears and reinstates itself in a number of ways on different levels. I have wondered if the rather grotesque and frightened entity(?) that is behind this illusion may have been portrayed in the “Trilogy” by the character Gollum. You know that, “Oh my precious”, sort of stuff.
Robert may be an expert at feeding and manipulating that false part of people, leading them to think they are the ’special’ and ‘chosen’ ones from over the whole earth. Telling them what lifetime they are in, etc. That is a powerful indoctrination for that part of anyone that so much wants to be something ’special’.
As you already did in your post, maybe one of the best things we can do is just to keep reminding them that there is no shame in making errors, that within ‘ordinariness’ lies something sacred, and that life ‘out here’ can be quite interesting, with possibilities for growth and awakening, and can even be downright fun at times.
131 ak0aka0ka
Wistful Atlantis
An empty (wet) suit
dives for de Young treasures
Yuba feet of clay
Oddly enough, James, I don’t think that is a completely false part – the fear of leading an ordinary life (not that that is what you are saying). I think it can be very false if it gets connected wrongly – but at its core it is a very deep human drive. It can be linked with curiosity which is a basic drive in all life and can be linked with divine imagination. How it goes bad IMO is when the specialness is established in relation to another. Fearing ordinariness too much – like it is ‘bad’. It defies formatory mind to think that everyone is special- even other life forms (like cats and horses and trees. Slugs might be an exception). If one can see the specialness in another then I think one could see it oneself too and the other way around also. So I agree that within ordinariness is something special, …very ‘thru the looking glass’.
134 ak0aka0ka
I think I agree with what you say. I mean it certainly feels like everyone and everything does have a specialness or uniqueness; and on a personal level, the drive towards that, and possibly away from mediocrity is a good thing to connect with. I was only thinking of the part (and it does, as you say, seem to have its establishment in relation to other/s) that does come from a mistaken sense of who we are. That part that causes us to feel separate and different from others in an unloving way, whether that unlovingness be towards others or towards ourselves.
Clear as mud?? Someone suggested a while ago to keep our posts short. I think that is a very good suggestion for me. I think the more I write the more confusing it probably becomes.
Thanks for responding
Hi Bruce,
You’d know better. It seems the pure facts without decorations would make it further if at all.
Here is my 2 cents on any kind of correspondence or petition.
Keep it concise. Focus on the misuse of funds and sexual manipulation/abuse.
Avoid going into too much detail on origins, beliefs or opinion.
Some color is good but it shouldn’t sound as loony as what it is pointing to.
126 Aieiokiaiouiaoki (sorry i can never remember the order)
Nothing prolongs a good laugh like a good snort.
115 Fat Boy
“But for me I see and have verified control, and exercises are necesary to observe and understand oneself and ultimately to help one be more conscious.”
Many would agree with this point. But your unstated implication is that this is what is happening in the Fellowship. My experience in the Fellowship was at odds with this.
I saw exercises left in place far too long, so that they became moral statements rather than wake-me-ups. I saw no sign that our fearless leader ever noticed or cared about this. In all my time in the Fellowship I never saw Mr. Burton seem to be seriously connecting the exercises with our awakening.
Many of the exercises *do* make sense in terms of establishing and maintaining control however. If you want to be able to ask people to do things that they would not ordinarily agree to do, you would need to ask them to do other arbitrary things that are less objectionable. Over time then, people simply become used to ceding control of their lives.
Of course RB did not originate this sort of thing. The Christian church, for example, regulated all legitimate access to sex through requiring marriage and requiring that their priests perform those. RB has not only continued that line of control, but has apparently, according to recent reports, added control of access to food as well. ‘First bite’ indeed.
I find all of that chilling Fat Boy, and really wonder why you, apparently, do not.
my x/fellowship friend(s)
saw that light in a crack in the wall
through my eyes and into my heart
this was it, the Answer, the Answer
if I could only make it through all the pain would end, all the suffering
there would be joy, only joy
how many times did I throw myself against that wall four, five, six times
till on my knees, backed into a corner
unable to see for the blood running into my eyes
called your name my x/fellowship friend
was it a whimper or was it a whisper
and in the space of a breath, head first in your kitchen sink
as you washed the blood from my matted hair
the water first running red, then pink, then clear
you fed me soup and tea, till I could sit upright in a chair
filled my eyes with salves and potions until I began to see
filled the room with admonitions, but they were only words
because in your heart, you never judged me
because in your heart you knew, I was at once you, and you me
that light, that light, yes, you knew about looking for the light
and you knew about betrayal, about illusions, about heartbreak
hours turned to days at your kitchen table, till I saw the light
it was you, it was me, it was all of our x/ fellowship friends
do you know how you glow in the dark,
do you know how you calm this shaking heart
nothing between us but a smile
Cake
139 RobertC
“If you want to be able to ask people to do things that they would not ordinarily agree to do, you would need to ask them to do other arbitrary things that are less objectionable. Over time then, people simply become used to ceding control of their lives.”
One can’t stress that point enough. Thanks RC.
Upon reflection, I don’t think you should ‘out’ people, Sheik. The current members of the fellowship of friends are not our enemies. We don’t need to drive them off barking obscenities at them or calling them names (which you don’t do but others do – I may have gone too far several times too). Giving the city where a poster posts could put that person in a very difficult place with unforeseen hardships. I would not like you telling where I post from and in fact, I really did not like it when my name was outed on the blog. I would offer it publicly if I wanted to but it is some sort of weird privacy thing. None of us is unbiased, but you are in a position of power.
Otherwise, your services to the many posters and readers here are so appreciated and valued! You DO rock! We must drain you of time and energy – maybe some posters can donate to the blog a bit? If we all chipped in it would be a noble thing.
141 ak0aka0ka
A while ago I used your name, simply because you had previously posted the address of your art site, or indirectly guided those interested to it.. Had it not been obvious who you were I most likely wouldn’t have addressed you by name.
Whether citing Amsterdam is outing someone is debatable. It didn’t help me figure out who Fat Boy was. But if people are against even general info being posted I have no problem with that kind of restriction. I suppose some people have valid reasons, and some are simply cowards. I guess it’s a fine line that Sheik will have to ponder for himself. As a human being I can see that the momentum to out an asshole is there for many people to a greater or lesser degree. Like the group that outs closeted gays in the Republican party that continually votes against gays. Anonymity has it’s pluses and minuses.
141
“We don’t need to drive them off barking obscenities at them or calling them names (which you don’t do but others do – I may have gone too far several times too).”
From what I see only the most deserving of the automatons from the FOF have been barked at. People who have come here from the FOF with sincerity, openness and honesty have been treated with the same. Assholes are treated like assholes.
We all have different criteria concerning what kind of shit we’re willing to put up, forgive or apologize for. I, for one, am not willing to compromise my criteria based on someone else’s criteria.
If the Sheik decides that no obscenity or criticism, however harsh, is not to be acceptable her, than I would of course accept his decision and respect it, and be on my way.
That’s “here” not “her”.
One can always re-join FOF, where one is protected from obvious negativity, only to be replaced by dishonest, passive aggressive negativity. I know several people who have rejoined simply because they need to exist in a protected environment, and don’t wish to have to deal with “life” and all that implies, even though that’s completely false also.
Hi Bruce, did not mean to insult you and you are right about assholes – in general. But there are exceptions. I didn’t post my site to this blog but to the GF which is different. I started posting under a blog name then went to my initials – I suspect most here have no idea who I am and that’s good in my book. But I have talked about art – simply can’t help it.
The city thing is not for us figuring out who the poster is it is for those in the fof and there might be some negative consequences. And we would not like it if ‘we’ were outed, so is it OK if one of ‘them’ is? Of course, it is a risk to post here for all of us. Risk to our falseness. We are all assholes in many ways. I suppose there is an asshole (love typing that word) fulcrum where one becomes ‘officially’ an asshole and before that just a sort of one. Now, that would be something – an asshole fulcrum. Or an asshole meter. But one thing I did gain from my tenure in the fellowship of friends is a BS-o-meter, so that is probably close -and it is internalized. Just rambling.
Fat Boy is not only a real man he is also a part of each and every one of us or else we could not understand a thing he is saying. Reading the blog is like paying attention to the internal dialog. Stopping thoughts is OK but there is also alot to be learned from being present to the internal voices – as you so grandly put, (hope I get close on this) being present in a context is consciousness. This is a context.
And if you think about it, all the people “we chased away” have continually returned again and again either as themselves or an altered persona. What we say here has clearly not penetrated these people, and I think you’re wasting your sentiments on people who wouldn’t do the same for you.
Unless you’re talking about Greg, which is a completely different situation.
I think this IS the context to call bullshit bullshit. Where else, in our own minds? A lot of good that does.
And sorry, Fat Boy may be a part of you, but he’s not a part of me. Totally different animal. Unless you mean because he’s a human being..that’s as far as I’d agree with your thesis.
Yeseri ” Nothing prolongs a good laugh like a good snort.”
You must be a snorter! Yes, one starts to laugh, then there is that stupid snort and one feels ridiculous which makes one laugh, then one realizes that feeling ridiculous at snorting is another level of ridiculousness then one is in the ‘third state’. Spontaneous snorts are really ego humbling. I try not to do that at ‘important meetings’. ;-)
Yes, I mean he is a human being and we understand where he is at – or at least we think we do. I don’t care who would do what for me and I don’t consider my time on the blog a waste. Don’t get pissed at me – I’m not worth it and I adore you.
151 ak0aka0ka
I’m not pissed, and I adore you too.
smootch
chirp, chirp….
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=CdfiXdrmXA8
Last night I watched a wonderful film called “Into Great Silence.” It can be had from Netflix.
It’s a beautiful documentary about the life of the monks at Grande Chartreuse monastery in France. It is done in nearly complete silence with the exception of the monks chanting and a few very brief interviews. It follows life in the monastery over a full year with the activities of each of the seasons.
One thing that struck me was the sense of intentionality, presence and spiritual power amidst stark simplicity. Clearly it’s about the inner work being done by the monks . . . done entirely without expensive “impressions.”
Highly recommended!
I hope I’m not ruining the mood…
the GF website reduces recidivism… keep it up fellowbloggers.
chirp –
http://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/about_recidivism.htm
http://lyrics.lyr-x.com/6073/
‘ton – wonderful song! I like it that the horn drowns out the words as the person goes.
and, …thanks Bruce!
To ak0aka0ka, your great!!! [Sigh] [Smile] [Love]
To Bruce, don’t let our imaginary blog picture separate us; it is possible we could be friends in reality!
This one’s for you FatBoy:
Elmer J. Fudd in
The Wabbit Who
Came to Supper 8:57:
http://youtube.com/v/60kC9WUne08
Deleted. — ES
159 Across the river.
and hopefully over the rainbow. I like it.
This also seems like a possibility, streamlined and to the point yet elegant.
I find that its hard to please all of the people all of the time.
Many have made very good suggestions.
Now the question seems to be how to establish a concensus.
How about if no one posts any objections to this version then we go ahead and use it?
Again though if there is anything others think has been left out just go ahead and make alterations.
Meanwhile if you get the time explore below as it shows the possibilities and answers some faq’s.
http://www.petitiononline.com/
the best to you all. jack.
Ak0aka0ka: It was really petty of me to post that comment about Amsterdam and I think that you read me very well and understood perfectly why I wrote it.
As to the privacy of any poster on the blog, it is more or less assured. I do not know whether anyone ever lost a place in the FOF through being caught posting on the blog. If anyone has, it hasn’t been reported here.
As to the use of obscenities and personal attacks, well, we are all adults here, I have no wish to turn this place into a controlled environment, so it is what you make it. Graduates was a different matter and even then it took about two months before I finally decided to ban him.
Anyhow, this is where you can chat to Graduates if you so decide: Greg’s Blog
140 is newly moderated.
Charades, pop skill
Water hyacinth, named by a poet.
Imitation of life
Like a koi in a frozen pond
Like a goldfish in a bowl
I dont want to hear you cry
Thats sugarcane that tasted good
Thats cinnamon thats hollywood
Cmon cmon no one can see you try
You want the greatest thing
The greatest thing since bread came sliced.
Youve got it all, youve got it sized.
Like a friday fashion show teenager
Freezing in the corner
Trying to look like you dont try
Thats sugarcane that tasted good.
Thats cinnamon thats hollywood
Cmon cmon no one can see you try
No one can see you cry
Thats sugarcane that tasted good
Thats freezing rain thats what you could
Cmon cmon no one can see you cry
This sugarcane
This lemonade
This hurricane, Im not afraid.
Cmon cmon no one can see me cry
This lightning storm
This tidal wave
This avalanche, Im not afraid.
Cmon cmon no one can see me cry
Thats sugarcane that tasted good
Thats who you are, thats what you could
Cmon cmon no one can see you cry
Thats sugarcane that tasted good
Thats who you are, thats what you could
Cmon cmon no one can see you cry
Imitation of life – R.E.M.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CEhT2QlRBMo&feature=related
Adoration, perhaps and yet with adoration you run to take the space someone else built and not only watched the sticks being piled but eagerly brought the flame.
Once the battle had been won, you claimed the victory for yourself and called the losers the winners and the winners the losers. With adoration and a beg your pardon for this assault.
I’ll report to you and back to them if you don’t mind, though you’re banned. Let me use you to catch some light from that much fire and open my pay pal account.
Now you hide behind a flag you did not sew hoping the stick will help you stand. You call out the color but forget: was it a red or a blue? Surely I understood with adoration… But it was neither red nor blue.
All in your head you grasped it well, knowing you could use it to benefit yourself and who would know when she was already in flames?
Yet you forgot the tricks of the flesh and mind and neglected to realize that an octave born of treason will lead nowhere with reason. It’ll die as you lived, without honor and the ashes will still give flame.
Here is a poem for the talking:
~~~
And then a scholar said, “Speak of Talking.”
And he answered, saying:
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.
When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more
Kahlil Gibran
Here is a link to a page that just mysteriously opened up for me. It has links to all the pages of the blog so I’ve added it to my bookmarks. I thought some of you might also find it useful. http://wordpress.com/tag/fellowship-of-friends/
Actually it’s missing pages 17 to 20. I wonder why.
Vena, if you are reading this, could you please contact me about some information you might have. Thanks. transfof@gmail.com
165 Elena
No idea who your haunted writing is to or about – and yet it is not without a meaning and is indeed very beautiful – and tough.
Calls to mind Leonard Cohen’s “The Traitor” sung by Martha Wainwright:
Hi Bruce and akOakaOka,
I would just add a small detail to your discussion on current FOF members on the blog.
Bullshit is a fact of life, but most of the bullshit I see here comes from the cult, and not necessarily from the essentially decent person buried somewhere inside every cult-member. This goes for even the most hard-core devotees, enablers and cocksuckers in the FOF today. As has been said often enough, we were all there once.
What these folks don’t realize is that the painful and unavoidable truth that’s revealed here will influence each and every one of them in subtle, incremental ways. Obviously, that’s why the FOF gave them the “exercise” to stay away.
Current members may think they’re here to defend their Beloved Teacher and Divine School, but along the way, in spite of themselves, their dormant consciences must confront the truth about the harm that continues to be done in the name of the beautiful false dream their teacher has contrived for them. And it’s only a matter of time before exposure to truth creates change.
My view is: by all means take the gloves off whenever someone like Fat Boy or Psychic provokes it; but reserve the right to accept them as brothers and sisters when they too cross over the fence.
Joseph
#140 Cake please
Don’t know what to say but…. Hey, what are friends for?
“It was you, it was me….”
May all Being know itself.
http://bobdylan.com/audio/albumtracks/WindowsMedia/56/itsalright_before.asx
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it.
Bob Dylan
http://bobdylan.com/audio/albumtracks/WindowsMedia/56/itsalright_bringing.asx
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade,
the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand
you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats,
they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s
gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn
plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy
being born
Is busy dying.
#166: Veramente: Thanks for that Gibran poem. In reading it I am reminded that we don’t need to find anything new; that it’s been there all the time waiting for us to embrace it.
The Prophet was the very first inspirational book I received from my first serious boyfriend back when I was 21 years old. I have it in my book collection. It’s still very dear to me.
Thank you.
165 Elena
For you, incandescent one.
____________________________________________
The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
from T.S. Eliot
Little Gidding
Last message from ‘the teacher’:
Robert sends us the following message:
‘The reason why the instinctive center keeps accounts is to promote the illusion that the enemy is outside oneself. That is why it is doing it.’
‘The spiritual enemy has no outside enemies.’ –Abu Bakr
In loving presence,
E.B.
That is why he sent away many people from ‘the school’…including Paola …because he didn’t keep account!!!ahahahah…..and that is why he is saying to ‘his students’: do not make contact with ‘ex-students’….the enemy is outside for him!ahahha
Robert Burton you are really a joke!
This Message and all its contents are copyrighted and the exclusive property of the Fellowship of Friends, Inc. There is no use allowed without permission of the FOF. © (2007) All Rights Reserved. All messages must be approved by _________________ or ___________________.
Sheik please I need you to cut the last part of message 177, I didn ‘t realise there are names which I don’t want to appear.
thank you
Jack and #130 Across the River
This letter is definitely getting close. On the assumption that a copy would be delivered to the IRS, both Federal and State, I think the fourth paragraph should be developed further to address the issue of inurement:
Although the Fellowship of Friends is a tax exempt organization, the funds provided by the membership have been used to reward Mr. Burton’s favorites with property and expensive gifts, a practice that should result in revoking the exemption.
Or somesuch. It seems that the best approach now is trying to get the IRS seriously interested. ICE seems already to be on top of it. I would be glad to provide my name as a contact if any media or agencies need one.
Only we know and that’s still one too many to know. Even when only one knows it is already enough.
How would you call it? A rush? A seize the moment and don’t look back? or, don’t look and jump?
Do you know now what it was for? Those whose pride had been touched down the genitals or your own ambition to pride justified by the same old rhyme that the result was better than the harm? Because peasants don’t count?
What does it feel like when you brush the Sun aside convinced that the landscape can justify it? And who in the landscape was worth such fall?
How long will it take you to look inside and watch? Or will you never see, like him? How does one get there? What road did you take to become blind?
In the road he took, the painting was already marked and the fire did nothing to change it. He writes repeatedly saying, everything is fine. Not a hair out of a place, nor a hand. One wonders how many more are marked by the Fellowship style.
How many years of painting life green are necessary to believe that there is no blue? That reds are an illusion and that all trees are white?
What really surprised me was the candor with which you stabbed as if you were dealing with the wrotten side of an apple or the insignificant scales of a fish. “Beg your pardon if it hurts, you don’t deserve to get upset!”.
It is a strange landscape to get upset with a name, a passing greeting of two worlds aside in which the only thing in common were the genitals, but it was the only thing that mattered.
How long had it been since your kind had won a battle if ever, for you to give it away with a stroke? It was not the prize which mattered, the struggle goes on, but the principle.
What does it feel like now, walking in shoes that you did not pay for in a world in which they’ll soon recover the lost ground, the frontiers I so bluntly abused, and brush you aside?
The innocence with which you expected me to stand behind and wait for you to play the messenger, that was what? As if you’d just hired me to play a joke… on myself? or yours?
Above all the innocence, that counts. Like Robert and Girard we go around the world stepping too loudly to notice the screaming… they scream gently hoping they will not be noticed and stepped back on, on their way back.
It is not until after that we realize that no matter the good intention we forgot to consider the whole of the landscape and our own being reveals the nightmare if we have any luck, because most get lost in the green without blues or reds of their own imaginary dream and never see the reality within. They pluck out their feathers convinced they are too dangerous and never dare to fly but leap.
It is the leaping what terrifies me. A thousand souls leaping from the parking lot to the Galleria convinced they are flying from the lower self to higher centers, too high for a leap. Or your leap on me without a breath and brushed it down with water saying, don’t worry, I’ve done this before, I’ve got some experience, it is my turn.
How do we manage to be so convinced that we have to get others out of the way to take our own space if not because we don’t yet know that there is even such a thing as our self?
The longest road from one’s imaginary picture to one’s reality is the one in which every step is a step on trust. The trust that knows that no matter how many times you fall, you fall on your self and last.
OOPS! The excellent letter is #160 Across the River, not #130
I’ll pay $200 to hire an American lawyer to review and to send the petition to the following agencies:
FBI
https://tips.fbi.gov/
IRS
http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=106778,00.html
INS
http://www.uscitizenship.info/uscitizenship-contact.htm
NAR (National Alert Registry)
http://www.nationalalertregistry.com/contact.html
Yuba City Police Department
http://www.ycpd.org
Marysville Police Department
http://www.marysville.ca.us/police.asp?did=4
Sacramento Police Department
http://www.sacpd.org/crime_prev/rape_prev.asp
Department of Industrial Relations
http://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/MinimumWageHistory.htm
TheUnion.com
http://www.theunion.com/section./MISC01
Appeal Democrat
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/sections/contact_us/
Chico News & Review
http://www.newsreview.com/chico/home/
The Orion
http://www.theorion.com/contactus/
KHSL Chico-redding
http://www.khsltv.com/
KNVN Chico-redding
http://www.tellusmore.net/index.php?change=1
Capitol Weekly
http://www.capitolweekly.net/contact/
Sacramento News & Review
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/ViewPage?oid=39080
KCRA 3
http://www.kcra.com/index.html
FOX40 News
http://fox40.trb.com/about/site/feedback/?track=topnav
ABC7 San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=stationinfo&id=3288796
NBC11 San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose
http://www.nbc11.com/index.html
KABC-TV Los Angeles
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/front
Congressman
Tom Lantos
http://www.lantos.house.gov/
United States Senator from California
Barbara Boxer
http://boxer.senate.gov
Dianne Feinstein
http://feinstein.senate.gov/public
The White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Criminal Law Center
1,000,000 lawyers in your area
http://criminal.findlaw.com
#172 Yesri baba
Lucky you to be able to say…”Hey, what are friends for?” And to know what those words really imply.
a friend in need, indeed
Cake
p.s. Are you related to my pal Rhum? Keep thinking maybe we have met.
How could we confuse narcissism with alchemy?
How could we confuse psychotic disorder with consciousness?
How could we confuse hatrage with love?
How could we confuse mental retardation with higher intellect?
How could we confuse exploitation with self-development?
How could we confuse sexual abuse with third line?
How…?
How…?
How…?
Hello Cake please 2(6)#140 (& 182),
Where you say:
‘how many times did I throw myself against that wall four, five, six times till on my knees…’
Was that in some way connected to this post of mine?:
2(5)#384 Associated Press:
‘Speaking of angst, or pain body, or whatever you want to call it: Doesn’t it feel great when you finally stop beating your head against the brick wall that was called the Fellowship of Friends, or the your/my mechanicality, or World 96 or 192, or the general conditions of life on Planet Earth? Now don’t start beating your head on the other side or on the inside (so as to create balance), or on the other side of the wall, just because you can not give up the habit. Let’s all try to get along.’
Please Cake, don’t hurt your self. Yes, ’saw that light in a crack in the wall.’ But you don’t have to break your head open to find it. There is a ‘chink in the armor’ where you can see the light. Looking at it from the ‘other side’ it can be called ‘Cinque Amour.’
http://www.youtube.com/v/gc0Xly5s1Ak
#182 Cake please
Hmmm, Rhum Baba. I don’t think those two words have come together in my head for over 27yrs.
#179 Abigail, 160 Across the river, Jack
I agree 160 is good and also like Abigail’s addition.
One little thing that bugged me was in the sentence : Robert Burton calls himself a teacher and conscious being.
To me conscious being seems colloquial. Spiritual teacher would suffice.
184 Yesri baba
Or his cousin Baba Au Rhum
Yesri, ‘conscious being seems colloquial.’ Agreed. (Or, is that: ‘a greed.’)
No, ‘Spiritual teacher’ would not suffice. A more objective description is appropriate and to some extent described as he, himself, describes himself, like:
‘Spiritual leader and teacher, self-described as equivalent to, and/or exceeding, Jesus, Buddha, Moses, etc.’ It might be good to read and use some of the language that appears in the Fellowship of Friends Canons where, in an official and legal sense, his role is defined.
Yes, misappropriation of assets,
inurement, can use some emphasis. Perhaps also, some examples of the flagrant disregard for established laws, like, but not necessarily limited to, the United States Constitution, etc. Law makers often take the position that any entity that takes the established laws ‘lightly’ do not deserve any more protection by those laws than that to the extent that they flagrantly disregarded. Flaunting the privilege of the freedom of religion should result in no protection by that provision in the Constitution. Ipso facto kiddo.
Hi Jack.
I found another petition site online that IMO has an easier-to-use format. Google rates it #1 and it offers many examples of successful petitions to guide the wording of our own. The petition is written on that site, then whoever wishes to sign it goes there to do so, then at some point we would choose the time to send it on to Arnold, the INS, IRS. Meanwhile, once in action, it could generate some news interest if brought to the attention of the media.
I agree with Bruce that a hardcopy letter with many signatures might well have a stonger impact on those who can put a response into action, but I don’t see how that could be managed.
I’m surprised that there’s so little input here regarding a petition. Where are you Joseph G and others? No attorneys or paralegals out there who can weigh in? Any better ideas perculating?
Opus III suggests letting time and truth slowly erode away the FOF. If there are too many others feeling no need to take a precise stand through this process, I wonder if it’s better to wait for the possibility of growing a stronger concensus for public action, only so that once done it will be the strong, clear statement of many rather than a few. It took me about a year after the personal ‘action’ of leaving to know that further ‘action’ in a larger context is a next step (at least for me). Thanks Jack for putting energy into a venue.
So, Jack and other friends here, do you think there’s a strong enough concensus for a public statement at this time? Robert continues on unchecked day-by-day and the seeds of new traumas are sown, particularly in the new generation of the Fellowship. I see them being courted and groomed. Clearly I want to act, but not ineffectively. Only an effective response will have an impact. Is it time?
Jack,
Forgot to name the site:
http://www.gopetition.com
Once again…..
http://www.gopetition.com
96 Opus 111
My sentiments exactly – more or less.
My own experience showed me that conversations with current students one on one contained the most possibility and were the least confrontational. Students at Isis and elsewhere are doing some very deep questioning. If they are able to think the unthinkable thought, “What if Robert Burton is really not a fully Awakened Conscious being?”, or some variant of it, then they may be curious enough to find out what Awakening truly is or how it’s qualities should manifest. Such research could turn out to contain a lot more Conscious Influence than whatever is currently being dished out by the Galleria.
Those who have invested their lives, not just financially, but psychologically, emotionally, intellectually, materially will find it hard to even find reasons to want to think differently. But if the level of drop offs continues to escalate, more and more long-term-committed-to-awakening students may wake up enough to take their precious business elsewhere. To acknowledge the suffering of feeling the ground moving beneath their feet, I do. I have felt it, even to nausea and moved on. There is fresher air beyond and the price of sacrificing ignorance to pay for it.
And who are the ones who will avoid finding reasons to think differently? I can think of two ladies I know personally who did give their children away to be raised by another family member, many, many years ago. Both are quite impressed with Robert’s pre-rational teaching of the Sequence. Or another friend who twice had agreed to have an abortion, as the “will of Influence C”, when her essence yearned to have a child. She and her husband are convinced that Robert Burton is conscious, but then they have to be, in order to explain to themselves their own actions. Or the other students whose role it was to convince a fellow student to do such things. Or the men who allowed themselves to experience sexual indignities in the name of evolution. Then also there are the over 60+ er’s who literally have nowhere else to go. The list goes on, and my own view of it is naturally limited.
I will gladly go on record for stating my value for the life enhancing qualities of self-remembering and the transformation of negative emotions. So, to the extent the Fellowship of Friends supported such efforts in myself and others, I am grateful and hope to remain so, but the work on self-remembering and negative emotions should never be used to cover the tracks of a Teacher who abuses this most fundamental level of trusts – that of a Student to a Teacher. And why he does so, most likely reaches to his own murky past, to the Child and Parent, and to a mother who gave him something other than a hand to hold.
Who, then, is to blame? Robert? Sure, since his grandiose esoteric claims fail to incorporate his own Lower Self – work that only he can do on himself, for himself. Psychic and Fat Boy, grok that. But also any one of us for remaining in ignorance longer than is or was absolutely necessary. For some it was a very short period of time, for others, it took 30+ years. C’est la vie.
***********************************************
And finally, here is a repost of a rather chilling thought I found from Mr. Ouspensky from “Conscience: The search for Truth”:
[Somebody asked whether higher states of consciousness could produce more thoroughly bad people or more thoroughly good people equally. Ouspensky answered:]
No, that is wrong. Bad people can be produced only by increase of mechanicalness. Self-remembering cannot produce wrong results provided the connection is kept between it and other ideas of the system, but if one omits one thing and takes another thing from the system — for instance, if one seriously works on self-remembering without knowing about the idea of division of ‘I’s, so that one takes oneself as one (as a unity), from the beginning — then self-remembering will give wrong results and may even produce wrong crystallization and make development impossible. There are schools for instance or systems which, although they do not formulate it in this way, are actually based on false personality and on struggle against conscience. Such work must certainly produce wrong results. First it will create a kind of strength, but it will make the development of higher consciousness an impossibility. False personality either destroys or distorts memory.
***********************************************
Good luck to us all…
Love,
Bass
190 Across the river.
thanks i’ve been in and looked around a little and its very good. I’ve got flu so, am not hundred percent and will be taking it easy for a few days.
Abigail and Yesri Baba. Please feel free to adjust as you see fit.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Nice seeing some poetry in here!
all the best to all. jack
————————————————————————–
“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream” ~ Martin Luther King Jr
188 Across the River
“If there are too many others feeling no need to take a precise stand through this process, I wonder if it’s better to wait for the possibility of growing a stronger concensus for public action, only so that once done it will be the strong, clear statement of many rather than a few.
—————————-
I wonder how many we are…by looking at the visitors on this blog is hard to tell the numbers of people here.
Can we start at least counting how many are willing to sign here?
One could simply say: yes, I will.
Many of us have also friends who have left the school and are not necessarily posting or reading here, it will be our job to forward the petition to them.
I bet they will be most happy to sign.
The last draft is good like Jack says.
There was something from the previous one that seems important:
“This cult has been responsible for much destructive influence in the lives of the people passing through it, often leaving them in a state of bad health, financial ruin and moral confusion.”
I guess the above has been substituted with this:
“…we believe an investigation of the Fellowship of Friends will clearly disclose financial, emotional and sexual abuse occurring within the organization. Personal stories and incidents of this abuse have been chronicled on a website called. . . . ”
I and many others have suffered some of the above and do not want to be left out.
Thank you people with literary skills pitching in with the layout of the petition, I cannot write at that level even if I tried hard, I really appreciate your efforts.
If the petition does not fly, we can still use the letter and send it to various authorities.
Hope you feel better soon with the flu Jack!
177 Pensate un attimo,
Thank you for that message from Bobby. The addition of the Fellowship rights is new so we might ask the lawyers if this could be used against Animam recro. It wasn’t there before so it may have such a purpose and you might want to paraphrase other messages.
It would be good for the lawyers to remind those still in the FOF working for the blog what are the legal boundaries they need to be aware of.
“… why the instinctive center keeps accounts is to promote the illusion that the enemy is outside oneself.’
If this is a message responding to the blog it is a measure of our great success. On the one hand it is the first direct response from Robert in his disguised style and it is meant to deal with the fear students have about enemies of the Fellowship of Friends while at the same time deal with their inner impulse to react with accounts against Robert himself.
This kind of ideology and method is and has been crucial in the Fellowship of Friends style of indoctrination. The innumerable reactions of students to abuse and injustice were controlled by quotes like this, making us refrain from the expression of the account, injustice or abuse, having it appear as a negative emotion and turn against us as guilt because of our consistent inability to feel repulsion without being able to transform it.
What one can finally come to understand is that there are forms of abuse and injustice that are not meant to be transformed individually but enter the social realm and need to be dealt with socially.
At what point does a personal account become a social issue? From one angle, every affrent to another is a social issue but there are different scales in it. In as much as we are willing to realize that most of our personal offenses have come from our social background and we offend people before we even talk to them because we only consider them with the established labels we’ve learnt to accept, then we might need to deal with a great deal of minor offenses to be able to recognize this socially and start working with it from the human perspective one would rather assume. Most of the friction we’ve experienced on the blog has to do with these patterns.
The last quote: ‘The spiritual enemy has no outside enemies” by Abu Bakr is rather strange. Should it not say: “The spiritual friend has no outside enemies” ? Maybe they made a mistake or just awake enough to realize that they are enemies of themselves!
191 BASS ACKWARDS
That is one of the best posts I’ve read yet. Thank you. Also for Ouspensky’s quote. “False personality either destroys or distorts memory.” which seems very familiar to the observed pattern in which after students of the Fellowship of Friends decide to crystallize in the “everything is just dandy” syndrome in which all aspects of the Fellowship are looked with an over benevolent position while at the same time you are being told that you are beginning to express negativity if you don’t go along with it, they chose to forget or simply erase the areas that could be made accountable. This is what solidifies the process into crystals and there is also an element of will in it.
ACROSS THE RIVER,
I also find your letter agreeable. Like the others I would also add more specific realities like the fact that Robert is presented as a Jesus and I would expand in detail to the actual amounts of money being handled by the Fellowship of Friends. Those who know how to do this should estimate not only the donations but everything that goes on under the carpet as the money collected in breakfasts, lunches, teas and dinners and meetings. A few facts that can give the reader a quick assesment of the actual dimension of the problem.
Perhaps it would even be good to present the fact that around five or six hundred people have left in the last six months but that there are still around a thousand who were diverted from reading the detailed exposition of sexual and economic abuse students have suffered, presented in the blog at animam recro…….
On the subject of a letter being better than e-mail, if we were given an adress to send our identity we could all send it in and the recipient cut it out and stick it to the final paper explaining the signatures had to come from all over the world in this way. That might add a little weight to the person reading it.
To make it easier, people living in the same area might collect all the signatures to make it easier for the person having to cut them out. If no one else were willing I would not mind taking care of that job but it may be easier in the United States.
Thank you Old FOF and Another Voice,
Somehow being able to express the pain makes it easier to forgive and move on. Must be the magic of words.
193 veramente
“One could simply say: yes, I will.”
****************
Yes, I will.
veramente, James 193, 196
I and others have already sent our signatures to this address:
edward@fourthwaywork.net (see post 1 at the top of this page)
It might be easier to keep adding our names there, and then Jack can let us know how many have done so.
BTW, Jack, hope you get well soon.
Fellowship membership figures (to my best knowledge):
Mid August 2007: around 1,940
Mid November 2007: around 1,840
James, Vera,
I don’t think it is a good idea to make that list public. We are more than a million! Each one of us counts by fifty!
If it is not possible to avoid it, so be it, but if you can get all those signatures fairly private it is a better tactic.
Perhaps every lack of presence is nothing but betrayal for the ‘I’s get caught in a target one would not have aimed at had one been there.
Has it not been suggested that Robert betrayed his first student who was in love with him? Robert and us, Girard and I, we and each other? The blog and the Fellowship? Is all of our life built on betrayal without our selves in it, without our even knowing it or at least neglecting to acknowledge it because it is so painful and it would drive us mad to live without our imaginary picture although we are already mad with it? Is that why we so desperately need to be…come and will never ever manage it without presenting ourselves totally naked to each other, unconcerned with the overweight and the scars, the fallen tits and the no longer erectable penises? For how long are we going to continue being the slaves of a beauty that had not yet tasted the wrath of life? Fixed, like in the Fellowship of Friends on a beauty that never existed, without the rest.
Is that why nothing allows one take a step higher but one’s own fall? Being a first force to ACT and encounter the second force to fall so that one knows the impulse was still far from the peak and just another step on the road of one’s trust?
And then being a first force to ACT and encounter the second force that will pull one down as far as it can because it cannot tolerate anything above it and accept that that is the state we are in?
There is no way of avoiding being crucified by one’s self or others for it is the cross that we stick to the mountain’s rock to pull us up and the cross on which we are stuck for others to move across.
One does lose hope, hope for one’s self and still moves on. The issue then becomes not how one is going to die but how much time one’s got left to be.
Thank you James (yes!you will) and Laura and Elena,
I have signed petitions before with the awareness my signature was going public.
But I am taking note of the email address Laura posted again from # 1 post of this page.
I’ll send mine to Jack after the finalized draft.
—————————————————
175 wakeuplittlesuzywakeup
“#166: Veramente: Thanks for that Gibran poem. ”
—–
Hi wulswu, you are welcome! I re-discovered Gibran at a recent Memorial for a friend who passed on. He touched my heart.
197 lauralupa –
Thanks, I just sent in my name, I guess I missed the address the 1st time.
177 Pensate un attimo
I truly think that this statement from Robert, if it does relate to this blog, shows a real misunderstanding of where much of what is said on this blog comes from. The instinctive centre? FFS!! So this is the statement of a Conscious man…I have to assume he was not talking about the blog.
191 Bass
Thanks for that, how good was that! Perhaps this really does explain it all.
#191 Bass
Very well expressed. Thanks! WULSWU
The personal stores are extremely powerful in waking people up. I remember when I was ready to leave, it was a personal story that set it in motion. Keep ‘em comin’.
WULSWU
204: That’s personal stories, not personal stores. Whoops!Moo!
185 Yesri baba: “I agree 160 is good and also like Abigail’s addition. One little thing that bugged me was in the sentence : Robert Burton calls himself a teacher and conscious being. To me conscious being seems colloquial. Spiritual teacher would suffice.”
I agree, too. I also like 160, as well as Abigail’s addition.
Also, good catch about removing the term “conscious being.” This is a familiar term to us, but won’t mean anything to the intended audience.
So, instead of, “Robert Burton calls himself a teacher and conscious being.”
Change to:
“Robert Burton calls himself a spiritual teacher.”
The adjective “spiritual” is important here, too.
to add to the petition/letter:
A 1996 lawsuit alleging the rape of a minor child by the group’s leader was settled out of court by the Fellowship of Friends for an undisclosed, but significant, amount of money in order to avoid future scrutiny and litigation. (See Yuba County Superior Court Case No. 060209, 04/29/96)
By the way…
The above Message and all its contents are copyrighted and the exclusive property of Bistro Fundraiser. There is no use allowed without permission of Bistro Fundraiser. © (2007) All Rights Reserved. All Bistro Fundraiser messages must be approved by Bistro Fundraiser.
Regards,
Bistro Fundraiser
p.s. Note the capital letter “M” in the word “message,” which of course Suggests that my Message has some Importance.
207 new kid: also a Good Addition.
Thanks,
Bistro Fundraiser. © 2007
193
veramente
Good suggestion – a yes from me as long as the document is along the lines presented so far – like you I want to see the final document before sending my signature to jack.
192
jack
Poor you! I’ll continue fine-tuning the earlier draft to include good suggestions from Abigail, Yesri baba, AP, Elena, veramente – hope I didn’t miss any others. Very interested in knowing the number of responses directly sent to you so far. Hope you’re feeling better soon.
I wonder if legal considerations (liabilities) might influence someone to not sign, and if that’s a real concern or not – that question of longterm culpability was mentioned pages ago in another post.
194
Hi Elena :-)
I’m almost positive that cut and paste would invalid the legality of the signatures. If someone knowledgeable will post $$$ amounts, I agree it would provide impact to include them.
206
Bistro Fundraiser
With your permission the change is made.
207
new kid in town
done! (good one)
Just got this from someon who clearly is not aware that I finally got a clue. Thought you might have some fun with it.
Maybe someone considerably more proficient in Spanish than I am could translate it for the general edification.
Queridos amigos,
Esta es una invitacion a participar en reunion virtual pròximo sàbado Diciembre 1 a las 10:00 a.m. Hora de Isis. El tema es La secuencia al ritmo de la repiracion.
Nuestra meta es compartir experiencias con la pràctica de la SECUENCIA al ritmo de la propia respiraciòn acentuando diferencias al entonar los yoes de la secuencia con o sin el ritmo de la respiraciòn, repuestas al llegar a las cuatro respiraciones sin palabras y al termino de las mismas.
Recientemente el Maestro nos ha enviado en su carta diaria los siguientes mensajes:
“SI ENTONAN LA SECUENCIA CON SU RESPIRACION Y SI DURANTE LAS CUATRO RESPIRACIONES SIN PALABRAS CONTINUAN VIGILANDO SU RESPIRACION EN VEZ DE LOS TEMAS DE IMAGINACION QUE ENVIA EL SER INFERIOR, TENDRAN EXITO”
“LAS CUATRO RESPIRACIONES SIN PALABRAS DEMUESTRAN QUE LA IMAGINACION ES NADA”
Para participar deben confirmar su asistencia y les etare enviando la clave correpondiente. Por favor compartan este mensaje con todos los estudiantes en su centro.
Afectuosamente,
Carlos Hurtado
Centro de Bogota
Also possibly for petition/letter:
One of earliest lawsuits filed on June 6, 1984 alleged fraud by the Fellowship of Friends and also accused its leader, Robert Earl Burton, of being a sexual predator. This lawsuit was ultimately settled out of court in 1988 for an undisclosed amount of money. (See Yuba County Superior Court Case No. 36937; Sacramento Bee newspaper 07/29/88)
191 Bass Ackwards
Ouspensky: “There are schools for instance or systems which, although they do not formulate it in this way, are actually based on false personality and on struggle against conscience. Such work must certainly produce wrong results. First it will create a kind of strength, but it will make the development of higher consciousness an impossibility.”
Well Ouspensky got that right, if nothing else.
BA: “Who, then, is to blame? Robert? Sure, since his grandiose esoteric claims fail to incorporate his own Lower Self – work that only he can do on himself, for himself.”
Nice formulation, thanks!
The Proliferation of False Saints
by Eruch Jessawala
[Eruch Jessawala was Meher Baba's Peter, a faultless and superb disciple, with boundless love and obedience.]
Meher Baba has said that when one without real authority declares that he is a saint and allows people to revere him and bow down to him, he is only feeding his ego with intense but short-lived happiness.
This is like the person addicted to opium eating or smoking who finds a temporary feeling of well-being but eventually begins to suffer the after effects in the form of bodily disorders. The realization then dawns that he should never have formed the habit in the first place, but unfortunately it is too late to break the practice. Larger quantities of the drug have to be taken to keep pace with the gradual loss of feeling of well-being and the addiction grows ever deeper.
After years of addiction, the addict one day takes an overdose of opium that proves to be tragic and he is found lying unconscious in a filthy gutter. Now he is scoffed at and ridiculed and called a confirmed drug addict.
Similarly, one without authority who derives his happiness by allowing people to bow down to him, begins to feel the prick of conscience which warns him of his mistake. But he has become so used to the feeding of his ego that he is unable to halt the custom and in time the voice of conscience is completely stifled and he launches into an unworthy way of living.
However in this case, contrary to the case of the opium addict, his unworthy behaviour is attributed to his ‘perfection’ by his followers. When he abuses others, his abuse is viewed as a blessing; when he beats someone, the beating is accepted with love as a descent of his grace; and when he indulges in love-making with the opposite sex, it is accepted with reverence and love by his followers, and the more unruly his behaviour, the greater is their admiration.
As this admiration increases, the food for feeding the ego becomes richer and the false saint succumbs in a short time to indigestion which brings in its wake the indignation of his followers resulting in a rude downfall. The very persons who used to call themselves followers, who revered him and sang songs in his praise, now scoff at him and label him a fraud.
Meher Baba has explained that one who has no authority and yet permits people to bow down to him, is playing a losing game. For while the thousands who bow down to him are benefitted by unburdening their sanskaras (mental impressions) through the working of their innocent yet honest faith in and love for the bogus saint, the latter becomes the recipient of the burden of their sanskaras which, in turn, will be the cause of more suffering in many additional births for the false saint.
Now the point to be considered is this: If thousands can benefit at the hands of one unauthorized person who permits them to bow down to him, should he be allowed to continue the practice?
The answer is that if such a person is already in contact with a Perfect Master whom he sincerely loves, the Master will immediately put a stop to it and warn his other lovers about the behaviour of the self-proclaimed saint. On the other hand, if the person is not in contact with a Perfect Master, the latter will not interfere because with his perfect insight he sees the play of the ego and the eventual benefit that will follow.
The additional burden of sanskaras acquired by the false saint from those who bowed down to him, will undoubtedly cause him infinite suffering in future births, but the intensity of the suffering will be speeded up because the price being paid is coupled to the benefit he had unwittingly brought to thousands.
However, an unauthorized saint may also prove a source of harm to many. Just as an opium addict who feels happy to give a tiny bit of opium to another to try who, in turn repeats the procedure, likewise two or three persons close to the false saint will start spreading the news and citing instances which were nothing but coincidences, of the many miracles he performed. Soon a clique of followers is thereby created.
But the subtle tricks played by illusion are not to be discounted for after some years one among the innumerable followers who takes the saint to be a Perfect Master, discovers his master is a fraud and is not God-Realized. After years of reposing faith in his master and bestowing love and devotion, this follower gets so disgusted with the very thought of saints and Masters that he even begins to doubt the existence of God.
The impact of this reaction is so great a setback that all his sanskaras which had been transferred to the bogus saint during the period of his confirmed belief, now revert back to him the moment he realizes his master is a counterfeit. As long as the faith and love of the ardent believer played active parts, the bogus saint continued to serve the purpose of a handy dustbin, a garbage box wherein God deposited the sanskaras of the believer. These sanskaras however, were not destroyed because the saint was a fraud and not a Perfect Master, and they now revert back to the believer to overwhelm him and force him to suffer a great deal. It is easy therefore to imagine how much burden and harm a false saint can lay on the persons who repose faith in him and love him ardently.
Although great harm can be done as mentioned, benefit can also accrue. If the love is deep and the faith is great, it is possible for an ardent believer in a bogus saint to make progress on the spiritual path and to begin to have experiences of that path. But it is essentially all a play in illusion. As Meher Baba has said, “It is all my play. None can fathom me as I am in everyone and I do everything simultaneously. I also do nothing. Be brave, be happy; I and you are all One, and the Infinity that eternally is me, will one day belong to every individual.”
http://www.belovedarchives.org/mandali/mandali_art002_1.html
My best shot at translation of 212:
Dear friends,
This is an invitation a to participate in a virtual meeting next Satuday, December 1, at 10:00 am, Isis time [otherswise known as Pacific Standard time]. The theme is The sequence at the rhythm of breathing.
Our aim is to share experiences with the practice with the SEQUENCE at the rhythm of proper breathing, accenting differences in sounding the [i's] of the sequence with or without the rhythm of breathing, ending at reaching the 4 wordless breaths and the end of the same.
Recently the Teacher sent us in his daily cards the following messages:
“IF YOU INTONE THE SEQUENCE WITH YOUR BREATH AND IF DURING THE FOUR WORDLESS BREATHS YOU CONTINUE WATCHING YOUR BREATHING, IN PLACE OF THE THEMES OF IMAGINATION, WHICH WOULD BE INFERIOR, YOU WILL ACHIEVE SUCCESS”
“THE FOUR WORDLESS BREATHS DEMONSTRATE THAT IMAGINATION IS ”
To participate, you need to confirm your assistance (?) and we will send you a password. Please share this message with all the students in your center.
Affectionately,
CH
I don’t really understand how you sound the i’s of the sequence, unless that was a typo and it was really the Do’s of the Seq. Probably the latter. Kind of a funny typo, if so. Also, I suspect that I don’t have the first sentence of the last paragraph quite right.
sorry, the above is FULL of typos.
darn! “THE 4 WORDLESS BREATHS DEMONSTRATE THAT IMAGINATION IS NOTHING”
This little box is hard to type in somehow.
“THE FOUR WORDLESS BREATHS DEMONSTRATE THAT IMAGINATION IS ”
Actually that’s more true than the correct translation as the sequence is based upon the imaginary idea that if you make huge efforts and recite the sequence ad infinitum you will become a Conscious Being like Robert Burton.
215
One of the hallmarks of cult membership is the assumption that one’s own particular cult and the behavior and dynamics within it are unique, or exceptions to any generalities. And so the same story gets played out, over and over again, by people who can’t bear the thought that they are following a pattern that has occurred, over and over again, in countless other groups.
It’s all been seen before:
from The Benefits and Pitfalls of the Teacher-Meditator Relationship, by Stuart McLeod
We should not assume that in flawed relationships only the teacher is to blame. A common weakness that a student may bring to the relationship is adistorted faith or trust in the teacher. Earlier we defined trust as ‘firm reliance on
the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing’. However, we must consider another critical aspect of both faith and trust with these further definitions:
. Faith—‘Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence’.
. Trust—‘Trust implies depth and assurance of feeling that is often based on inconclusive evidence’. (Dictionary.com)
On the student’s part, then, they bring an intrinsic vulnerability to the relationship through this quality of ‘not knowing, but trusting’. The extent to which this vulnerability is felt and expressed will vary from student to student, and is likely to reflect the degree of responsibility they take for themselves. In our current discussion, the quality of faith that ‘does not rest on logical proof’ can manifest itself as blind faith in the teacher, especially if faith has not been balanced with the faculty of wisdom. Stories abound of the tremendous presence of Buddhist teachers who have attained some degree of realisation. An outward sense of charisma, authority, and equipoise will inevitably deeply affect some
people. Problems may occur, however, where a student’s blind, unquestioning faith leads them incorrectly to believe in their teacher’s infallibility and perfection, and indeed we have seen that some traditions encourage this. Worse still, Rob
Preece warns that a serious impediment to progress may be the added tendency to deliberately overlook a teacher’s imperfections. This is perhaps influenced, or indeed encouraged, by that quality of faith which implies loyalty and allegiance.
By contrast, Preece (2004b) believes that acceptance of the teacher’s shortcomings allows for a much deeper relationship.
An example of how faith-driven ‘surrender’ to the guru may be woefully misplaced may be seen in what Chogyam Trungpa labelled ‘crazy wisdom’—the ancient drubnyon Tibetan philosophy, which ‘traditionally combines exceptional
insight . . . with a flamboyant disregard for conventional behaviour’ (Bell 2002, 233). Put simply, crazy wisdom becomes a problem when teachers blatantly contravene Buddhist precepts as a result of their own shortcomings, but the naı¨ve
student misinterprets this as the actions of a Buddha.
Projection (Transference and Counter-Transference)
The language of psychoanalysis also provides some useful pointers in understanding possible dangers in the relationship. A common occurrence is for ‘transference’ to take place ‘when unconsciously a person endows another with an
attribute that actually is projected from within themselves’ (Preece 2004b, 1); for example, the student fabricates a view of the teacher as a remarkable meditator.
Counter-transference occurs ‘when unconsciously the other takes on this projection and lives it out thereby projecting in return a counter attribute’ (Preece 2004b, 1), thus the teacher acts out this masquerade for the student.
Dependency/Teacher as Parental Substitute
The tendency to project onto one another is common throughout all kinds of relationships; thus on the parts of both teacher and student, a disciplined self-awareness is required. Regarding the disciple, Michele Daniel warns of:
People coming to be students of a guru as a result of unhealed childhood wounds which lead to projections on the guru as the healer/father/mother authority that will heal them or give them an excuse to maintain static regressed states because psychological work is too scary and threatening to undertake. (WebCT 2004).
In such situations, an unhealthy, passive dependency may develop upon the teacher who will ‘make it all better’, thus inhibiting the meditator’s personal growth. Daniel continues:
These folk usually want the ‘guru’ to take over their personal lives for them, rather than understanding and utilizing the precious opportunity to have a wise teacher who is devoted to helping them in their Dharma practice and their
progress toward awakening. (WebCT 2004)
A further danger when dependencies have been established, perhaps reflecting patterns of parental care, is that the student may begin to fear the teacher as an authority figure.
Manipulation and Psychological/Sexual Abuse of the Student
Of course, fear may also be injected either through peer pressure, or by the teacher, to ensure that the student conforms. A potentially volatile state of affairs exists where a student susceptible to any of the aforementioned behaviours
comes into contact with such a teacher who is prone to manipulating others to exercise power and control. Indeed the very fact that students in some traditions are encouraged to see their teacher as a Buddha may well contribute to such sorry outcomes, if safeguards to counteract teacher self-inflation are not in place.
However, it should be said that many teachers who have strayed into manipulative or abusive behaviour probably had no deliberate intention of doing so, but rather
fell prey to their own unacknowledged shortcomings.
Western Buddhism has provided a number of examples of teachers—usually the leader or senior members of an organisation—who have abused students, often through bending Buddhist teachings to accommodate personal preference.
For example, the questionable promotion of homosexuality as a Dharma practice was brought to light in the Guardian newspaper’s expose of misdemeanours within the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO), particularly relating to
practices uncovered at one their centres. One can imagine the Buddha raising an eyebrow at the following advice (although note that it is no longer given by the FWBO):
It could be beneficial to change sexual orientation as a way of recognising—and liberating yourself from—your conditioning; and that a teacher/mentor could use sex as a way of opening up communication with a pupil. (Bunting 1997, 4)
The Pitfalls at Work in Buddhist Institutions
Finally, we should mention briefly the wider implications of these pitfalls as they are manifested at an institutional level. John Crook offers this warning about teachers at the head of institutions:
Such an influential person placed in charge of an institution inevitably affects his followers . . . If lacking in a necessary humility, the shadow side of such a leader may become expressed institutionally with little awareness of the process
among devoted followers . . . It requires exceptional awareness to gain understanding of the transference and counter-transference that soon comes into play among mutually dependent persons seeking to create an institutional
perspective under the eye of a powerful leader. (1997, 33)
In recent years, similar problems have been uncovered in a number of Western Buddhist institutions under charismatic leaders. Crook has further suggested that ‘some such teachers came to dominate the institutions they led, establishing neither democratic means for self criticism nor advisory boards to provide feedback’ (1997, 222). Such problems have often been compounded by senior
students denying their teacher’s shortcomings, which have typically taken the form of inappropriate sexual conduct, psychological abuse, and financial exploitation (Bell 2002; Lachs 1994, 2).
Avoiding the Pitfalls of the Teacher–Meditator Relationship
Clarifying/Owning Aims, Roles, and Commitment
As a first step in building a successful relationship, both the meditator and teacher should be clear about any expectations and needs they may hold, and take full ownership of them. In his paper ‘Scheme for Analyzing the Dynamics of a
Relation with a Spiritual Teacher’, Alexander Berzin, a scholar-practitioner in the Tibetan tradition, provides valuable insight into the wide-ranging motives and commitments to the relationship (also providing a useful review of our discussions
thus far). Drawing upon a few of Berzin’s examples, we may point to some rudimentary questions that both the teacher and meditator should be asking of themselves:
Is the student aiming to learn to relax, gain enlightenment, or seek approval?
Does he see the teacher as a professor of Buddhism, a meditation instructor, or a mentor?
Does he see himself as an academic pupil, or a disciple personally guided by the teacher?
Does he feel protected, whole, a servant, a member of a
cult?
Is he casually or deeply involved?
Does he feel indebted, obligated, or that
he must be loyal?
Is the teacher aiming to preserve the Dharma and/or their lineage, plant positive seeds for the student, or exercise power and control?
Does she feel she is a master, a saviour, or a humble practitioner?
Is she treating the student ethically, fulfilling her duty to teach, or wanting to control their life?
(Berzin 2001a, 2–5)
Clearly, then, these questions help to highlight both the positive, negative and mixed motivations apparent in the relationship. While a predisposition to any of these negative impulses is a source of potential difficulties, we can confidently
predict that thorough investigation of these questions, and a shared awareness and open acknowledgement of each of these dynamics will provide the basis for a healthy relationship.
Is the Teacher Ready to Teach?
In another essay, ‘Avoiding Confusion in the Spiritual Student-Teacher Relationship’, Berzin outlines the qualities that a potential teacher should possess. Reflecting our earlier summary of the teacher as mentor, instructor and exemplar,
these qualities include:
. A healthy relationship with his own spiritual teachers;
. More knowledge of the Dharma than the student;
. Experience and some level of success in applying its methods in meditation and in everyday life;
. Ability to set an inspiring example by having: ethical self-discipline, emotional maturity and stability, sincere concern to benefit the student, patience in teaching, lack of pretence and hypocrisy. (Berzin 2001b, 2–3)
Is the Meditator Ready to be a Student?
Berzin suggests a ‘ready’ student should have:
. Open-mindedness, not attached to preconceptions and opinions;
. Commonsense to differentiate between what is proper and what is not;
. Strong interest in the Dharma and in finding a properly qualified teacher;
. Appreciation and respect for the Dharma and for well-qualified teachers;
. An attentive mind;
. A basic level of emotional maturity and stability;
. A basic sense of ethical responsibility. (Berzin 2001b, 2)
So how may these qualities of the teacher and meditator safeguard against the pitfalls identified earlier?
Exercising Choice
We are told that the meditator should be concerned with ‘finding a properly qualified teacher’ so maturity and commonsense will doubtless support this. With the teacher’s greater knowledge and experience of the Dharma, he/she is also respons ible for exercising choice; that is, whether or not to teach the meditator, whatever the level of the relationship, such as identifying a student at a beginner’s meditation class who is displaying symptoms of psychological imbalance, and
thus recommending that meditation may not be appropriate for them. Equally, a self-aware teacher might decline a particular disciple if he anticipates a potential for
manipulation in the relationship that is beyond his means to control, such as a member of the opposite sex who seems to be acting flirtatiously.
Checking Blind Faith, Projection/Transference, and
Dependency/Fear
On the student’s part, we can see that any tendencies toward fixed preconceptions (‘my teacher is a Buddha’), an inability to differentiate the skilful and unskilful, or emotional immaturity (‘I need you to be the mother I never had’) might lead to these negative behaviours, thus their opposites are invaluable tools to ensure the student’s well-being and capacity for spiritual growth. The crucial issue here is that the teacher has sufficient self-knowledge and maturity to
anticipate and recognise when such negative tendencies are at play, and bring them to the student’s attention. For example, the teacher may need to return ownership of a quality that the student is projecting onto them, or help them rechannel the energy behind blind faith towards more skilful ends. Equally, fear of the teacher (or more specifically of the consequences of such fear) should never arise if the teacher is truly compassionate.
The recurrence of these particular pitfalls in contemporary Western Buddhism highlights the attendant dangers in misunderstanding the tradition of ‘seeing one’s guru as a Buddha’. This doctrine may well be in need of better
explanation, and perhaps of modification, for a Western audience. For example, Rob Preece encouragingly suggests that the disillusionment a student may feel at the point where they discover their teacher is in fact imperfect is an opportunity
for growth as it ‘causes us to bring back our projected ideals and begin to face reality’ (Preece (2004b).
Avoiding Manipulation and Abuse
There is no more obvious guide for both teacher and student to follow to avoid an abusive nature to their relationship than the five precepts — namely abstention from: harming living beings; taking the not given; sexual misconduct; false speech; and intoxicants.
Furthermore, the teacher’s relations with their own teachers and peers is likely to be of great benefit. In reflecting upon the safety net that Tibetan Buddhist monasticism provides, John Crook says that a lama/guru:
. . .Really had to be above the common herd if he was to function as the tradition demanded. Doubtless falls from grace were commonly observed, but the institutional framework of peer supervision among monastics usually corrected
or managed these faults . . . (Crook 1997, 234)
Establishing Sound Buddhist Institutions
Finally, the openness and compassion found in healthy individual relationships also needs to be reflected at institutional level, particularly to avoid or address the kinds of problems we have documented under the rule of
autocratic leaders. Sandra Bell’s review of new structures implemented at the San Francisco Zen Center in the wake of misdemeanours under the abbotship of Richard Baker offer valuable pointers. For example, the Center’s board of directors
was initially comprised solely of priests ordained by Suzuki Roshi, but now is appointed by the Center’s membership. The board has now also endorsed an ‘Ethical Principles and Procedures for Grievance and Reconciliation’ statement
produced by its Ethics Review Committee (Bell 2002, 237–8). Such procedures are now increasingly commonplace among Western Buddhist institutions.
Across the River,
That makes sense. If it is common to do them through the internet that may be the way to go. Just let us know once it is decided.
Sharon, the translation is better than I could have managed. Looks like they are using the sequence like mantrams. Thanks.
Thanks for the compliment, Elena. Is “yoes” an error? Why would one intone “los yoes de la sequencia”? Not that it’s not all strange anyway.
I have a question related to a story I told awhile back about the era of the cameo. I related that my cameo was appraised at 1/3 of what I paid, and I learned that other students also paid three times the appraised value.
I didn’t include this next part because for me it’s hearsay.
I was told that Robert Burton had an”arrangement” with at least one European jeweler. The arrangement was that the jeweler would write up false receipts for the cameos, and when Robert resold them for three times the value, the profit would be shared with the jeweler(s).
This took place in 1984, and I can’t remember who it was that told me this, but I do remember that it was someone I respected — someone who was already out of the Fellowship of Friends but knew something about the situation.
Has anyone else heard something like this?
I have a little cameo story from around 1979 or 80. We went on a group tour to Europe with Robert who was in his cameo period. He had found one in London he liked so he had a female yes person take us (me and my husband) to the jeweler to look at it. I was hoping to find an excuse not to buy it because we really didn’t have the money for it. This cameo was a real monster– it was about the size of a saucer. We left without it and went back to the hotel in a taxi. The student who took us was fuming the whole way back. Maybe she had a cut in the deal but at the time it appeared that she felt she had gone out of her way to show us the cameo and we were quite rude not to buy it. Robert behaved much better. When he asked me about it I told him it was too big for me to wear and he agreed and said he would find someone else to buy it. It was never again suggested that I look at another cameo, much to my relief.
waskathleenw ~2(6)#223:
I cannot comment on the validity, or lack thereof, of the false pretenses in the cameo dealings. (It would not surprise me in the slightest, though, as many of the possessions of, and through, the Fellowship of Friends were/are bought and paid for over and over again by various individuals and centers to satisfy the insatiable greed of you-know-who. Usually the price paid is determined by what the buyer could afford more than the value of the item.) However:
Antique and jewelry dealers are notorious for their shady dealings and what you suggest is a frequent strategy. Robert Earl Burton is expert at many of the tricks and does not hesitate to use them whenever and wherever possible. Not having a conscience makes almost anything a possibility.
Also, Robert Earl Burton has made many errors in his dealings, both personal and on behalf of the Fellowship of Friends. Some at very high dollar consequences; like forgeries in the fine arts realm.
Appraisals: You are probably aware that most retailers strive for this type of structure: Retail: $100 has a wholesale of $50 and a cost of $25. So, selling at wholesale is a 100% markup and a 50% profit margin. Selling at retail is 300% markup and a 75% profit margin. This is generally used in antiques, jewelry and art.
Lesser profit margins are accepted but the above is a rule-of-thumb. Bigger profit margins than the above are not unheard of. When it comes to appraisals, what is the appraisal for?: retail, wholesale, cost, insurance purposes, lending purposes, replacement value, etc. If something is irreplaceable and/or one-of-a-kind, just think what that does to the appraised value. Cameos are that sort of thing, or at least people would like to think so, so shady dealings can happen easily.
Caveat Emptor:
Let the buyer beware.
TODAY’S daily card
The love of my students is a great stabilizing
force. It has the ability to neutralize all the
hate.
Love, Robert
Jami: Happy is he who is able to escape from the
lower self and feel the gentle breeze of friendship.
——————————–
I don’t really hate him, I just would like to stop him from deceiving other people and often hurting them (financially, psycologically , and spiritually etc etc).
All in all he himself is his own victim. I really think Robert Burton needs help (professional help…not c influence help!)
Liked this one !
“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown of the nest.”
- Pema Chodron
Trust you too…
Gratitude.
226 Pensate un attimo
Yes, interesting daily card, as hate is enmeshed in duality.
So, it is rather odd viewpoint from a Spiritual Teacher who claims to be a man #7, don’t you think?
Ouspensky once said that one could not be sufficiently “negative” about negative emotions. I take that first “negative” to mean discrimination.
Thus, I think one cannot be sufficiently “negative” (in the sense of discrimination) about a False Guru.
My guess is that Robert takes the blog eruption personally because he is identified with being a Teacher.
An educated guess…
226
Such self-pity. And who can blame him–it’s been a rough life.
Newly moderated comments: 182, 184, 200.
Ollie (200): Would there be a way to approximate this number with a provable level of accuracy? Surely such information is accessible in one way or another.
Newly moderated comments: 182, 184, 200.
Ollie (200): Would there be a way to approximate this number with a provable level of accuracy? Surely such information is accessible in one way or another.
182 X-ray
You can send the petition to “The Union” but don’t hold your breath. They already told me that they won’t bite the hand that feeds them (advertising revenue) . It’s devolved from just a pretty shitty newspaper into a moron magnet with no journalistic integrity.
“We each can be viewed as a series of plants and trees that have grown from seeds along the spirals of growth and life.
As the phi ratio takes its forms in our lives and thoughts, the many branches of thoughts and experiences of our lives spread forth from their roots in the ground beneath.
Each seed is a ‘core belief’ that we hold that defines our reality and as each seed of belief spurts forth into the air and is nourished by vital life energy we grow these plants into ever more complex structures of thoughts and sub-beliefs. As we allow our thoughts to flourish and our gardens to grow we sometimes forget that the seeds ever existed. If we allow the garden to grow and grow and grow we may find that some plants become smothered and naturally die off. This is not a problem.
Sometimes certain beliefs become entrenched for so long that the plants grow so vast that they tower above us and block out the sun completely, such great beliefs and ideas prevent new seeds from germinating and stifle change and evolution. The cycle of growth and decay is as natural as life itself, we simply need to be aware that there is nothing wrong with pruning plants and nothing wrong with actually removing entire plants from our gardens. When we remove entire plants/beliefs, we make room for all manner of other creative growth to occur. We must remove the roots to remove a plant, trimming the branches is not sufficient to prevent the blockage re-occurring.
The universe is entirely dynamic, I love the dynamic and static has only ever made my hair stand on end!”
taken from http://people.tribe.net/neekos/blog/6be4ef76-5951-4735-9f80-5f2e7b2f8976
235 brucelevy
On the other hand the Appeal Democrat has amazingly been willing, over the years, to pursue all sides of the FOF debate. But it is important to have media in on it all.
Pensate un attimo,
Thank you for posting the daily cards. It’s interesting to see what’s on robert burton’s brain these days. I ended my membership with the fellowship of friends about 6 months ago, but had I stayed on, the daily card you posted today would have surely created the impetus that would have had me packing.
sl
228, Wouldn’t You Like to Know,
Thank you for the insights into that world. What you say fits with other things I observed back then — not just my personal jewelry situation.
I remember a set of Wedgwood tea service that was shipped to the Hawaii center along with an invoice. We weren’t asked if we wanted it — we were told it was coming and how much money to send. I’m pretty sure that when the center closed it went to another center who paid for it again. The Rent-A-Wedgwood octave.
227, xeena,
When he asked me about it I told him it was too big for me to wear and he agreed and said he would find someone else to buy it.
——————————
Interesting choice of words. Not “perhaps there is someone else who would enjoy having it,” but that he would find someone else to buy it.
200 Ollie
Fellowship membership figures (to my best knowledge):
Mid August 2007: around 1,940
Mid November 2007: around 1,840
______________________
234 the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion
Ollie (200): Would there be a way to approximate this number with a provable level of accuracy? Surely such information is accessible in one way or another.
______________________
Citing our sources is apparently not required, so I’ll jump in here and say that I have it “around” 1,340 in June and 1,140 in November.
They say the truth is the first casualty in war. The above numbers remind me a lot of the casualty figures that are released during time of war. It is definitely not in the best interest of the war machine to release the actual figures.
For a few years before the blog, the FoF published its “statistics” on the propylaia.org site (login required) for the supposed membership numbers worldwide. Within a short time after the blog became well-known within the Fellowship, these figures were not updated. Later on, the page was pulled entirely.
Truth is also one of the biggest casualties within the FoF.
229 Pensate.
“The love of my students is a great stabilizing force. It has the ability to neutralize all the hate.” Love, Robert
Interesting. When I was involved with the Fellowship organisation it was clear that Robert had very little knowledge of what was going on outside the delusional world he had created for himself. Anyone who tried to tell him something that implied that just maybe something was not quite right somewhere (eg his overspending was unsustainable) was ignored and ostracized from the “inner circle”, so people learned only to tell him good news. Students were for example encouraged at every possible opportunity to send him a “lovely card” telling him how much they valued and loved him (puke).
It seems that now at last he is realising that something really IS wrong, that in fact the game might be up. From what I hear from Galleria inmates he’s decidedly depressed about it.
229 Pensate.
“The love of my students is a great stabilizing force. It has the ability to neutralize all the hate.” Love, Robert
Another misunderstanding on his part. I don’t hate him. I do pity him however, and would like to see the damage he does to other people stopped.
Sheikh 233, 234:
Stuttering a bit after over ten thousands posts to moderate… ;-)
The number is most likely generated from tally of regular donations. A member remains on the roster until he/she is 12 weeks in arrears in payments. Therefore, those numbers lag the members’ “decision to leave” by up to 3 months, but they remain the most accurate available, much more so than those brandied around here.
So the blog impact on current membership may not be as large as previously stated. However, its (the blog) impact on new membership is likely to be more pronounced and sustained (as long as the blog remains). The fact that the “new teaching” defies reason probably keeps new membership low as well, restricted to citizens from loonie-land. In the end, current membership only changes by the number of new minus ex members. Even in its “glory years”, the FOF had a steady outflow of 20-30 people a month. It is vital to its long-term survival that it keeps attracting new members.
THANKS FOR THIS OBSERVATION
don’t really hate him, I just would like to stop him from deceiving other people and often hurting them (financially, psycologically , and spiritually etc etc).
Why do we have this need….?
Why can I/we just not let it all go?
What is it that can not let go of these facts and want to have things changed with him?
Anybody have some insights?
Thanks so much.
Opus 111 wrote: “The number is most likely generated from tally of regular donations.”
You may be right, but I’m not sure how you know that, unless you know Ollie? At any rate, to believe his numbers, and to believe your analysis, we’d need to make an assumption that he has access to accurate and reliable statistics for the “tally of regular donations.”
All of us can speculate on the membership numbers, but most people here won’t believe any of the membership statistics until:
1) The source of those statistics is disclosed, and
2) The source is obviously a credible, independent source — i.e., the people releasing the stats have no motivation to lie about them.
To my knowledge, no one has yet disclosed on the blog where they receive their numbers, or how they receive them, or why they believe any of the information that’s given to them. Rule of thumb: If the agenda of an organization is harmed by lower numbers, they will release higher numbers.
I suppose we could believe everything the FOF tells us, and accept it as fact, but that’s not a good idea.
Bistro Fundraiser 243
I do not know who “Ollie” is. He could be Paul, Peter, Maria, Fatboy, a psychic or in fact Ollie.
The number Ollie quoted for August is the same I had heard through the grapevine. That number was generated the way I described, it is pretty common knowledge. When you think about it, money (as in donations) is the only reliable way to keep track of 2000 or so members scattered around the planet, accounting for the fact that some members do not belong to any center (centers do not count them) and others never show up at meetings or events (directors may forget they exist or are still in).
Whether the November number is accurate or whether both are boosted to mollify the masses, I do not know but I seriously doubt the latter. These numbers are not released to membership at large and normally are only communicated to Council and Board members. While you may be right in thinking that the FOF would want to overestimate its remaining membership, it is also true that many of the posters here have the propensity to overestimate the impact they have had on the mind of current members.
243 Another Name
Good question.
Talking to former students about this I’ve heard reactions right across the spectrum. Some have completely moved on and have very little interest in the Fellowship of Friends. Some are mildly interested in watching its bizarre story unfold (the words “soap opera” are often used). Some are trying to build a healthy new community in Oregon House, some favouring more organisation, some less. Some are willing to put considerable energy into helping along the destructive process. Some are quite rabid in their denunciations.
Obviously anyone who can be bothered to read and contribute to the blog is still fairly connected to the Fellowship, so responses here will not represent everyone. I’m sure we’ll hear plenty of reasons why the Fellowship needs to be changed.
Personally I find the current unfolding of events genuinely interesting, which is not surprising after having been a long term member, and often hilarious. Why not? It’s all just happening anyway, including our personal stance in relation to it.
229
Bob’s been prophesying his crucifixion for over thirty years now. I guess at this point he’ll take what he can get by way of martyrdom. Of course, this is a guy who’s idea of intentional suffering is having a pebble in his shoe. I can just picture him having his image frescoed on the ceiling of the Galleria holding the instruments of his martyrdom, a pair of Gucci loafers in one hand and a computer in the other.
243 Another Name
“Why do we have this need….?
Why can I/we just not let it all go?
What is it that can not let go of these facts and want to have things changed with him?”
Conscience, common sense, altruism, responsibility, knowledge, understanding, compassion, discrimination.
You know, all the things lacking from the FOF, and it’s group mind.
243 Another Name
“Letting it all go” can mean releasing identifications, which does not preclude a responsible person taking action to stop harm from occurring, but can make it easier to determine how best to do so.
“Letting it all go” in the sense of “who cares, let’s have another glass of vino” is what we called tramp. Laziness. Lack of being. Lack of maturity. Lack of the other qualities Bruce listed. Lack of consciousness.
How is it different from seeing your daughter being assaulted and saying, “I guess I’ll just let it go”?
Opus 111:
You wrote that membership statistics are “pretty common knowledge”
and that…
“…many of the posters here have the propensity to overestimate the impact they have had on the mind of current members.”
_____________________________
Yes, definitely a human trait to overestimate how much someone cares about anything we have to say… I can’t speak for “many of the posters here,” but I personally don’t know the extent that people in the Fellowship are influenced by this blog, or influenced by anything I have to say. I just write, and hope that a few people read it, and hope they think about it. I imagine that’s true with most people here. We’re writing as much for ourselves as we are for anyone else.
About “common knowledge”: Many things were considered “common knowledge” within the Fellowship that we later believed to be absurd. So I’m not sure why you think this is some sort of proof for those statistics. And again that doesn’t describe where you received the information and how. But you know, your numbers could be absolutely correct. Maybe all of us on the blog are semi-delusional that any amount of open discussion will be helpful in any way to current followers in the Fellowship. Maybe they will remain where they are, steadfast to the end. It’s a free world.
But if that’s true, this again shows just how deep the problem goes.
250 Bistro Fundraiser
About “common knowledge”: Many things were considered “common knowledge” within the Fellowship that we later believed to be absurd.
————————
And some things about the Fellowship that we may once have believed to be absurd we later learned were common knowledge (for a few).
249 Bistro Fundraiser
What I meant to say is that the way statistics are obtained is pretty common knowledge. Any council or board member would admit to that, under ordinary torture (just kidding). Those numbers are no longer released on propylaia, I am told, but they were never considered a big secret. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the numbers, however. I noted that the August number (that I mentioned at that time and got from board member) was the same as what Ollie reported and inferred his source was identical. I just do not see a viable alternative to check the membership size. So yes, the numbers could be cooked.
I still think that a lot, may be not the numbers, has changed in the FOF and yes, the confidence is eroded. That daily card shows it and the mood in OH shows it. So what people write about here is having an effect, and it is the right action. So let us keep doing it. For conscience to grow and trigger decision, it needs to be fed regularly. The blog does that.
Bass Ackwards, thank you for your post (#26-193 or thereabouts). At the end, you quoted Ouspensky:
For Robert Burton, struggling against conscience is official policy. I quoted him verbatim in my ‘farewell letter’ (#7-38):
Conscience is a collection of subjective I’s. If a student accumulates too much material there, he should leave the school.
Last weekend, someone who professionally sees many psychopaths in the course of their job told me that one common aspect they have is that they “can see right through you”, that they are often able to see one’s weaknesses and strengths quite clearly, and accurately play on them. From my personal experience and from seeing other’s interactions with him, I saw that Burton can look at anyone and tell them what they want to hear; he plays on weaknesses exquisitely. The truth, or well-being of the student is of no concern, nor can it be; he has no operational conscience, and so of course, ‘conscience is just a collection of subjective ‘I’s”—that interfere between him and his prey, between him and the realization of his desires. He has learned that the rest of us have something different inside us, that it is useful for him to use words like ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’, but he has learned those (and the correct times to use them) by rote, only to further his aims. And he actively promotes the stifling of conscience by labeling it ‘subjective morality’ and claiming that his brand of consciousness not only dispenses with the need for conscience entirely, but that conscience is an actual impediment to consciousness.
The november membership figure as stated in #200 (around 1,840) comes from fof intranet which is accessible to any member. Laborious to count but otherwise simple. The figure simply reflects who is on the roster. I am aware that the database isn’t updated in realtime as I saw a few names of people who have clearly left over the last month. Take your own guess how much lower the actual figure may be. However, I don’t think it’s dramatically lower.
Hi Ollie (253),
Just to let readers know who are less familiar with the site, the propylaia.org website is not an “intranet,” but is a website on the Internet (capital “I”). To log in, the site requires an email address that maps to a member name, and a password.
Also, you won’t find a complete list on the site. There’s a search engine that allows you to search by first name or by last name. But there is no option on this site to search (for example) for “all students” or “all members” which would then allow you to scan the complete list of names on one page, or even a series of pages.
Therefore, unless you know all of the first and last names (in which case, there would be no real need for propylaia’s statistics), there’s no way to use this site to develop a complete list of the membership.
Maybe you went through the site and did a search for all names beginning with A, and so on. But even then, you probably forgot several people. So, if anything, assuming you counted correctly, the numbers you state are probably on the low side.
Anyway… Numbers are important. It’s part of the information game — and the disinformation game. It’s a part of the message of the Fellowship. Big numbers state: “We’re legitimate, and you can trust us, because so many others trust us.” That PR approach is very similar to an ad campaign that states, “1,840 doctors recommend Preparation C.”
So, if you throw numbers out here, support them with some proof, or show some evidence. If you’ve seen more people attending meetings than ever before, say so. If you sense more excitement and focus and a deeper sense of purpose than ever before in the Fellowship, then say so. And if several others agree with your claim, then I’ll be more likely to believe your numbers. But based on your stats alone, we still don’t know. It’s not proof to write, “The figure simply reflects who is on the roster.”
I can also write, “The figure simply reflects what you wish to type on your computer screen.”
In both cases, the reader won’t get any closer to the truth.
Dear friends,
Simple Math.
30-50 people have be on the non paying list since November 2006.
Nobody really joins maybe a few
12 times an average of 40 = 480 people or say the minimum of 30 = 360
If you start counting on the GF you will have another number as not every students who left is on the GF.
1840 or lower seems pretty accurate.
Opus 111 wrote:
“I still think that a lot, may be not the numbers, has changed in the FOF and yes, the confidence is eroded. That daily card shows it and the mood in OH shows it. So what people write about here is having an effect, and it is the right action. So let us keep doing it. For conscience to grow and trigger decision, it needs to be fed regularly. The blog does that.”
___________________________
Hi Opus,
As one or two people wrote above, I don’t hate RB, but I do feel pity for the man, and I particularly want his unethical behavior to stop — partly for the friends that I leave behind, but also because of the injustice of him continuing his behavior with no consequences.
(Mind control alert: Did any of you reading this feel the impulse that you were programmed with in the Fellowship? The automatic internal response to tell yourself to, “Avoid the evil injustice ‘I’s”?)
I sincerely don’t want anyone in the FOF to suffer. But in the long run, learning the truth can cause suffering. It caused suffering for me, as it does for each one of us. But, blog or no blog, truth and understanding are things we find within ourselves. Maybe the blog is pointing the way just a little bit. I hope so.
I thought people would enjoy reading this. I did.
The Invitation
Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder
It doesn’t matter to me what you do for a living,
I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, of if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstacy fill you to the tops of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being a human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true,
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even if it’s not pretty every day, and you can source your life from God’s presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full mooon. “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
I am still trying to figure out how Robert’s “new teaching” works. It is fascinating that every comment produces exactly the same effect: you don’t learn anything new, but try to grasp the meaning, and eventually get a headache.
Here is a good example:
“Unas is he who went and returned.” [Egyptian Pyramid Texts of Unas]
RB’s comment: Unas represents the steward for the Egyptians, was a real person. He is the classical example of the deceased as steward. “Unas is he who went and returned.” The steward is he who went into imagination.
This is what happens when I hear such things. I hear the quote, it is taken out of context, but at least it gives some information which makes sense: “Unas is he who went and returned”. I can imagine that Unas went somewhere he could have difficulty to return from, but he returned, this is significant. Maybe he went to some dangerous land. Why did he go there? Maybe because others did not return and did not complete some task. May be he went to the land of death where no one returns from, or maybe he went to defeat some dangerous monster and could die. He returned, this is significant and therefore he is a hero.
Here goes Robert’s comment which shocks me: “Steward is he who went into imagination.”
A-a-a! Headache.
So, it is not at all about the heroic action, it is about failure (of a steward) – the very opposed to how it seems in the quotation.
It looks like he constructs his “keys” like in children’s game – out of words, like of some modules. For example, he replaces the words “turn”, “return” with the word “imagination”
and looks at what happened at the end.
But if one replaces the meaning of the word (or a few words), the meaning of the whole sentence is going to change!
Let’s play this game, let’s replace one word and read the quotes with this replacement in mind. Let’s take this quote:
“Through the acquisition of that perfect love to which all our effort is directed, we are found worthy of performing the works that pertain to the world to come.” [The Philokalia, Peter of Damaskos]
And now let’s replace the words which have other associations with different words:
perfect love= presence
effort= self-remembering
worthy= awaken
performing= doing the sequence
the works= 3 lines of work
the world= world 12
to come = come into presence
Here we go:
Through the acquisition of presence, to which all our self-remembering is directed, we are found awaken doing the sequence in 3 lines of work that pertain to the world 12 to come to presence. Vu-al-la!
I think it sounds as insane as Robert’s meetings and gives the same amount of headache.
But guess what – I am not even close to Robert’s version! Check this out. This is how he interprets it:
“We, the sequence, have been found worthy of performing a conscious work. Mohammed said of his sequence, “O Allah, we did not remember you as you deserved to be remembered.” A photograph shows the rising sun, which is also the Egyptian shen—the symbol of eternal life. We can see that they took this symbol directly from nature. It is also the symbol for omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet. An illustration from the Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum portrays Horus—the steward—on the day bark. The sun has lifted off from his head, which means that he has reached work ‘I’ number six and has presence without words. The oars have been drawn into the boat, which means that the sequence is no longer needed. The prow, which has ten divisions representing the Ten Commandments—the thirty work ‘I’s—leads the way. It is like a fairy tale, is it not? (11-26-06)”
I am going to take a Tylenol.
#257 somebody:
Ever see the bumper sticker: What if the hokey pokey is what it’s all about?
There you go!
Hi Somebody and all,
Here’s some recent stuff from the Beloved Retarded.
Tylenol may not help this time, you may need something stronger…
His insanity is so obvious, it’s not funny.
The Arnolfini Marriage in the National Gallery, London
depicts the nine of hearts feeling the sequence
in her womb. The five fingers on her right hand, plus
the thumb, which is detached from the four fingers on
her left hand, represent the sequence, while the four
fingers represent the four wordless breaths. The
chandelier has six branches, which, starting from
right to left, represent Be, Hold, Look, and then in the
back, Back, followed by Look, and then BE—the only
one with a candle that is burning. Reflected in the
mirror at the back is a self-portrait of Van Eyck as a
transcendent God the Father, as well as the steward
and the nine of hearts, who is pregnant with the
sequence. Like Tutankhamen, in the lower left-hand
corner the steward has removed his sandals. The nine
of hearts also wears a white headdress, like the head
of the Sphinx.
http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/ARTH_214images/van_eyck/arnolfini/painting.jpg
Somebody and all,
Here’s some recent stuff from the Beloved Retarded.
Tylenol may not help this time, you may need something stronger…
His insanity is so obvious, it’s not funny.
The Arnolfini Marriage in the National Gallery, London
depicts the nine of hearts feeling the sequence
in her womb. The five fingers on her right hand, plus
the thumb, which is detached from the four fingers on
her left hand, represent the sequence, while the four
fingers represent the four wordless breaths. The
chandelier has six branches, which, starting from
right to left, represent Be, Hold, Look, and then in the
back, Back, followed by Look, and then BE—the only
one with a candle that is burning. Reflected in the
mirror at the back is a self-portrait of Van Eyck as a
transcendent God the Father, as well as the steward
and the nine of hearts, who is pregnant with the
sequence. Like Tutankhamen, in the lower left-hand
corner the steward has removed his sandals. The nine
of hearts also wears a white headdress, like the head
of the Sphinx.
http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/ARTH_214images/van_eyck/arnolfini/painting.jpg
257 somebody
Blimey, these interpretations are too ridiculous to read even once. How about going to see someone who can teach simply and effectively, so you can see the difference, if you haven’t already? I found Adyashanti helpful, but many, probably most, of the myriad current spiritual teachers has more reality to convey than Robert Burton.
Credibility, you must have nailed it down because it still echoes like a white wall against which the victims are shot. Both the innocent and the criminal.
Was it not all based on credibility? And where does one draw the line? When will we dare learn that it is not you who are not credible but what you’re saying and not just discard each other with, you’re not credible? True, I have not seen you stand for many credible things but it is they that are not credible, not you. You, like Robert are so credible I would not wish touch a hair of yours even if I had to scissor it down.
Since my first answer to you it is as if the magic had gone away and there is tremendous sadness. As if we’d been cut off from each other and there were no longer a reason to be here.
It is not that I would like to hold on to the internet forever but I would like to separate on a different note when the time comes.
There was once another dream, a longing that at last one had found ‘the people’. Not the chosen ones, not the luckier or better than life but human beings who understood the need to work on themselves because no matter how hard they had tried, there was something they weren’t quite getting. No judgement, no regrets but an understanding that just love wasn’t enough no matter how plenty. That identified love of life was no less selfish, no less difficult, or unrewarding to the soul.
Perhaps we did not have the being to make the School happen and instead had only enough being to destroy it. Considering what we’ve made of it, that would already be quite an increase in being and yet, that also is not enough.
I don’t know where I am going but I know I am not going back. Never back to the old status quo of differences of any kind no matter how different we happen to be. You might not find me credible but I still wish to find you credible no matter how I abhor your class, nationality and even sex when it decides to use me instead of love me. We’ve been paying for centuries the differences of hierarchy and sexuality and I’ve seen generations before me and after me die with the inequality.
Being tough is not being insensitive and buffering the reality of our misconceived relationships. The toughness with which we were willing to watch the coldness with which we lived every day of our lives in the Fellowship of Friends is no different to the toughness with which we are willing to deny each other a long and paused look of consideration. To consider does not mean to accept but to asses the being within. True personality would do it as a gold miner would move the sieve and wash the stone to let the gold remain. False personality does it like a bad butcher weighing meat for a client. False personality cannot consider because it is the personification of envy. It is envy what makes it invent all the differences so that it can diminish people on no matter what term. That which in animals is perfectly natural and cruelless, in humans, is simply inhuman behavior. Envy is the personification of the lack of self. All the hierarchies we’ve ever seen in our time are based on envy and false personality’s instinctive reproduction of animal hierarchy. The ideals of human hierarchies are consistently being crystallized in social struggles and decrystallized in the individual’s lack of being to live up to them. Democracy and the institutionalization of social guarantees in any of its forms has in its wake a human yearning but in its practice the individual has not yet come to live up to them. The intention of art, and science, medicine and law, may be honorable but the majority of individuals in the institutions cannot bring themselves to enough consciousness or presence or understanding to make their work meaningful and not just work for money and power.
I have lived with you people for seventeen years and I have no reason to love you. Like my husband and Robert I should hate you. But I would have to hate my mother and father and brother and sister and almost everyone else before and after if I were to hate you for never having had enough presence to do what was trully required. It is not just in the Fellowship of Friends that parents fail their children, and children abuse each other and adults fail the old. Our lives are the story of failures and mine is no better than any of yours nor do I believe any of yours is better than mine. The history of abuses we have each had to go through is not short but the history of the abuses we have each made on others is no shorter.
The only wonder of real suffering is that one realizes the only thing that really matters is human contact. Until one has understood that, one has understood nothing. We are sick people. I see people everyday who cannot experience human contact because they still think they are better than anybody else. Or people like Robert who conditioned the human contact they established with others, to abuse.
I do not claim to be healthier than anyone and I’ll have to accept it if you wish to find me not credible but I chose to find you credible no matter how incredible I think you are! Of everything I’ve yet said, I wish to retrieve the sentences in which I doubt you as you doubt me and I am not here to kick your balls no matter how much I think we have all hurt each other. Violence has been part of my daily bread but it is not violence what I wish to share and beg you forgive me for the violence I’ve expressed.
# 257 Somebody: you are way too smart for your own good man. Haven’t you learned anything? The teaching is supposed to be simple, as in “rilke-said-never-imagine-wisdom-to-be-more-than-the -understanding-of-a-child”! You are sooo intellectual. Any good student can only shake his head and tell you – hush, words are not important, they will never get you to Divine-Presence. You want the cherry-picked quotes to even seem to logically relate to what the Teacher is saying? Don’t you know that he has our best interest at heart, so he sometimes has to quite intentionally adjust the apparent content of the quote to point to its actual intended meaning that will evoke Divine-Presence. Why do you doubt Robert’s wisdom? You are obviously in the grip of the Lower Self. Next thing you’re going to want to know who Gujduvani is or something. Does it matter, as long as it creates emotional energy and connectedness? We are all in a higher state, aren’t YOU?
Bears reposting:
http://animamrecro.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/the-fellowship-of-friends-discussion-part-3/#comment-4058
http://fellowshipoffriends.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/the-fellowship-of-friends-discussion/#comment-285
259 Purchasing Awakening
You know, I have to say . . . I think he has something there. No, really. When you stop all the cynical joking around, I think he’s on to something, with the chandelier representing the sequence and all. Damn. I never thought I’d see the day, but I just have to join the Fellowship again.
The Daily Card:
Interesting that Robert thinks about ‘hate’. It would be especially strange if the hate he is referring to is this blog, in that I suspect very few people who post here either think about hate or experience it often.
257 somebody & 259 Purchasing awakening
There have been a few posts in the past suggesting that Robert Burton takes a number of prescription drugs. I really wonder if this could have something to do with it. When you think that there may be people sitting around trying to figure this stuff out – it is just unbelievable. There were some earlier interpretations of R’s that someone shared where it almost seemed as if he may have forgotten what he had said just a sentence or two before.
Ollie 253:
If you go to Propylaia and look up the amount of students in every world center one by one you’ll see that the total number is much lower that the one you stated. Not to say that you’ll see a true number – certainly not, they can’t show you the true number… They don’t practice Truth in FOF you know.
As of today the listed number is 1552. I know for sure that this number is greatly inflated, since it states that there is about 30% more students in my center right now. I know that it is not so. Obviously, they increased the numbers to make it look good. They will never show the true number of students simply because it sucks.
I think the true number is around 1000 or even less as was mentioned on the blog before.
On average, the total amount of FOF students steadily declines by approximately 30 students worldwide every month. Few people still do join, but the amount of those who leave is much greater, therefore FOF shrinks by approximately 30 people every month. As of December 1st this number will increase, since quite a few people haven’t paid their extra Fall donation and will be automatically released.
If this decline rate continues (and most likely it will) you can predict the date of Demise of the Fellowship of friends.
You may actually have a better success than our Beloved Master of Predictions of Imaginary Earthquakes.
James, it is known that RB is addicted to painkiller Darvon/Propoxyphene.
I was told that he is using it against neck pain… I guess one’s neck hurts when… Oh well.
Some drug facts about Darvon from Internet:
“Its molecular structure is a close relative of the synthetic narcotic, methadone.”
“Other adverse reactions include constipation, abdominal pain, skin rashes, lightheadedness, headache, weakness, euphoria, dysphoria, hallucinations, and minor visual disturbances.”
“Darvon/Propoxyphene, when taken in higher-than-recommended doses over long periods of time, can produce drug dependence characterized by psychic dependence and, less frequently, physical dependence and tolerance. The abuse liability of propoxyphene is qualitatively similar to that of codeine and propoxyphene should be prescribed with the same degree of caution appropriate to the use of codeine.”
“If not regulated properly, this drug produces psychological and physical dependence like other narcotics.”
“Propoxyphene may impair the mental and/or physical abilities…”
So there you have it: high and euphoric, visually disturbed, constipated, hallucinating, mentally impaired and addicted.
This is our Beloved Teacher, in his truly “high” state, de-coding everything around him and seeing things…
#259 Purchasing Awakening:
Does this mean that Jan Van Eyck (the artist who painted The Arnolfini Marriage) was a conscious being?!!
This “keying” of any and everything is too bizarre for words. How could any sane person still attend these events? It simply defies belief. This has got to be mental illness. Where are the Fellowship mental health workers?
He could probably get off scott free by claiming insanity if he is ever taken to court. Just producing a few of these “keyed” passages would convince any jury that he is mad.
They don’t call him Sponge Bob for nothing.
256
WU littlesuzy WU
Wise and beautiful – thank you. My God, I know it’s always going to be painful to know how ridiculously misguided we were with those earnest efforts to ‘remember ourselves’ ala Robert Burton. Arrrrrgh and humility. (I definitely prefer the hokey-pokey.)
===================================================
Fat Boy, Psychic and any FOF defenders:
In case you’re still peeking, I hope you will take a moment to stop practicing techniques so you can openly receive the information in two recent posts:
218 from Associated Press and 223 from Another Voice Out Here are long posts but quoted from sources that aren’t biased by the former student thing. Maybe follow these with post 241 from RobertC (which speaks for me, as well).
===================================================
182
X-ray
IMO we have to agree to be patient in the process of gathering all the necessary pieces together into a decisive action since we’re discovering what’s needed as we go. I respect that you put something tangible on the table.
to Elena, re: post 261.
Dear Elena,
I apologize, sincerely. I did not wish to add to your pain.
In questioning your credibility, I did not mean to dis-empower you, but rather to prod you to empower yourself in a more real and effective way. I called this “healing.”
Credibility is perhaps more about one’s communication skills than about the relative truth or validity of the content one is trying to communicate.
I don’t think you know who I am, and yet you did not hesitate to line me up in front of that white wall and fire away at me until all of your ammunition was spent. It was like you were firing randomly, viciously, into a dark room. And all of your “bullets” missed their target.
Who am I? A stereotype (white, middle class, male American)? Or maybe an archetype (the Abuser to your Victim, the Power to your Powerlessness)? Certainly not a person you know or love or do not know or do not love.
Nisargadatta might advise us that “credibility” is just another useless concept — a product of the mind-body complex. To become more credible in our communications, we need to dis-identify ourselves with the mind-body complex:
“Mind is only the instrument for everyday living. but not for understanding the true Self. The basic fault is that you identify yourself with the body and the mind.”
This applies equally to you, me, and all of our friends here and there.
Peace, Elena.
265
Robert’s devotional duties to his loyal male students is obviously damaging to his health. When he kneels down before them he not only gets a lump in his throat, but a krick in the neck.
Hi Bistro Fundraiser and Ollie,
Regarding your posts around #253-254:
The numbers that really count are the payable amounts on checks written to FOF.
The monthly aggregate of these numbers is going down at a much faster rate than the membership tally.
Many members contribute in the negative: financially they take more than they add. Some of these poor souls seem to have become (i.e. are believed to be and believe themselves to be) incapable of “working in life.” Other members live outside the U.S. where the average donation is only $200-300 per month, or much less. Subtract these non-paying and low-paying members and what is left?
The demographics behind the numbers are more important than any superficial roster count in terms of how much negative impact the blog has had on the FOF, and by extension on Robert’s lifestyle. You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip, even if it’s a #4.
Joseph G
somebody ~2(6)#257
And
Purchasing awakening ~2(6)#259
Recommend you go read
[and if you can, listen,
by using the link]:
2(6)#173 & #174,
the Dylan quotes:
Especially these words:
‘Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
…
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.‘
‘While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge‘
And:
‘he not busy being born Is busy dying.‘
There is no reason why one cannot be spoken to plainly.
Especially when a conscious being is teaching. If this is not the case, it is because there is
some deception at work. [Even parables are plainer than the garbage you indicate is coming
from old sperm mouth.]
When gods in anger seek a mortal’s harm, first they deprive him of his sanity, and fashion of his mind a baser instrument, that he may have no knowledge wherein he errs.
Lycurgus c.396-c.325 B.C.
232 Just another Voice…
“such self-pity…”
If you were referring to the daily card @229, I would have to say I had the same feeling. It was accompanied by a feeling of sadness. I personally have never had feelings of hate for Robert Burton and would have to add that what I post has never been driven by any instinctive associations.
I think the same is true for most here, although not all. At the end of the day it seems quite mechanical, though convenient, to make a generalisation regarding the blog (if indeed it relates to the blog).
I have an amusing memory around art, which at the time I did buffer. As with other stories, I do not relate this story out of hate, but simply to show the fallibility of someone who claims to be in touch with something higher and who I believe has lead and will lead those who have something deep inside that yearns for something real, nowhere…
I was at a gallery/museum in LA with an entourage. We were all looking at various paintings and I was particularly attracted to some impressionist piece which had the effect of making me feel homesick and indeed laid the foundation for my desire to return to Europe. Robert then called a group of us together around a fairly small painting and started to talk about its beauty and essentially the qualities emanating from the painting by the conscious being Rembrandt. W then piped up saying that it wasn’t by Rembrandt but by the school of Rembrandt. Robert quickly retorted, well it doesn’t matter and anyway he probably did much of the work himself. Moving on…
264 Purchasing awakening
I am sorry (really) to tell you that the number of members is still around 1.840 of course many are in their way out, but the propylaia link to the center is no correct at all.
Unfortunately I have seen it and ‘controlled’, may be in 2 months it will be around 1750…and so on..
1550 or 1850?
Little math here.
Many American students pay the low rate $ 150.00 per month. If these students had to pay the full amount they would go.
30-50 students a month have been leaving, since November 2006. At the lowest end 12 X 30 = 360. Arond 1800 seems correct.
12 X 50 would be 450 and would bring it to 1700.
Another year and many more might be leaving….
Many people are trying to prepare their way out…
Many can not…..for many different reasons.
Many are getting older.
Not many join, hardly any!
Do your math.
Newly moderated comments: 240, 247, 262 and 266.
It is hard to know what the membership is but some advice would be to get out now.
As the roster drops there are fewer and fewer targets for the slings and arrows from c-influence.
Woe be upon the last 10 or so left!
Then again, those 10 may be able to ‘create a soul’ real fast, maybe even skip lifetimes.
*the above in not copyrighted. You may reprint or do anything you want with it. You can even print it out and wipe your butt with it for all I care.
Traveler 266
Thanks for reposting these two excellently clear writings. It was a pleasure to read them again.
We need better energy and some rain in Northern California…
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRHA9W-zExQ”
Joseph G – I completely agree with you. It’s not how many people left, it’s which kind of people left.
Pensate and all,
It’s not about people in FOF – it has never been about people! it’s all about the money.
Those who make more money seem to be leaving. Why? Because if one has to pay thousands of hard earned dollars to this organization – so it better be worth it! It’s so hard to justify every monthly check written to FOF after one has read even a fraction of this blog. And it’s getting harder and harder to pay so much for such delusional bullshit that the Teacher calls “the teaching”. There is no end in sight to this BS – the Beloved Teacher seem to be firmly on his de-coding course, having a total blast… So people finally leave, sick of paying for this meaningless crap.
Many devotees are actually financially dependent on FOF and don’t contribute to it, rather they are an expense to the organization. Most devoted receive large salaries for their usefulness.
Of course there are exceptions and there are wealthy devotees as well but not that many.
People who are leaving are mostly from more developed countries where they have access to internet and free information. These are the people who contribute most money in their teaching payments. There is virtually no more new students coming from USA and Europe – because they can easily access the criticism about FOF online and make an informed decision about joining this cult.
This is different for non-english speakers from poorer countries, who don’t have access to information and are still joining here and there in small numbers.
In poorer countries the monthly payment is only 20-50 dollars (comparing to 150-1500 monthly payment in Europe and USA), so not much money is coming from those distant centers. A center of 100 people in St. Petersburg can only produce 2000 dollars monthly, and most of it is retained to pay for the rent of the teaching house…
A salaried student in Isis is receiving approximately 460 a month, so a whole large center of 100 Russian students can only support 4 salaried students each month. How many salaried students are out there? Couple hundred or more?
A shirt for Robert’s boy costs around 700-1500 dollars, don’t forget the ties, vests, scarves, rings, chains, cars and huge travel expenses for each traveling boy. As we all know, Robert never travels alone.
So all of 200+ Russian students that are in the school now cannot even pay for wardrobe and travel needs of only ONE Robert’s boy… And how many “boys” are out there? A hundred or more?
So the question is not “how many people are still in FOF”, the question is – “Who the heck is going to pay for all this?”
Fellowship collapse will most likely occur for financial reasons, when the structure is unable to pay for itself anymore.
To My 4 Bits.
Dear ………
There is the pain caused by Robert Burton, who weighed us like the piece of meat of the bad butcher, and the one caused by the inner circle who closed every door but there is also the pain caused by the majority of students who watched with approval.
With your account of what your impression in dinners and meeting was and still is, you personify those who watched with approval. With your suggestion that I heal before I speak with credibility I feel disqualified and I answered you after a shower of disqualifications but yours overflowed the glass and as I said, I am sorry for overreacting with violence.
Whoever you are you know I’ve spent my time in the Fellowship of Friends opposing the status quo, fighting with Robert, with Girard and with anybody else who happened to get up there and tell us that the hierarchy should rightfully replace the second line of work and they all did, because only those in the hierarchy could sit up there.
Every time I gave an angle in meetings the hall would freeze in silence until personal angles were forbidden about three years ago. We’ve been in silence for at least three years. In dinners and meetings with Girard the pattern of Girard’s indoctrination slowly became clear to me. At the beginning I tried to give what I understood as an addition to what he presented, with love and consideration for I did love him and Robert and the School but towards the end it was clear that the patterns were too crystallized for any kind of dialogue. All meetings and dinners, breakfasts and teas in the Fellowship of Friends are institutionalized monologues.
This struggle has gone on for seventeen years. Do you realize that I have been opposing what was happening to us for that length of time and not once received the support of any of you? It is not an account, it doesn’t matter how I feel right now but could you take a look at that phenomena and try to understand why? Or be less surprised if I am here at the defensive, trust no one and shoot at anything that moves suspiciously? That I am so damaged I have difficulty knowing who is a friend if there are still any somewhere in the Fellowship of Friends? It is not just me, it was the role of women in the Fellowship that was being determined. The women who had more than money or complete surrender to Robert’s service, for I loved the School and Robert but I always stood on my beliefs above either one of them and that is why at least some inspiration was transmitted to others (God forgive me for having inspired anyone, even a little, to stay in that place).
After Girard and I married Robert institutionalized that there was no place for me to sit at the meetings as there had been for all the other wives and sat Girard next to him where he rightfully belonged although he also shut him up and gave him angles to read. No one but Robert Burton talked again.
You might think that I married Girard for the opportunity to sit in that chair but if that had been the case I might not have continued to go to the meetings for the next consecutive four years and stood on the stairs. It does not matter where I stood. What counts is that Robert Burton finally managed to decapitate all bonds of love as meritory of respect and anyone could be decapitated after that. If Girard Haven allowed for his wife to be banned and allowed himself to be silenced, then Robert Burton could do anything with anyone and that is what Girard Haven sacrificed for everyone else. If Girard Haven confirmed that his wife was a whore that did not merit a chair like the rest of his wives, that he was unwilling to stand up for her on no matter what issue including Dorothy’s life, then all the women would have to adapt to the institutionalized second, third and fourth place in the community. When looked from the inside, the justification for this in the mind of students is that the preservation of such rituals is feminine dominance and Robert gave away any form of respect for the old, or the women or Girard or no matter who, as long as he could brainwash everyone to go along with the brothel which of course cannot hold without complete abandonment of the most meager integrity.
The fact that I personally lived the whole transition from living with a man that could not sexually appreciate me beyond the strict body and then allowed for Robert to not only displace me from any participation in the Fellowship of Friends but displace him as well in terms of his own work while still allowed the role “Girard Haven” to continue , does not matter in terms of my suffering which is what students in and out still tend to reduce it to, but in terms of the level of human corruption and total brainwashing and indoctrination that the Fellowship of Friends has succeeded to impose. It was not just me as the abolition of anyone who questioned the status quo, it was also Dorothy or anyone who needed financial help from the Fellowship of Friends to die a decent death.
There is a huge “Mafia” of students still willing to hold to that level of corruption which does not only have the potential to hurt one person but the practical ability to hurt everyone involved. The fact that Girard Haven was willing to give up his wife who he loved for we not only loved each other but had never been as well as when we separated, reestablished and confirmed the pattern in the Fellowship of Friends that everyone is disposable but Robert Burton, including Girard Haven, Asaf Braverman and no matter who. It confirmed to anyone who had not yet quite understood that human values do not matter and that anything human could be disposed of without the slightest consideration. Girard’s sacrifice of his marriage and himself was the complete legitimation of Robert Burton’s systematic violations.
There is no doubt that I am hurt and have been screaming here in not a small degree because of it, but my pain is insignificant to what is going on in the Fellowship of Friends while we watch with the same indifference that we watched the men being brought in silk to the galleria and the women brought out in misery.
When you question my credibility, I wonder to what extent we are still suffering with the old pattern that it is not the women who should be saying what matters because when someone presents something I already said that person is acknowledged but you keep quiet when I say it. The fact that this happens because I am not American, a woman, or whatever the excuse, is for you to explore, for deep down I know what I’ve brought.
Please do not get me wrong on this. I have not attacked anyone of you for being American but I have questioned deeply an American mentality that prevails. Just as I would a latin or a German one if it were the case. I know I could not put myself in a better position for the burning pile but if we don’t help each other see this patterns that are allowing the Fellowship of friends to continue unperturbed enough to still hold over 1500 students, then who is going to help us?
I am not saying that the Fellowship of Friends or Girard Haven cannot continue untouched and the dream of the many who were seduced by the monarchy that Robert Burton so eagerly pursued, might not continue to have a great deal of profit at the cost of who knows how many more, but that decency already left the surroundings of such a kingdom a long time ago and the young as much as the old will not only be perverted for the whole of a lifetime but will also suffer, sooner or later, the innate atrocities of such corruption.
It is not just the fact that they don’t have a job in regular society, it is the fact that they don’t have the slightest clue of who they are and have began acting against their own self with as much cruelty as they are acting against the rest: “Money and sex for Robert Burton” is the motto and the declaration of war. No matter how many noble acts in between.
Traveler 266
Thank you. This is brilliant!
Moron membership, oops I mean more on membership:
The numbers were always very inaccurate (sloppy book keeping in centres, late returns etc etc). I live in OH and bump into current members frequently. There are a very small percentage who avert their eyes but most say hello and there’s a short conversation usually along the lines of “the teaching is a joke, I’m just trying to find a way out.”
The statement that there are still 1800 members, even if true, which I doubt, is very misleading. There’s little doubt the Fellowship is crumbling.
287 Elena
She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Hamlet, Act IV, Scene V
#289
If you intend to compare Elena to Ophelia, I find it unkind and inapropos. Girard is no Hamlet, and Elena is neither suicidal, nor so weak and wandering, or indeed, such a subject for ridicule, any more than the rest of us all.
#289: Let’s try and be supportive rather than judgmental of each other. We might as well stay in the school if that’s all we strive for.
290 Sharon
Unkind–point well taken. Lord knows I have my weaknesses. Inapt–oh, I don’t know.
I agree Girard is no Hamlet and have no reason to think Elena is suicidal, thank goodness, but I don’t see the relevance.
Spending hour after hour, week after week, month after month repeating the same bitter, resentful, self-absorbed rant. Her husband was not supportive of her. The Fellowship didn’t give her her her due by not allowing her to sit at the front at meetings (a place to which she apparently feels she was entitled by being Gerard’s wife, like “all the other wives.” ). She’s been selflessly fighting the good fight, virtually alone, for seventeen years, while everyone else looks on with indifference. Not being American, she’s naturally treated with disrespect on that account–or it’s because she’s female.
Could it be that others have had difficult marriages? Maybe even more difficult than having a spouse who was less than consistently respectful and sexually attentive? That others suffered more from the Fellowship of Friends experience than not being allowed to sit up front? That others have made efforts to address the Fellowship’s wrongs, not to mention other wrongs they’ve witnessed in their lives? That others have suffered discrimination? Could it be that there’s a time for doing something about one’s anger and disappointment other than laying out to the world the same accusations, which always end up mostly being about . . . Elena?
If you review my posts to Elena over the past several weeks you’ll see my efforts to address this more supportively and directly. No effect. I don’t know Elena pesonally, so I have no ability to knock on her door, put my arm around her, have a cup of coffee with her and chat. Maybe you do, and maybe you should.
The above is full of good points, many are spot on. I still think you are coming from a place of irritation, not support, and in my opinion your irritation does not merit such ugliness. We got enough of that in the Fellowship of “Friends”.
It is hard to review posts over time from such similar anonymous names, they begin to all blend together to me. What I saw in that moment seemed to me a mean, ugly comparison to a character that would only serve to hurt, and which is exaggerated out of proportion. I don’t consider it a defense to say that since someone has not taken your more subtle “photographs” in the past it is time to hit them over the head now.
Elena is living now in Colombia, as far as I know she has no friends around to personally hug her, chat with her, offer her coffee and a loving ear. If I could, I would, and have in the past.
Thank you Another Voice, I didn’t think this post was about me as much as about what it meant. I was an accident but an accident that will reapeat itself each time someone else takes that place as with any of the boys.
Maybe it is just another rant for you, it is only beginning to be clear enough to me. What is transparent to you is a lot less to me, perhaps that is why I look at it again and again. And I do wonder how much is it that you’ve seen it or do you just keep defending the second conscious being on the planet at all cost because the behavior is so common?
If you don’t know me and were not there then you have no idea what I am talking about and only students who actually spent a few years looking at how this plays developed can understand what I am trying to convey.
Thank you immensely Sharon for raising a voice, I hope I can hear Another Voice if he’s accurate but also hope he can hear the other side of the story if he’s avoiding to look at it.
Surely many people suffered and more marriages were more difficult. Girard’s and mine matters not because it was mine as much as because it was Girard Haven’s. There is a very direct connection between the personal and the social behavior and this is what has consistently seemed to be avoided and why do you not want to see it? Does it show too clearly the consistent inadequacies that most of us fall into between our personal lives and our social lives? Is this really not worth exploring? Or is there just fear to look at it. Is it not the whole clue between first, second and third line of work?
I consistently asked that my personal pain be removed from the issue and looked as a play in this post, why are you reducing it again to my rant and not willing to look at it more objectively when I did?
Still you may be right and if you can make better sense without anger I am willing to listen.
293 Sharon
I agree with everything you say, at least with respect to my own irritated post. It got away from me.
With respect to the general statement: “I don’t consider it a defense to say that since someone has not taken your more subtle ‘photographs’ in the past it is time to hit them over the head now,” I’m not sure I agree that I need a “defense,” or that there’s no place for telling people, at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner, even if it hurts their feelings, that they need to get a grip and stop indulging themself. But I accept that my post was not the appropriate manner.
Another Voice,
Is your post about attacking me or about defending Girard Haven? What are you really defending? Manhood?
Why have none of the other issues besides me that I have presented in this rants been seriously addressed but I’ve been consistently attacked? What is it in the social network of your privacies that you so consistently seem to be rejecting and avoiding?
And it was seventeen years of acting against the Fellowship of Friends status quo. In fact we got so used to my being an opposition that I’m still playing that role.
294 Elena
“And I do wonder how much is it that you’ve seen it or do you just keep defending the second conscious being on the planet at all cost because the behavior is so common?”
I have never defended Haven in any shape or form. I knew him years before you did, and always considered him supercilious, smug, and superficial. Nothing he ever said or did impressed me. He’s a bore. I never imagined his designation as “conscious” to be anything other than a political act that acknowledged his willingness to support Robert Burton.
_______________________________________________
“Surely many people suffered and more marriages were more difficult. ”
Oh, you’re so right, Elena. And I say that without knowing anything about your marriage, other than what you’ve said, and I assume it’s been quite painful for you.
_____________________________________________
“Girard’s and mine matters not because it was mine as much as because it was Girard Haven’s.”
Elena, some may be interested in Girard Haven’s marriage. I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t read any posts from people expressing much interest in the subject, but there may be some. I can’t help but suspect that, because it was your marriage, you imagine it’s more fascinating than it really is. To me, it just sounds like the usual melodrama, and I have more than enough of it in my own life.
_____________________________________________
“There is a very direct connection between the personal and the social behavior and this is what has consistently seemed to be avoided and why do you not want to see it? Does it show too clearly the consistent inadequacies that most of us fall into between our personal lives and our social lives? Is this really not worth exploring? Or is there just fear to look at it. Is it not the whole clue between first, second and third line of work?”
I’m not avoiding any of it, or afraid to look at it. I don’t see anything to avoid or be afraid of. I don’t feel you’ve explained very well how your marriage to Gerard has greater relevance to me than my marriage has to you. As a result, I feel you’re mistaking personal identification with a painful situation in your life with an educational presentation of general applicability. You believe you are/were married to the “second conscious being.” From out here, you were married to a dull man who, last I noticed, didn’t have the being to wash the hair and soap out of his razor.
In fact, Sharon, you seem to see some points here, would you be willing to share them? I have consistently been told to leave Girard alone but never why. Because he was my husband? Because the relationship hurts many sensitivities? Or because we are not willing to make the connection between our private lives and our social undertakings and because women should not expose men? Because it makes men terribly uncomfortable to be exposed that openly? And the women too? Because that is the feminine dominance I should abide by?
Please do so publicly, I am willing to learn this lesson or continue trying to teach it.
So far we seem clear about Robert Burton’s abuses and behavior in front of the boys but I still don’t hear anyone addressing the fact that Girard Haven is no different to Robert Burton and that if he could get his way, he would align as many young women as Robert aligns men. Is it so obscure and difficult to realize that he may be indoctrinating the whole school to accept Robert Burton’s violations so that he can do as many of his own if women are lowered as much as they’ve aimed?
Behind the presentation of integrity that students have crystallized Girard Haven in, there is someone as sick and perverse as Robert Burton, why is this being avoided so consistently.
He is my husband and precisely because he is my husband I know how much damage he is willing to do to people. It is NO accident, it is as consistently a depraved pattern as Robert Burton’s but the whole lot of you seem to want to justify it through a simple failed marriage.
One day others will have to talk because it looks like the hero will remain a hero indefinitely until he is thoroughly exposed.
Another Voice, you think I am playing the victim? I am not playing the victim I am a victim. And all I can see you doing about it is saying that’s too bad you got married. That is not the issue. I give a damm if you do nothing to help me but at least try to help the macho-hero inside each one of you, who is not less damaged.
298 Elena
“Another Voice, you think I am playing the victim?”
____________________________________________
Yes, I do.
Another Voice, that doesn’t surprise me, with that you can dismiss the issue and avoid to answer the rest of the questions. You think you can avoid to answer or present real arguments and dismiss with a Yes I do, because those have been your set of rules for too long a time but I doubt much longer. The decadent masculinity in which you are the ones to call the shots at every post is coming to an end. Who said that all that can be discussed is what you call worth while and I still believe you’re hiding what is really bothering you. You don’t want to look at the too common patterns. Your privacy and your social entity and the deep fizures between them.
Elena, you know that I have a strong distaste for talking publicly in this way. I will send you a private email about what I, in my very limited, subjective opinion might see. I will say publicly that I admire your strength and ferocity, and your willingness to lay it all out on the line, so different from me.
276 Joseph G.
Actually I think the average payments coming from Russia, Eastern Europe, Asia, The Middle East (Syria and Lebanon),Mexico, and South America are lower than the lowest averages proffered so far: more like $10 to $20 per month for each student. I also think that a considerable portion of the demographics in those areas are comparatively wealthy students who do not participate much in centers but keep up their membership as a possible aid to getting visas to the U.S. So, yes, pondering the figures doesn’t provide all that much useful information about even the financial health of the Fellowship of Friends.
300 Elena
If I had any understanding of what you’re talking about when you refer to the “real issues” “or “rest of the questions” that you believe I’m avoiding, I’d try to answer them. But I really don’t. If you’d care to present those issues and questions, simply and straightforwardly, we can see.
I can’t help but wonder what Robert’s current teaching sounds like in translation. To Chinese? Hebrew? Lithuanian?
Another Voice,
Your perception of Girard Haven as a bore is insignificant and gives a lot less credit to the screw that is holding the Fellowship of Friends together. Do you wish to make it that insignificant so that we don’t really pay attention to the machinery behind?
305 Elena
“Do you wish to make it that insignificant so that we don’t really pay attention to the machinery behind?”
Elena, your view of me as somehow trying to conceal “the machinery behind,” as though I were part of a conspiracy to defend the Fellowship of Friends, suggests to me that you’re paranoid and see people plotting against you behind every tree. I can assure you, if you’re looking to accuse someone of defending the Fellowship, or Gerard, or any of it, you’re looking in the wrong place. I said Gerard is a bore for no reason other than I’ve always seen him that way and find it hard to relate to anyone investing him with the aura of “conscious being,” or even giving a damn what he says or does. I wanted to make the point that I, for one, find your discussion of him pointless. I have no hidden agenda.
Robert Burton’s a very different story. He’s a sick man, and that’s even more obvious now than it ever was, but the evidence that he’s been persuasive to many is pretty clear. But Gerard Haven? A nothing. A bore.
305 Elena
Speaking of being a bore, I doubt that other readers are finding this exchange between the two of us as interesting as we are, so I leave it to you to go on as before and clear the way for blog discussion of more general interest. Please forgive my interruption.
“ If I had any understanding of what you’re talking about when you refer to the “real issues” “or “rest of the questions” that you believe I’m avoiding, I’d try to answer them. But I really don’t. If you’d care to present those issues and questions, simply and straightforwardly, we can see.”
Another Voice, those issues and questions are in every one of my rantings and as you know they are not few. I’ll try to make this short and if you really want to understand I suggest you reread a few of the ones you find worst, keeping a look out for what in you is so repelled by them. I would suggest you also read Wilhelm Reich’s, Mass Psychology of Fascism.
So here are some of the issues, if I remember more I’ll keep posting them.
My feeling is that this blog is adamant to addressing the deep implications of the “Girard Haven role” in the Fellowship of Friends and this is not helping because he is the screw that holds it together.
While I would do anything to protect Girard Haven the human being I will do anything to expose the role. The role has actually done the man so much damage that I would love to see it taken care of and done with for his sake and everybody else. The man you call a bore is a rather frightening genius when you come to keeping the Fellowship of Friends intact. Do you not see that he actually hopes he’ll inherit it with all his prestige included, ridiculous as that might sound even to students?
Another issue is the amazing connection between first, second and third line in the Girard-Elena play. The personal and social inconsistencies are tragic. They were repeated in every marriage and every relationship in the Fellowship of Friends, yet that marriage is the perfect stereotype of the whole phenomena and we are very lucky that I was the one exposed to it because I was not emotionally prepared to avoid the damages but intellectually capable of understanding them.
Another issue is that the phenomena is way beyond the boundaries of the Fellowship of Friends and touches every realm of life in our times. We just happened to get a very close look at it.
Another issue is that I am not prepared to let go of it easily. I have seen this phenomena from my early childhood and what I see in men and women in general but in the Fellowship of Friends they acquired gigantic proportion because Robert Burton’s homosexual expansion into open abuse of both men and women stood on the men’s machismo. They allowed for him to do to the young men what they was common practice for them with the women. The fact that he overemphasized it, strengthened their position and the young men as much as the women got more deeply fucked.
It is a great pity that I cannot spare my husband to expose the tremendous proportion that the corrupted macho mind reached in the Fellowship of Friends and that I think is being ignored on the blog by both men and women to a certain extent. Lady B was the loudest voice we’ve yet heard here about what it was like to be an average woman in the Fellowship of Friends besides my consistent screaming. But the issue is not my screaming or me or even Girard, we are just roles. The issues are everything in each one of us that allowed for such a play of horror such as the Fellowship of Friends to take place and to continue to have the potential to happen anywhere else at any time.
Perhaps one day, when I can actually recognize that you have stopped avoiding the issues and have acknowledged them, I will be able to rest. As long as you try to put me aside to avoid the issues, it will just give me a little more anger and strength to represent it again and again wondering whether it is I that have not really said it or you that have not really heard it. I am finally realizing that it is you who just don’t want to hear it and that’s too bad because as long as I can, I will continue to repeat it.
When someone like Sharon says that she admires my courage to put it all out I believe she knows what I am talking about, what is it in the rest of you that either keeps avoiding it or openly bans it? Or in the women that know what I am saying and don’t speak up for themselves if not me? Who are so afraid of exposing these men who we love enough to continue to want to be with? But at the price of silence? No way, I am not in that much need to have to keep quiet.
People die because of these things. Your children die because of them. Eileen, (You might forgive me for mentioning her name but I will not let her die in vain) Heather, and many other children in the Fellowship of Friends, too many to think of them as coincidences, too big a number for such a small community no matter how much it also happens in life are deeply affected by the consequences of Fellowship of Friends life, why are you not willing to look at it and stop it for ever and ever? At least in your personal lives?
My take on Girard, for what it’s worth:
15 yrs ago he was definitely a significant part of the Fellowship, the #2 man in many ways, and it appeared he was being groomed as Burton’s anointed successor. After Girard’s stroke Burton lost interest in him and sidelined him almost completely, in his usual compassionate way. AB took over the role of The Anointed One. Girard became irrelevant, only of interest to a few die-hard supporters. Now that AB is out of the picture, M&D are the top lads. Girard remains irrelevant. Sad, really.
“Another issue is the amazing connection between first, second and third line in the Girard-Elena play.”
Kindly elaborate. What is the connection you see?
________________________________________
As for the other issues, I’ve read your post carefully and I’m sorry, Elena, I don’t understand what those issues are.
Are you trying to say that women in the Fellowship are treated with disrespect? OK, I can see that, although I don’t find much support for it in your posts. But yes, it’s been apparent for many, many years that Robert Burton considers women a nuisance except to the extent that they perform various functions such as contribute money, keep men in the organization, keep the books, and so on. He dresses them up like dolls and has encouraged them to play the traditional roles that men in power have found it convenient to have women play throughout history. But then again, he has no use for men, either, except for the same reasons, with the added function of sperm donor.
—————————————————————
So what else?
I’m not saying there aren’t issues with the Fellowship of Friends–of course there are many very serious ones that have been discussed here by hundreds of people for months. I just don’t understand what you, Elena, are trying to say about them, and insisting I’m trying to avoid them, and threatening to continue repeating them, is unhelpful.
Sharon, since you apparently get it, how about helping me out here?
Another Voice, you sound sincere and yet there is no one more blind than he who does not wish to see. You are getting warmer though and I appreciate your effort and patience.
I will continue repeating this things and maybe even try again with your question soon, but I am as tired as you tonight and we can call it a day and wish each other good night.
As long as there is no real ill intention we might actually have a conversation and I have no ill intention. As you say, let’s give others the chance and chip in as we find fit.
310 Elena
I look forward to having the veil lifted from my eyes. In the mean time, nitey-nite.
Hello,
I’m a reporter at the Sacramento Bee who’s been following this discussion with great interest over the past month. I noticed in a previous post that many of you were hoping to share your stories with a wider audience. I’d like to help you do that. Please contact me directly. Shoot me an e-mail or call my direct line at work. You will remain anonymous, if you wish.
Thank you,
Todd
Todd Milbourn
Reporter
The Sacramento Bee
(916) 321-1063
tmilbourn@sacbee.com
Elena, I just want to say, keep it up. I hear your intention and your anger as righteous, born of the pain subordinating your humanness to a vacant promise of spiritual depth which was discovered, late but not too late, to be fantasy, narcissism, illness. Your posts warn the afflicted and they warn the world.
I know I probably should not step in it, but I will.
I am with “just another voice out here” when it comes to the issues that Elena tries to write about. I sense they are very important to her, I see that she gets encouragments from a few, but I certainly have not read many echoes/cogent commentaries to her urgent concerns by others.
I too wish to say that I am puzzled by statements such as :
“My feeling is that this blog is adamant to addressing the deep implications of the “Girard Haven role” in the Fellowship of Friends and this is not helping because he is the screw that holds it together.”
I do not see Girard other than as another victim of Robert Burton. Remove Robert Burton and Girard disappears into fellowship irrelevance along with the other students. To maintain an organization such as the FOF you need money, lots of it, and I do not see Girard generate the type of donations sleek Bob did, at least not for very long, if at all. Just my opinion, nothing personal.
I do agree with “just another voice out here” that thousands of students have seen the wrongs in the Fellowship and Robert Burton before Elena appeared on the scene, that many have tried to address those issues before she joined, while she was there and continue to do so since she left. Many have addressed those issues in this blog as a matter of fact. Many relationships have gone wrong in the Fellowship, but some have survived and continued to thrive after the couple left the school. Women and men both have suffered in the Fellowship, to various degrees depending on individuals and circumstances.
I am not interested in changing Elena’s mind on those issues or her writing interests. I sensed she was interested in raising the awareness of blog readers to what she sees as fundamental issues and hearing comments.
So there were mine. And yes, I know that I do not see clearly.
Newly moderated comments: 289, 310 and 314.
314 is especially worth looking at.
I agree with Opus and Another Name. The emotional power of Elena’s words seems to be going in cycles by itself and stimulated rather by something inside. I read carefully her concerns and even asked some question that she did not answer.
Among other things she mentioned that Girard was physically violent with her. If this is true there are legal ways to address this issue. If it is not true, then I would say this is why Elena’s credibility is questionable. At least Girard seems to be reasonable and considerate socially (even being a bore), and I wish I could say the same thing about Elena. Among accusations against Girard were: beating his wives and addiction to a child pornography. There is a big difference between occasionally loosing a temper in front of a computer by saying “fuck” and hitting a wife. Or between child pornography and just occasional checking out certain sites, which most men do (married and unmarried). So, what are those important problems we do not want to address? Are they not exaggerations produced by an impressionable mind after reading too much of Wilhelm Reich’s, Mass Psychology of Fascism?
Another Voice and Opus 111,
Opus 111, I appreciate your post, I’m very glad you step in with arguments and not just disqualifications.
Thank you Veronicapoe, I thought you’d gone way away to another side so I doubly appreciate your vision.
Opus:
Elena: “My feeling is that this blog is adamant to addressing the deep implications of the “Girard Haven role” in the Fellowship of Friends and this is not helping because he is the screw that holds it together.”
I do not see Girard other than as another victim of Robert Burton. Remove Robert Burton and Girard disappears into fellowship irrelevance along with the other students. To maintain an organization such as the FOF you need money, lots of it, and I do not see Girard generate the type of donations sleek Bob did, at least not for very long, if at all.
There are two aspects here. One is Girard Haven until the blog appeared and another one in the future.
I cannot agree with you that Girard is just another victim of Robert’s, I would say we are as much the victims of Girard as of Robert. I would add that the Fellowship of Friends and Robert Burton stands 65% because of the Girard Haven’s, Miles and only 45% or less because of Robert Burton. One could probably even distribute that 45% between the inner circle enablers who use both Robert and Girard in at least 10 or 15% and the rest of the students in another ten, leaving Robert Burton with no more than 20% of the overall load.
It is very easy to pick a man and condemn him for all the vices in a community but that is more of the mass behavior that allowed things to happen because it was unwilling to act then as it is unwilling to take responsibility now.
Robert Haven and Girard Burton are both equally sick men. The succession of Miles by Girard Haven is not a coincidence and Girard as everyone else who carried the flag for Robert after Miles knew that Robert’s corruption was uncontrollable. Our story did not just start happening last week. Girard Haven and Linda and the rest of the enablers that stood by Robert Burton after that, knew exactly what they were protecting and hiding from new students. Everyone who remained with an even minor knowledge of the issues, chose to give it a blind I and leave it unquestioned.
You will have to help me unravel this story because I have not been there that long and I lived away for too many years to understand it closely. During the years Robert stayed distant from public appearance, it was Girard and the rest of enablers that held the ground, always with the divine man number seven behind them, inducing to an idolatry that grew way out of proportion. Even the insignificant center directors like me in other parts of the world were so inspired by the presentation that we repeated that same pattern for our innocent devotees. THE JUSTIFICATION TO EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED WITHIN THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS, TO EVERY INCONSISTENCY, WAS DELICATELY DEALT WITH BY GIRARD HAVEN IN HIS BOOKS. The complete indoctrination that allowed Robert Burton to continue being idolized was developed by Girard Haven and without it Robert Burton would have not given three steps further. The detailed form that allowed for the indoctrination to practically impregnate the lives of students at Isis, was carefully crafted by the divine authority given to Robert to take away any institutionalized channels of human, social interchange between students. A carefully crafted way of life was imposed in which life went on without life. That is, the arts, the gardening as any of the other octaves inside Isis continued but totally conditioned by Robert’s divine authority, not by any genuine cultural life. Once this was stripped out from the community it was very easy to do the same with the individuals.
I need to go, but I’ll keep working on it later. If anyone can add or take, please be welcome.
Somebody,
These are not accusations they are facts. I am not after lynching Girard Haven, not even Robert Burton. I am after understanding what happened to us so that we try to avoid it ever happening again.
Be well.
Holy shit, Brian Eno and David Byrne have a video especially devoted to women, and their place in the Fellowship of friends.
Jezebel Spirit
Who’da thunk?
More on Girard:
He’s actively disliked and despised by the “inner circle” because he’s perceived as “too intellectual” because he actually thinks about RB’s “teaching” for himself and is capable of speaking about it logically. This is not approved of by the elite. Girard sometimes says he doesn’t understand some of RB’s pronouncements. Though he qualifies this by saying that the reason he doesn’t understand them is that Robert is more conscious than he is and that he hopes to understand them in the future when his “being” increases, nevertheless this very slight hint of doubting the Word From Above is taken as proof that Girard is not really a Good Student, unlike the true fanatics who automatically believe everything RB says without question, no matter how ludicrous.
Deleted on request of the author. — ES
314
I hope as many of us as can will take advantage of this request. Having a local N. California daily do another expose’ on the fof can only help the present disintergration.
Regarding Girard Haven’s role, having watched his ‘rise’ for some thirty years I came to see him as another older student seeking to justify the ‘criminal’ behaviour of RB to himself and to fellow members.
Was my silence regarding RB any different than Girard’s apostolicity?
Either way, who is the loser?
Elena,
Heal yourself. Best wishes to you.
Concerning:
Todd Milbourn
Reporter
The Sacramento Bee
From:
Sacramento for Democracy
http://www.sacramentofordemocracy.org/?q=node/view/3618
How to get your News in the News: Sac Bee
From Margie Metzler, 03/03/2006…
The Sacramento Bee held a seminar recently on “How to Get Your News in the News” and I attended. Thought I’d pass on some info…
We all got copies of their new brochure “How to Get Your News in the News”. (I hoped it was on their site, but I couldn’t find it.)…
Pam Dinsmore, Assistant Managing Editor, Features & Design, introduced herself and the rest of the Panel, Stuart Drown, City Editor, and Todd Milbourn, Reporter, Non-profit beat.
The gist of the whole session is that if you want something in the Bee, you should figure out where it should go logically and develop a relationship with the editor of that section. Generally, email it, then call to follow up. Everyone agreed: “never call after 4. Pam wants a call first, but the others like e-mails first. Typically someone will call to confirm after you send something to them. The Seniors contact is Nancy Teichert. (nteichert@sacbee.com.) (Other byline is Nancy Weaver Teichert.) The new non-profits reporter is Todd Milbourn, tmilbourn@sacbee.com. (He prefers e-mails.)
———————
These also were found via Google:
Todd Milbourn is also listed on Wikipedia in an item critical of non-profit political PR entity: Move America Forward, created by the current U.S. political administration.
—
Churches say IRS trespassing on free speech
Possible revocation of tax-exempt status concerns liberals and conservatives alike.
By Todd Milbourn — Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, November 17, 2005
—
May 14, 200
Good works, great pay — Compensation on rise for top execs at nonprofits
Publisher: Sacramento Bee (California)
By: Phillip Reese and Todd Milbourn
Charity jobs often come with meager salaries, but a review of nonprofit agencies around the region shows that, increasingly, is not always the case for the top bosses.
More than 200 employees of nonprofits in the Sacramento region earn more than $100,000 in salary and benefits. Thirty of those receive more than $200,000 – triple the number from 1999. Six make more than $300,000.
And, in what appears to be a first for the region, the chief executive officer of one nonprofit made more than $1 million in 2004 – and another reached that level through a one-time bonus – according to a Bee analysis of the latest federal tax records for the charity organizations.
Compensation for executives at the four-county region’s 500 largest nonprofits is rising fast…
—
Time to speak up folks.
Concerning:
Todd Milbourn
Reporter
The Sacramento Bee
From:
Sacramento for Democracy
http://www.sacramentofordemocracy.org/?q=node/view/3618
How to get your News in the News: Sac Bee
From Margie Metzler, 03/03/2006…
The Sacramento Bee held a seminar recently on “How to Get Your News in the News” and I attended. Thought I’d pass on some info…
We all got copies of their new brochure “How to Get Your News in the News”. (I hoped it was on their site, but I couldn’t find it.)…
Pam Dinsmore, Assistant Managing Editor, Features & Design, introduced herself and the rest of the Panel, Stuart Drown, City Editor, and Todd Milbourn, Reporter, Non-profit beat.
The gist of the whole session is that if you want something in the Bee, you should figure out where it should go logically and develop a relationship with the editor of that section. Generally, email it, then call to follow up. Everyone agreed: “never call after 4. Pam wants a call first, but the others like e-mails first. Typically someone will call to confirm after you send something to them. The Seniors contact is Nancy Teichert. (nteichert(at)sacbee.com.) (Other byline is Nancy Weaver Teichert.) The new non-profits reporter is Todd Milbourn, tmilbourn(at)sacbee.com. (He prefers e-mails.)
———————
These also were found via Google:
Todd Milbourn is also listed on Wikipedia in an item critical of non-profit political PR entity: Move America Forward, created by the current U.S. political administration.
—
Churches say IRS trespassing on free speech
Possible revocation of tax-exempt status concerns liberals and conservatives alike.
By Todd Milbourn — Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, November 17, 2005
—
May 14, 200
Good works, great pay — Compensation on rise for top execs at nonprofits
Publisher: Sacramento Bee (California)
By: Phillip Reese and Todd Milbourn
Charity jobs often come with meager salaries, but a review of nonprofit agencies around the region shows that, increasingly, is not always the case for the top bosses.
More than 200 employees of nonprofits in the Sacramento region earn more than $100,000 in salary and benefits. Thirty of those receive more than $200,000 – triple the number from 1999. Six make more than $300,000.
And, in what appears to be a first for the region, the chief executive officer of one nonprofit made more than $1 million in 2004 – and another reached that level through a one-time bonus – according to a Bee analysis of the latest federal tax records for the charity organizations.
Compensation for executives at the four-county region’s 500 largest nonprofits is rising fast…
—
Time to speak up folks.
Also found:
(This one’s for you ‘The Tiger,’ seeing how you were once the Fellowship of Friends Fire Captain. It’s about the recent fires in San Diego County.)
Blockade tests evacuees’ tempers
By TODD MILBOURN
Sacramento Bee
Friday, October 26, 2007
Michelle Sweere spent two nights this week sleeping under the bright lights of a Wal-Mart parking lot, crammed with husband and son into sleeping bags in the back of a pickup truck.
So you can imagine Sweere’s relief Thursday when she heard — by way of a friend — that Ramona was out of danger and evacuees could return home.
You can then imagine her dismay when she drove up Highway 67 toward Ramona and encountered a police blockade worthy of Baghdad and a line of 200 idling cars.
Behind orange cones on the winding canyon road stood a force of at least a dozen police and sheriff’s cruisers and six military Humvees…
“Was my silence regarding RB any different than Girard’s apostolicity?”
Good point Tiger. Though it does seem like our silence was often due to lack of confidence in our own understanding and perhaps some fear of being shunned if we questioned the “party line.”
I have felt that Girard was a boring “yes man” for years, a nice enough person, but not as intelligent as his pontificating made him seem to many.
Was he also motivated by lack of confidence and fear? I don’t know. He does seem to believe his own rationalizing.
One last item found:
Concerning:
Todd Milbourn
Reporter
The Sacramento Bee
From:
The Humane-Rights-Agenda Blog ~ “And you will know the truth…” John 8:32
http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006_03_26_archive.html
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Sac Bee: March voices Latino anger:
3-26-2006
The rally honoring Cesar Chavez becomes vehicle to express indignation over proposed immigration limits.
By Todd Milbourn — Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, March 26, 2006
Story appeared in Metro section, Page B1
Chants of “Sí, se puede” (Yes, we can) and “Aquí estamos y no nos vamos” (We’re here and we’re not leaving) reverberated…
Hi veramente,
Re #323:
Good point and duly noted, but please be discreet about using people’s full names here. Thanks.
re: 329
I am sorry Joseph,
I did not realize your wish. Taking note.
I thought it might be intersting for you to read how Asaf makes sense of it all… I find it funny.
Asaf: A wall painting from Giza portrays six figures holding a rope. This is the “eating of bread”—the use of the sequence—according to the plan of higher centers. It clearly shows the advantage of using the sequence over the random use of work ‘I’s, because in right order, the sequence leaves no room for doubt, for imagination. I found those sequences best and most reliable when the internal sequence matches an external movement, because the moving center ensures the progress from one work ‘I’ to the next. This is illustrated by Robert’s example of buttoning the six buttons on his shirt using the six ‘I’s of the sequence. Since he wishes to change a work ‘I’ with each button, if he lapses it will be very obvious. An example I use, inspired by Robert, is when I finish my shower and dry myself, I start with the head, using Be, because Be is the head, then Hold for the torso, Move for the two limbs, and Back for the left foot. I found that it is very useful not to change this, because each time I reach my left foot, I already know that this is a critical moment, and I am very careful to dry my left foot with Back, and then proceed to my right foot with Move. Finally, like a good Egyptian, I tie the towel around my waist with long BE. It is very good to secure the sequence with an external activity, for one has an external gauge for what one wishes to achieve internally. Robert does this a lot; buttoning his shirt is only one example.
I keep hearing these comments (and keep reading them here) that some people “can’t leave” the FOF, and often it’s because they have “nowhere to go,” or “no one to take care of them.”
Now, I do understand that it’s easier for some than it is for others, but…
You CAN leave.
Everyone is capable of leaving. And everyone can leave — right now. You’ll be surprised how powerful that one thought is, and how you’ll begin to see possibilities when you shift your thinking just a little. You’ll see that every good thing about the Fellowship is “out here” in the real world — but without the FOF illusions draped over your shoulders.
Think about it just for a moment. What kind of attitude is that — that “you can’t leave”?
I was there. I know the sense of feeling trapped. I was mired in my own inertia for a long time. I got in my own way.
Yes, RB is a master manipulator, but there are wonderful possibilities out here when you begin to see the manipulation, and begin to see that you can escape from the it. This idea that leaving the Fellowship is like walking into the desert with no food and water — this is more of the group think, more of the mind control, and one more myth that keeps people “identified” with it.
You don’t know me. But I firmly believe you have it within you. You’ll be surprised just how much you can accomplish. Everything of value — of true value — that you found in the Fellowship you can find “out here”. And much more.
You will lose a friend? No, they will lose you if they don’t follow you, or if they don’t at least stand by your side as you leave (just as I lost many friends when I also didn’t stand by their side when they left.) But eventually they’ll see that you’ve taken the right step. You’ll reunite with them. And you’ll know that along it was true friendship.
Best wishes to all.
Regarding Nuthead #322:
It seems to me that Girard’s primary significance these past few years is connected to his role as chief enabler for Robert’s manipulative and often harmful behavior.
Elena has mentioned how Girard cleverly uses words, both via his books and in person, to effectively validate RB’s increasingly bizarre teaching. However, I think the importance of his role goes way beyond that. Many members look to Girard as an island of sanity, and may even think to themselves “as long as he can put up with this foolishness, I can too.”
People like Girard help keep other credible, often older and seemingly more mature and sensible people in the FOF, who in turn lend an image of stability and credibility to Robert Burton and the FOF cult as a whole. I have friends who were shaken more by revelations about Girard’s private conduct than about any of the much more outrageous facts that have come to light with respect to Robert Burton.
For what it is worth, what Elena has said about Girard is supported by allegations unrelated to her or her own marriage that I myself have also heard from other reliable sources. I take no satisfaction in this point, and agree with Elena that Girard is at least as much a victim as she or anyone else is. But given the responsibility and “moral authority” implicit to Girard’s role, any truth that calls his integrity into question needs to be brought out into the light of day.
As for Elena, I’m sure I am not alone in finding her postings difficult to read at times, both due to their length and to her unique communication style. Like many of us she has a lot of emotional scar tissue, and I can only hope that expressing herself on the blog is helping her to heal. Although it may be true that she could influence more readers more effectively with her message if she adjusted her writing style, I have no major problem with the substance of anything she has said here.
Elena, I wish you to be well, as this IMO is the single most important thing that may be accomplished through this blog, both for you and for all of us.
Joseph G
319 Elena
Thanks for making the effort at clarity.
I agree with much of what you say in this post. To the extent that you feel it’s important to stress that many people other than Robert Burton bear responsibility for what the Fellowship of Friends has become, I certainly agree. Everyone who participated bears some responsibility, and some who actively and knowingly encouraged and supported criminal policies and activities bear more responsibility. Gerard Haven may well be such a person.
However, I differ with you about the relative influence of people other than Burton, including Gerard. You say, “The complete indoctrination that allowed Robert Burton to continue being idolized was developed by Girard Haven and without it Robert Burton would have not given three steps further.” I don’t think so.
The mechanisms that made and continue to make the Fellowship what it is were solidly in place many years before you joined. The “teaching,” such as it is, is now drooling nonsense, but the situation now is the predictable extension of what existed more than thirty years ago. Back then, even though Burton had “stopped teaching” after only a few years and puttered around Renaissance in his Guccis, he pulled all of the strings. Nothing happened without his consent. Gerard’s influence was insignificant to nonexistent. He lived for some time in England, was politely respected by some, completely unknown by many, hadn’t written any books, and while his annointment was occasionally mentioned, he was a peripheral figure in the hierarchy. Far more attention was paid to Miles, who was more visible, more charismatic, more likeable, and generally assumed to be more of the “real deal” and the heir to the throne.
While this was going on, much of what is now “the Fellowship” had already been created, with little substantial input, and no actual decisionmakng, by anyone other than Burton. While I wouldn’t dispute Gerard’s role as enabler, propagandist, and apologist for the Fellowship, and while I have no interest in defending him, virtually all of what you and I find offensive about the Fellowship (along with whatever may not be offensive, for that matter) existed long before Gerard had any influence. It would have continued to develop as it did regardless of him, and would continue if he were to vanish today (although it’s possible that, in its current weakened form, the Fellowship might have a more difficult time surviving unscathed the departure of someone like Gerard. But I don’t think we’ll find out!)
You say, “the arts, the gardening as any of the other octaves inside Isis continued but totally conditioned by Robert’s divine authority, not by any genuine cultural life. Once this was stripped out from the community it was very easy to do the same with the individuals.” Nothing was “stripped out.” It never existed. It was always completely artificial. Synthetic art, copied from Old Masters. Concerts plopped down in the Sierra foothills, attended by vineyard workers wearing second-hand tuxedos struggling to keep their eyes open and applauding because it was expected. Copies of Louis XV furniture furnishing rudamentary structures surrounded by mud. Synthesized journals copied from Bartlett’s Quotations. Surnames changed to copy a caricature of Olde England.
Where was the creativity in any of this? Everything was ordered by Burton. If he wanted it, it happened. If he didn’t want it, it disappeared. No one wrote his own poetry. No one wrote his own music. Even the architecture was copied. This was never “genuine cultural life.”
This is not meant as a whitewash of Gerard Haven, just an attempt to put some perspective on the matter. The Fellowship of Friends is Robert Burton’s creation, and everyone else has always operated as his instrument. The fact that someone of Miles’ stature could leave and the Fellowship could continue with little change is some evidence that everyone has always been expendable, except Burton. If at any time Burton were to have disappeared, the organization, if it had continued at all, would have significantly changed–in what ways, I don’t know, but without his influence I suspect within a few years it would have become almost unrecognizable.
Try this:
Using full presence, attention and intention and involving the moving center in an attentive and intentional way, say slowly and carefully with pauses between the words:
Pie
Lawn
House
Cloud
Nose
Street
Repeat several times until this becomes like a mantra and see if your state changes. Not being sarcastic — I’m serious.
There are those (I assume there are others besides myself) for whom the “student teachers” meant absolutely nothing of importance during their stay in the FOF, other than momentary interactions that may or may not have been of use. I’m not speaking of the newer ones since I don’t know them, but for me, people like Miles, Gerard, Helga, Linda, Colin, etc. didn’t mean shit, nor credibility to me. For me Gerard was simply not to be taken seriously, though he was a nice person back then, and was not part of my own equation. Although now, I find I respect some of the escapees of the hierarchy more than I did then, but respect even less those who allowed themselves to remain trapped by the lure of power over others, elitism, inflated self-image, laziness, fear, greed and self-dis- empowerment.
Just thinking…Many of the people from the inner circle (or anal sphincter as we called it) used to reinforce the idea that “one’s suffering” in the FOF (mine was RB, and was fairly significant at the time) was this “fantastic gift from higher forces”. I was pretty shaken about the sex thing, while, at the same time directly and indirectly being told that higher forces was giving “special” attention to my charmed life by having the teacher spend this special time with me.
How fucking stupid and gullible I was. It was quite a lesson. For those that are still “dropping the soap”…don’t you believe it. But for those who insist on believing it…I have a bridge to nowhere I can sell you cheaply.
327 Associated Press
Have some respect for anonymity! When I decide to sign in using my ‘real’ name, you’ll be the last to know.
If this is your idea of a contribrution to this blog, you need to look at your motivations, which to me aren’t really to clear.
Maybe you are just another “Horward Carter’ in disguise.
Some of us who post here are still a little too close to the fof to ‘let it all hang-out’!
One last item found:
Concerning:
Todd Milbourn
Reporter
The Sacramento Bee
From:
The Humane-Rights-Agenda Blog ~ “And you will know the truth…” John 8:32
http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006_03_26_archive.html
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Sac Bee: March voices Latino anger:
3-26-2006
The rally honoring Cesar Chavez becomes vehicle to express indignation over proposed immigration limits.
By Todd Milbourn — Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, March 26, 2006
Story appeared in Metro section, Page B1
Chants of “Sí, se puede” (Yes, we can) and “Aquí estamos y no nos vamos” (We’re here and we’re not leaving) reverberated…… ….
A Tiger ~337:
I case you had not noticed, when you are posting to this blog your name, A Tiger, is a hypertext link to your website. It is obvious who you are and you are the one who has revealed it.
It would be nice to have an article come out in the ‘Bee’ around the same time a petition showed up at the Governor’s office.
“This is illustrated by Robert’s example of buttoning the six buttons on his shirt using the six ‘I’s of the sequence.”
I heard that he also uses it when unbuttoning his trousers.
Hey ‘A Tiger’: Sorry, I did not mean to expose or silence you. I thought you were well aware of your linking.
I suggest, if you want to continue to post and have it be anonymous, that you get a new blog name to post with but do not put your website address in the box that calls for it. It’s not required. You’ll have to undergo moderation for your initial post(s) under the new name but that should not take longer than a day. Also, people have specific writing styles, language/grammar usage and subject matter that they post with that can reveal who they are.
Most important, get in touch with Sac Bee reporter and tell your story.
DRYING EXERCISE
An example I use, inspired by Robert, is when I finish my shower and dry myself,
• I start with the head, using Be, because Be is the head,
• then Hold for the shoulders because Hold is the shoulder
• Move for my left foot because it moves
• and Back for the back, because it is on the back
• Move again – for another leg
• and LONG BE for…. because it is long… I am very careful to dry my LONG BE…
… It is very good to secure the sequence with an external activity!
Hi.
Been a while, glad to see the blog is plugging along, just as ridiculous as always.
First: “Flamer” is gay slang for an effete, outrageous homo man who is proud of his sexuality. (Check out Graduates, folks!) REB is the furthest thing from a flamer, he is a repressed transexual.
Second: I’m reading more and more stories from young men, like me, that just plainly told REB “no” to sex and that was the end. Sure you wouldn’t travel with him anymore, no more nice gifts, etc. (actually, in my case I remained in the tight inner circle, a “friend” to the end) All you who fantasize about some sort of legal retribution, please stop it. Sleeping with thousands of men is not illegal. Getting paid like a pimp because you say you’re a conscious being is not illegal. Making women wear those dresses is not illegal, but it sure is damn funny!
Here’s the skinny from higher worlds: At your level of existence, people have the right to learn from their folly. In a world where such rights exist, there will always be people who will take advantage of other people’s right to learn from their folly.
The amount of psychological or other damage from Robert Burton and the members of the FoF (and these two must remain conjoined in any such discussion) PALES compared to such damage meted out by the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormons, or just about any damn other church, cult or corporation you can name.
The biggest hurt is that you got taken, and taken not by some charismatic like Osho or whatever, but by vapid, boring Robert Earl Burton. At least I got social graces, learned to waltz, appreciate (an admittedly slim subset of) western art and culture, travel Europe, act in a Shakespeare play, and be a vineyard worker, all for less than $25,000 over 7 years. Not part of the deal, but due to being in the FoF, I got a sweet gig at a certain button company for three years, and employment from other students as well (all of whom I took severe advantage of in order to further my idea of what #4’s should be doing).
I also met a lot of incredible people who all of the sudden I can talk to again, and in many ways our relationships are stronger for the madness that was the FoF.
And I won’t leave out, that despite it all, I woke up. That’s the most incredibly miraculous thing of all.
Healing is not Awakening
Awakening heals all
walter.tanner@gmail.com
#343 Somebody: Where did this Long Be, Short Be come from? I am really curious to know.
“He [the Lord] hath put a new song in my mouth.” [Psalm 40:3]
RB’s comment:
The third eye has given the steward a fresh sequence, represented by God giving Moses the Ten Commandments. The steward is referred to at different times as the “mouth,” “tongue,” nose,” or “ear” of the Lord. Hafiz said, “Come back and play me another tune.” A wall painting from Dra Abu El Nagar depicts six women kneeling and engaging presence, while above them a man playing a harp represents the steward intoning the sequence. The hand on the harp—the nine of hearts—represents short Be, while the other hand, which is slightly larger and higher, represents long BE. Although the harp has six strings, it has seven pegs, which means that work ‘I’ number six—long BE—is touching seven—divine presence. The man holding the harp is a selfless figure. Mohammed said, “I am merely a servant of Allah”—of presence. In Journey Forth by Day, it is written, “Offerings are made on the days of the Sixth-day festival and the Seventh-day festival.” This refers to work ‘I’ number six passing to seventh heaven—the end of the week—the end of the sequence—“sun-day.” The beginning is “moon-day,” when you emerge from the moon—from imagination—with Be
Unfuckingbelievable.-
Exposé of the Fellowship of Friends and Robert Earl Burton in the Sacramento Bee might be just the ‘Long Be’ that the Fellowship of Friends and Robert Earl Burton have been looking for. In some public relations realms sometimes they say: any publicity is better than no publicity at all. Who knows, it might even be good for the Fellowship of Friends, although I doubt it would bee. Balanced reporting certainly would be inclined to show the many sides to the issues that people are concerned about. My guess would be that the Fellowship of Friends, Robert Earl Burton and any ’spokesperson’ would refuse to comment unless they could have some control over the outcome that would appear in the media.
#345 Somebody: It still sounds like hokey pokey. Is that what it’s all about?
Maybe it’s just me but it seems that the people who are able to justify and stay “in” these days, with what we know, have to be at least a little bit more “loopier” than the old timers in the 70’s and 80’s. These are the rantings of a disturbed old man, researched and aided by vain-glorious young sociopaths dressed like mindless fops, willing to get fucked to retain their soon to be diminished positions of power and prestige. Not to mention the type of “woman” one has to become to climb to the ever present glass ceiling (four inches off the ground). I can’t decide who are the more abominable creatures, the sex toys or the “mothers” who stand by and hide, even aid the “family secret”.
The sex is common knowledge, but the damage is the “family secret.
345 Somebody
Oh, great–more about what God has decreed be put in Burton’s mouth.
When Colonel Kurtz in Heart of Darkness cries “The horror! The horror!” he might have been referring to the experience of one day having it all become clear that one has spent decades of one’s life and tens of thousands of dollars in the service of a penis delivery system, operated by someone who mumbles “The hand on the harp—the nine of hearts—represents short Be, while the other hand, which is slightly larger and higher, represents long BE.”
The horror!
Ok, I’ve got the “long be” and the “short be” but perhaps this is exactly the place to insert the “sacramento bee”??
JoelF
351 Skeptical Optimist
So Bee it.
I also heard that there was a meeting recently on the subject of Long Be and Short Be where the images of african statuettes with huge penises were shown, and Robert commented that they are representing Long Be and Short Be… I was not there, so I don’t know how people could keep a straight face.
353 somebody
sick sick sick.
[I've translated this piece from the Italian blog, and although I got many laughs from it, I think the author is quite serious. Still, you never can tell.]
Dear friends,
I’m deeply moved by some wonderful news that I must pass along to you. A short while back, an anonymous blogger said that many students and ex-students are awakening. It’s true! And I have the honor and the glory of announcing that even among us here in Italy we have our own new Conscious Guide!
I can’t tell you his name yet. He left the Fellowship more than a year ago, after living several years at Isis. When he returned to Italy, he withdrew to the mountains in Molise, where he lived alone, meditating, sleeping on the cold ground, subjecting himself to all sorts of ascetic disciplines.
He didn’t bathe at all, the whole time. In fact, when I met him, I had to separate from my instinctive center with an urgency that was almost desperate. But my efforts paid off. Three weeks ago, at dawn, an enormous thunderclap was heard on the mountains of Molise. The higher conscious centers united in his sub-atomic body. Now, the splendor of consciousness shines permanently in him.
You ask why he chose me as his messenger. I suggest that you refrain from asking the wrong questions. The wrong questions come from the inner enemy!
He has entrusted me with the task of bringing you the rudiments of the new teaching. Soon, those who pay (obviously) will be able to benefit from it.
The Teacher offers as a preview the exercise that will be the central pillar of his new teaching — at least, until he gets bored with it (he said). Whoever doesn’t practice this exercise cannot be considered his student. The sacred name of this exercise is
1-2-3, Present!
Connect this exercise with your breath. At ONE, draw yourself back psychologically, in preparation. At TWO, move forward psychologically with energy, but without throwing yourself. At THREE, again move back psychologically, with irresistible decisiveness. Then, as if thrown from a slingshot, launch yourself into the Present!
Dear friends, I, who was evidently chosen by the Teacher because of my deep understanding, immediately adopted this wonderful exercise with unbelievable results! I didn’t allow myself to be fooled by the inner enemy, and with the practice of 1-2-3 Present! I have finally overcome. In the weeks ahead I will bring more Water for your Thirst, until He manifests himself to you directly. For now, I leave you. I must go and open a Swiss bank account according to his instructions.
Be well!
Oh, yes, and I am not kidding, there was also a Narrow Gate thingi… Which is… vagina. Sorry. (I hope it doesn’t qualify for a child pornography)… :)
In a George Carlin stand-up act recorded on HBO, he’s going on and on with obscenities and outrageous remarks — no surprise — that are meant to offend everyone in the audience at least once. At one point, when the laughter becomes rather nervous and muffled, he pauses and looks at everyone in the audience with a slightly crazed expression on his face. And he says real slowly, “Maybe I’ve gone too far…”
And everyone laughs.
I had a sense Carlin was testing the audience to see how much they could take before everyone basically told him, “OK, stop, that’s enough. Change the subject.”
Sorry, George, I hate to compare you to this guy, but maybe Burton is doing the same thing here?
Long Be? That one is just too obvious.
What I do recall about Burton was that he often messed with people, telling jokes at other people’s expense, and generally showing very little respect for many of his followers. Sarcasm is a big part of repertoire, and of course everyone explained that as his way of photographing you.
Thanks for the photograph, Robert.
It’s not too far-fetched that he’s going senile and/or that he’s been schizophrenic from the beginning, as well as psychopathic, and with a narcissistic personality disorder (all theories given here).
But people who are senile and schizophrenic, etc., can still have a sense of humor (if you want to call it that). So sometimes I think he’s seriously messing with people, just to see how much they can take before they say, “OK, stop, that’s enough.”
No one is telling him, “OK, stop, that’s enough,” so he just keeps going.
#355, #356
I think most people should be able to spot the parody, italian style.
Another Voice,
What a rich post, it is the kind of information I need for relativity. I don’t think it disqualifies anything I said in that, while the machinery might have been there before Girard, he took the role after Miles and institutionalized a whole new presentation.
Joseph’s points about students staying as long as Girard is willing to do so are so much to the point that I have been trying to make because the combination of “next conscious being on the planet,” “love Robert” and Girard’s own pose of complete renunciation to anything but Robert Burton including himself, his needs, and almost all his desires, have become the stone on which hundreds if not thousands of students have stood to remain in the Fellowship of Friends.
How long is it since you’ve been at Isis? Everything you say is accurate for your time it seems but for the time I’ve been in the brothel things circled around Robert and Girard for me. With shame I say I was a very good student. Swallowed volumes of Roberts angles and Girard’s books, looked at both with blind devotion and still fought at every blink of the eyes.
I know at least ten students who are still in the Fellowship of |Friends only hoping Girard will soon succeed Robert (and that would make me more sick and terrified of their innocence when I heard it) and 80% of a center who have asked him to lead them as a teacher and they’ll all leave with him, to which I know he has declined….. I think he thinks he can do better than that.
I have some difficulty in continuing because it is all so human of Girard to fight his way across the desert he’s designed for himself and at the same time in practice it is all so inhuman for the rest and even for himself that a thorough study of the strings pulling the puppet is required.
Would you say that a porn addict, given the opportunity, would use his power like Robert Burton but with younger women?
What are the implications of extreme laxity in sexuality?
We have seen the implications all too brutally but how do they actually connect with the rest of the Fellowship of Friends phenomena is what I think is of utter necessity to explore.
It seems the moment in which Miles left and Girard succeeded him many things changed judging by your post. As far as I understand Robert maintained his sexuality hidden for a long, long time and only some students knew. Miles seems to have been unable to condone the contradictions and left I understand also for other reasons but for those who stayed and chose to carry the flag, it became essential to adapt and seriously indoctrinate the devotees to the acceptance of Robert’s sexuality and the total agenda. Girard took this role personally on himself. It sounds like with Miles, some work was still possible for him but for Girard, it no longer mattered what work was possible for him but what work was necessary to keep the Fellowship of Friends from collapsing because of the profound incongruities.
The label of next conscious being gave him the necessary ground to act with an enormous advantage on the devotees who because of that simple fact granted him great power over them. That sole label is so pervasive that it accounts for at least seventy percent of the indoctrination or the sheer stupidity and credulity that we innocent idiots like to believe.
As I look back on the many years from the beginning it is clear how tremendously absurd it appeared and if it hadn’t been because of my own willingness to externally consider, not judge, work on myself and not pretend to change the world, help others as possible and try to find solutions, it would have been easy to leave. The people were so weird but no one was complaining, no one was saying he’d been hurt or exploited. There was an enormous desire to prove it real and if it wasn’t that real, to MAKE it real with my own work and although Girard wasn’t even a kind man, he certainly appeared to give answers to the incongruities always making us fall back into having to do our own work, not judge, not express negative emotions, transform suffering, keep making effort….
Robert was so inaccessible that I concentrated on Girard, went to every event, loved him from a distance and presented diametrically different angles that were looked at as a nuisance. Very much like the blog.
The point is that I believe we need to understand the Girard Haven psychology to be able to understand how students are being indoctrinated. How the way Girard dealt with the dissonances translated into thousands of people tolerating the dissonances, how he justified them, deviated them, reduced their significance and if nothing else was possible, asked the student to leave which for many turned into one’s complete failure so those who did not leave, capitulated to their self’s claims.
If we can understand it better, I think it will help many still students to understand their own process or at least take enough space to consider the tapes that they have accepted from both Robert and Girard in a more objective way. If they can take me out of the picture and look at his work and his life, they might understand or consider whether it is worth following such leaders. It is not about not loving them but about seeing them as what they are: human beings full of inconsistencies like the rest of us, with the terrible karma of being in a very powerful position to harm others. That is not true, the deep inconsistencies that Robert Burton, Girard Haven and others in the inner circle, have tolerated within themselves are no regular inconsistency, they are deeply depraved and dangerous people. They are willing to harm others and don’t even notice.
The deep issues have already been said many times on the blog. The deep laxity with which Girard and others opted to tolerate the use of young males for Robert’s pleasure must have consistently been challenged by Robert himself who tries to prove their commitment to the work on themselves with how much more they are willing to tolerate and support him. How much more money, how many more men. How many more instances in which people in need are not considered and how much cruelty are they willing to exert as his assistants. In short, how many people are they willing to kill psychologically to keep the show going, which is another way of understanding the deepness of being discarded.
The processes in each of those students that allowed for them to reach such level of indifference to suffering happened over many years of sacrificing themselves. If they were willing to make so many sacrifices, why couldn’t others? Others in fact had to if they wanted to become students of the inner circle. The price was: “how much are you willing to lower yourself before me as I have lowered myself for Robert?” Those of us who would not do it, never belonged in that inner circle of the last conscious School on the planet. It produced such a terrible envy in the enablers to find anyone unwilling to bend before authority that they despised him or her and closed every possible door to make it more difficult for the student to remain in the magic kingdom of consciousness. I was asked, “Would you be willing to leave your children like I did?” Shortly after joining the Fellowship.
They had to believe those ‘I’s to justify the immense losses they had been willing to take on themselves. The good jobs, the children, the families…. Life people, influence A.
At what point and how did all those human sacrifices translate into the willingness to tolerate Robert Burton’s hidden sexuality and give free reign to their own sweet perversions? How did the immense control over their emotional world translate into giving free reign to a repressed sexuality in the form, with the exercise of marriage or no sex and the uncontrolled voyeurism of pornography? Of repression, frustration, anger, envy, discomfort, bitterness?
At what point did it beco