The Fellowship of Friends Discussion, part 3(0)
February 17, 2008 by the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion
Welcome to the 30th part of the Fellowship of Friends Discussion.For previous parts of the discussion please visit AnimamRecro or the Main page of this blog.For more organized reading check out The Fellowship of Friends WikiSpace.
For sites in Russian and Italian, click http://fofway.narod.ru/ and http://laliberastrada.blogspot.com/ respectively.
For more information check Rick Ross and Steven Hassan.
This is where you can find the website of the Fellowship of Friends.
If you decide to interact as well as digest, feel free to start here.
And as always (and above else), enjoy and have fun.
Oh…. its like walking on untrodden snow…….
If you have a gripe you can back up with fact then please consider sending Susan a letter.
Just click on Wikispace above then petition and see whats required.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.
– Aldous Huxley
J x
Rumour has it there’ll be an article about the FOF in the Sac Bee on Monday.
A little Coleman Barks RUMI :
THE SUNRISE RUBY
In the early morning hour,
just before dawn, lover and beloved wake
and take a drink of water.
She asks, “Do you love me or yourself more?
Really, tell the absolute truth.”
He says, “There’s nothing left of me.
I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance
to sunlight.”
This is how Hallaj said, “I am God”,
and told the truth!
The ruby and the sunrise are one.
Be courageous and discipline yourself.
Completely become hearing and ear
and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.
Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.
“Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.”
Or perhaps a ring in the nose?
2. Nuthead
Rumors abound about the Sacramento Bee article.
Suppose to print anyday now.
Keep us posted will you?
….as the apostles argued amongst themselves as to which of them were the greatest one thing became (painfully) obvious…
During the projections at the Cosmodemonic-MysteryScience Multi-Plex 6,000,000,000 (6 billion theaters and only one screen, how DID they do it?) a few of the movie goers had somehow managed to get elephant dick wedged inextricably up their tight little flea pussies.
Yesri 5
This salvia does seem to have interesting effects.
Abigail-
Well, you know what they say.. If you don’t like the effects stop licking the spittle.
I didn’t see anything in the Sacramento Bee today. Does anyone have any more information about this?
5 is newly moderated.
9 Vena
When I did a search I happened to come across their previous article which contained these interesting quotes (Lindalies):
Lawsuits accusing the group’s founder and spiritual leader, Robert Burton, of sexual improprieties scared off distributors, says Beinstock; one suit was dismissed and two others were settled by the Fellowship’s insurance companies to save the costs of litigation, says Tulisso.
here it is…
“The Fellowship itself never paid a penny in settlement,” notes Tulisso, who added that the suits were filed by former members who failed to produce evidence to support their accusations.”
What a slimy grease ball.
9 Vena
My informant was wrong, though there’s an article about Salvia. Maybe two articles about people addicted to states would be too much for one issue.
Thing about salvia is, it’s sentient.
12 veronicapoe
I would tend to agree.
I spent close to an hour yesterday writing an extremely long post about my fairly extensive experiences with salvia. When I hit “submit,” I got a message that the blog had switched to a new page, and my post was lost in the ether. I didn’t have the time to re-write it, but maybe I’ll be able to soon.
12 veronicapoe
13 Innernaut
Veronicapoe - Other than the info at Erowid, I don’t know much about salvia. Could you elaborate on the idea that it is ’sentient’, and did you mean that any external substance would be so?
Innernaut - Not sure if salvia is anything I might experiment with, but I would like to hear of your experiences.
13 Innernaut
Sounds like the vegetable version of Inflence C.
Daily Card,
The rabid bloggers are comparing saliva stories.
‘Life lacks the idea of looking for truly legitimate esoteric sources. Influence B does not count-only Influence C does.’
Based on this above line of thinking, I ask this rather important question of any current members of the Fellowship of Friends: The
Fellowship of Friends, for more years than can be counted, has perused the world for ‘esoteric sources’ that supposedly confirm the prior existence of school on the planet (presuming Influence C operating) and the material that is found can be no better than Influence B, by definition, to be delivered to you for your time, efforts and money. And, especially now/recently, when/where there are tens, if not hundreds, of members worldwide doing research scouring for sources of this material, or making it up as you go along, in order to have the equivalent of dogmatic, highly scripted, content for the meetings that is likely to be NO BETTER THAN Influence B? I would postulate that it is being done for Influence A purposes: 1) Gives reason to have meetings. 2) Enables there to be money charged. 3) Supports your identification with the Fellowship of Friends being a school, a religion, and/or a source of Influence C, 4) Puts on a good show, 5) Keeps people busy - while most spontaneity and real issues that people need to work on are glossed over and ignored. 6) Feeds the false personality of the Fellowship of Friends. Influence C does not need Influence B; Influence B needs Influence C. Influence C creates Influence B. Influence C does not need to go find Influences B. Maybe, just maybe, the Fellowship of Friends does not have any connexion to Influence C?
So here is some support for this above logic from Ouspensky (Oh, I almost forgot, the Fellowship of Friends has rejected Ouspensky and is no longer a fourth way school.):
Ouspensky defining Influence B in The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution:
‘The second kind [Influences B] consists of interests of a different order aroused by ideas which are not created in life but come originally from schools. These influences do not reach man directly. They are thrown into the general turnover of life, pass through many different minds and reach a man through philosophy, science, religion and art, always mixed with influences of the first kind [Influences A] and generally very little resembling what they were in their beginning. In most cases men do not realise the different origin of the influences of the second kind and often explain them as having the same origin as the first kind.’
Influence B exists for the purpose of feeding magnetic centre. Why is the Fellowship of Friends still dieting on Influences B?
Ouspensky/Gurdjieff defining Influence B in In Search of the Miraculous:
‘So far I have spoken of the right magnetic center, of the right guide, and of the right way. But a situation is possible in which the magnetic center has been wrongly formed. It may be divided in itself, that is, it may include contradictions. In it, moreover, may enter influences of the first kind [Influences A], that is, those created in life, under the guise of influences of the second kind [Influences B], or the traces of influences of the second kind but distorted to such an extent that they have become their own opposite. Such a wrongly formed magnetic center cannot give a right orientation. A man with a wrong magnetic center of this kind may also look for the way and he may meet another man who will call himself a teacher and will say that he knows the way and that he is connected
with a center standing outside the law of accident. But in reality he may not know the way and may not be connected with such a center. Moreover here again there are many possibilities:
1. He may be genuinely mistaken and think that he knows something, when in reality he knows nothing. 2. He may believe another man, who in his turn may be mistaken. 3. He may deceive consciously. Then if the man who is seeking the way believes him, he may lead him in a quite different direction and not where he promises; he may lead him very far from the right way and bring him to results directly opposite to the results of the right way. But fortunately this happens very rarely, that is, wrong ways are very numerous but in the majority of cases they do not lead anywhere. And a man simply turns circles on the same spot and thinks that he is going somewhere.
‘How can a wrong way be recognized?’ asked somebody. ‘How can it be recognized?’ said G. ‘It is. impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way. This is what we are speaking about all the time. It cannot be said in two words. But from what I have said you can draw many useful conclusions if you remember everything that has been said and everything which follows from it. For example, you can see that the teacher always corresponds to the level of the pupil. The higher the pupil, the higher can be the teacher. But a pupil of a level which is not particularly high cannot count on a teacher of a very high level. Actually a pupil can never
see the level of the teacher. This is a law. [As soon as you can see the level of the teacher, they are no longer your teacher.] No one can see higher than his own level. But usually people not only do not know this, but, on the contrary, the lower they are
themselves, the higher the teacher they demand. The right understanding of this point is already a very considerable understanding. But it occurs very seldom. Usually the man himself is not worth a brass farthing but he must have as teacher no other than Jesus
Christ. [Or, conversely: The higher the level, self-proclaimed by the teacher, the more likely they are not worth a brass farthing.] To less he will not agree. And it never enters his head that even if he were to meet such a teacher as Jesus Christ, taking him as he is described in the Gospels, he would never be able to follow him because it would be necessary to be on the level of an apostle in order to be a pupil of Jesus Christ. Here is a definite law. The higher the teacher, the more difficult for the pupil. And if the difference in the levels of the teacher and pupil go beyond a certain limit, then the difficulties in the path of the pupil become insuperable. It is
exactly in connection with this law that there occurs one of the fundamental rules of the fourth way. On the fourth way there is not one teacher. Whoever is the elder, he is the teacher. And as the teacher is indispensable to the pupil, so also is the pupil
indispensable to the teacher. The pupil cannot go on without the teacher, and the teacher cannot go on without the pupil or pupils. And this is not a general consideration but an indispensable and quite concrete rule on which is based the law of a man’s ascending.
As has been said before, no one can ascend onto a higher step until he places another man in his own place. What a man has received he must immediately give back; only then can he receive more. Otherwise from him will be taken even what he has already been given.” [Who has Robert placed on a higher step so that he could ascend? Where is the continuum from man 4 to his man 7.4? No wonder REB and FoF are going nowhere except turning endlessly in a small circle of friends.]
More on this later.
Ya’ll probably know this already, nevertheless…
“…who joins a cult? The easy and most popular belief is that cult disciples are inadequates of low intelligence. But in her extensive study of cults, sociologist Eileen Barker has found the opposite. The normal cult member is of above average intelligence and comes from a well-balanced, middleclass background. What appears to be happening is that, as modern life becomes more secular and materialist, an increasing number of intelligent people are finding life unfulfilling and meaningless… and if established religions fail to appeal to this increasing minority, then spiritual values are found in fringe cults - of which there are well over a thousand in Britain alone. And once hooked, the follower’s search for meaning, combined with the guru’s charisma, leads to a psychological process that guarantees obedience… once a cult has been formed by a guru, individuals who feel a lacking in life are sucked into the madness of cultism through psychological coercion, brainwashing or mind control. People joining cults usually argue such techniques would not work on them, but the favoured methods of meditation used by cults, combined with forms of sleep deprivation and bombarding the initiate with information, inevitably lead to, first, sensory overload, and second, obedience to the whim of a guru. Clearly cult membership also leads to a rejection of family ties as the cult becomes the new family….” etc.
http://beyondtheblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/the-cult-disciple/
James, thanks for the Sunrise Ruby, it’s a true gem and a wonderful thing to wake up to this morning.
11 is newly moderated.
Sentient. As in, a thinking, feeling, living being.
Okay, I’ll try this again. It’s incredibly long, so feel free to skip.
I first heard about salvia about 10 years ago, probably on erowid and sagewisdom. I read about it and was intrigued, but not enough to order any (it’s legal, or at least at the time it was). However, I was definitely curious. I read about how the plant was cultivated by native peoples in a small village in Mexico, and about how they used the plant in religious and healing ceremonies. They always seemed to use them in so-called “sacred pairs,” which struck me as interesting, though I wasn’t sure of its significance.
Not long after learning about salvia, I went with my family to the local arboretum. I went off by myself and found myself in a “medicinal garden.” I started looking around, and what should I find but a nice healthy salvia divinorum plant. I bent down and examined it, and noticed what looked like dried up old leaves underneath it. Just as I was doing that, a fresh leaf just fell right off onto the ground. That kind of blew my mind, because I was just thinking I’d like to get a leaf, but I wasn’t going to pick one and mess up the arboretum’s plant. As I was crouching there looking at the leaf on the ground, I remembered the idea of the “sacred pairs” – at that point something possessed me to reach out and touch the plant, incredibly lightly and gently, and another leaf fell right off and landed by the other one. Naturally, I pocketed the two leaves, with the feeling that the plant had offered itself to me (call me crazy, but that’s exactly what it seemed like).
I let the leaves dry out, and one night when my family was asleep, I set myself up to try it. I arranged a bunch of cushions such that I could do it sitting down, and not harm myself if I fell over unconscious, which is what I’d heard would happen when you smoked it (it did, BTW). I also arranged a safe area for the pipe so I wouldn’t set the house on fire if (when) it slipped from my unfeeling fingers. With the preparations made, I took a big puff.
It seemed like nothing happened at first, because my awareness told me that I was still sitting on the cushions in this room. The transition to an altered state happens instantaneously, IME, and while your body falls unconscious, your awareness seems unchanged at first. Then it changed. I was still sitting in my room, but suddenly I was sitting on what appeared to be a little island, with flames and sparks shooting up all around it. I looked around the room, and there were a number of women – old women in what looked like Mexican native dress – and they were each sitting on their own island, with the flames and sparks shooting up. Then I noticed that they were all holding on to each other’s islands, trying to keep them together. The old woman nearest me indicated that I needed to grab on to her island, to keep us all together. I had the sensation that this was urgent, like we were each sitting on a tectonic plate, and unless we held these things together, the world would come apart. So I grabbed hold.
The thing about smoking salvia (IME), is that the state is so real, it seems like it’s really happening. During the experience, I knew that I had smoked it, but I thought the results of that were physically happening. At that point I remembered my wife sleeping on the other side of the house, and became aware of all the noise we were making, what with the flames and lava shooting up, and the women telling me to hold on. I started thinking, oh great, this is going to wake her up, she’s going to come in and how will I explain all the old women, not to mention the flames? I worried about that for a bit, then suddenly I was waking up, reclining on the pillows, the pipe no longer in my hand but in the big ashtray thing I had made. Thus ended my first experience.
I’ve done it a fair number of times, but for me it’s not the kind of thing you want to repeat any time soon. So all my experiences were pretty far apart, time-wise.
The next time I smoked it, I made the same set-up, waited till very late at night, then took a big puff. Once again, it seemed as if nothing had happened. I was wondering if this experience was going to be a dud, when I started hearing a sound off in the distance. It sounded like some kind of giant being, and I could definitely sense some kind of presence — it got louder and louder as it seemed to approach my house. Suddenly I had the experience (which is somewhat common, I hear) of being rolled around and around. It turns out this giant being was clomping along, rolling up all 3-dimensional matter like a carpet (don’t ask how I know, it was obvious at the time).
I could hear it approaching the house, and I knew what it was doing, then here I go, rolling over and over, along with everything else in the room. I ended up in what I can only describe as an undifferentiated mass of matter – everything had lost its individual shape, like an elaborate clay sculpture that someone smooshed back into one big blob. And here I am, stuck in the middle of it. Once again, I thought this had really happened. I thought, great, I smoked salvia and now our house, yard, town, are all rolled up in one giant mess of nothing – what will my wife think of this? I was worried because there was no way she could not notice this. At some point I started feeling claustrophobic, and started struggling and pushing at this mass. It then occurred to me that I could push myself back into my own form, along with all the other contents of my room. So I felt I essentially had the responsibility of re-forming all the matter around me back into its 3-dimensional shape – tables, lamps, computer, etc. So, I pushed the stuff back into its familiar form, and woke up, once again reclining on the pillows.
Those are two representative experiences of smoking it. I was intrigued enough to want to try it some more, so I ordered a bag from sagewisdom. I ended up having the majority of my experiences by chewing the leaves, as the active chemical is readily absorbed in the mouth tissue. You take some dried leaves, soak them in water so you won’t have a mouthful of dust, then form a “quid” and chew it until you reach the level you want. It takes effect after about 20 minutes of slow chewing, and I didn’t find the taste that unpleasant. Once it kicks in, you can keep chewing to go higher, so you have more control over the intensity, unlike smoking, which is pretty much all or nothing. I’m not positive how long the smoking experience lasts, but I think it’s about 5 minutes. Chewing results in a peak of about a half hour or 40 minutes. It definitely affects your motor skills, so you have to settle in on the couch or bed so you don’t stumble around and hurt yourself.
Chewing it is very slightly like other kinds of tripping, but it really is completely unique and can’t be compared to anything else. At this point I should say that whichever way you do it, it is not a “fun” drug, definitely not a party substance. It should be approached with total respect and used for self-exploration or with a spiritual intent. IMO.
I will just relate a couple of experiences chewing salvia, because it is so different from smoking it, though there are definite “themes” or similarities.
One of the times I chewed it, for example, I experienced the native woman theme again – though in a completely different way. I had chewed the leaves and gotten to the level I wanted, and went to the kitchen sink to spit out the leaves and rinse my mouth out. As I bent over the sink, I was no longer in my kitchen. I was in a brightly sunlit, dusty Mexican village, leaning over to drink from water flowing from a pipe set in an adobe wall. Also, I was no longer myself, but an older, somewhat heavy-set native woman. I had zero awareness of my “normal” life, but WAS this person, in this place. It was one of the most amazing drug experiences I have ever had. It only lasted a few moments, but during that time I was experiencing a completely different life. Weird. I stood up and I was back in my kitchen, and went and sat down and had the rest of the experience.
That was the only time that I can remember that I lost awareness of my ordinary setting. Normally chewing the leaves doesn’t transport you the way smoking does.
Another time the experience began with hearing my thoughts as though they were completely external. You know the thoughts that are constantly generated by the mind – they sounded absolutely as if someone was in the room speaking them to me. And the weird thing is, they had a British accent. It was a little freaky, because I had the thought that this must be what schizophrenics hear when they hear voices. That same experience, as I was hearing my thoughts, I heard that giant being off in the distance – the one that was rolling everything up. It was clomping around, but it never came close to my house. The repetition of that thing was intriguing, as was the native woman theme.
I’ll just relate one more experience, because it was probably the most important for me. First, let me say that in my youth I had a LOT of various experiences. Toward the end of this period, I started having some very negative, bad trips. Filled with panic and fear. It’s the main reason I stopped doing that stuff.
The last time I did salvia, I chewed it and lay down. It was a very intense experience, and for the first time on this plant I started having that familiar panic rising up, which if you’ve ever experienced it is pretty miserable – it builds on itself getting more and more panicky. Internally, I start turning this way and that, trying to hide from it or make it stop, but that just makes it worse.
This time something different happened. As I was fighting the fear, it suddenly occurred to me that what I was feeling was okay – that if I was afraid, then that was exactly right, and what I was supposed to be feeling – there was nothing “wrong” with it. I realized that all those times in the past I had fought the fear because I thought I shouldn’t be feeling it. The moment I accepted what was happening, the fear vanished and I felt this kind of ecstatic happiness, like I had had a major healing breakthrough. That happiness was the only time I felt like that on salvia – it’s not generally an ecstatic drug, IME. That experience was several years ago, and I haven’t had the desire to do it again. Maybe someday.
So, that’s my tale of salvia. I’m not sure I can recommend it, but neither would I try and dissuade you. But if you do it, it would be much smarter to have someone with you, especially if you smoke it. Otherwise you could really hurt yourself or set the house on fire. Even chewing it will make your legs pretty wobbly.
Be careful out there, and happy trails.
ton:
You continue to refer to yourself as made of rubber. Buffers are made of rubber, my friend.
My intention is not to have the last word at all, (that’s your projection) but is and always has been to dialogue with you, yet you would like to silence me with your condescending attitude about gamesmanship, which speaks to your defensiveness, not my pain. So I am unclear if you do indeed wish me well. There will be no last word here, there will only be cessation of communication between two people with the same features, dominance. So be it.
My references to your style of railing against “people are weird” etc., (as you wrote) were to alcoholic behavior, which, in my professional experience, often extends long beyond the use of the drug. It is not slander, nor a personal attack. Slander would be calling you something you are not. And being an alcoholic is nothing to be ashamed of.
Just so we are clear, ignorance is our mutual enemy, not each other.
“a thinking, feeling living being” and according to what I’ve read so far, a female energy.
Somehow, all the reasons people had for chasing after Robert Burton can be explained by this “entity”.
Remember the “I” exercise? “I” to (it). Under the auspices of the plant “I” is taken away. Of course, this is my understanding so far.
Innernaut (22),
Thanks!!
Hi Whalerider,
Even if it were true that Ton drinks I don’t understand what is the point of saying it here. I do not wish to know these things about people because they do attack something one privately knows that will predispose others in relation to that person. Perhaps I made mistakes like that in relation to Girard and have the justification that Girard chose to be a public figure, one who has been determining people’s lives for twenty years in the Fellowship of Friends with deep indoctrination and as such I am questioning his integrity but indeed I might have, in my “wounded ness” gone way too far. I do not regret exposing Girard but I regret offending people in my exposure and I am hoping you don’t fall in the same pattern. Is that the situation with you? The feeling of having lost your stability is putting you on a defensive state so tough that you are attacking Ton with extremely pointed arms? Is it worth it? So you know each other and here is where you’re going to tell us about it? What is your aim? The fact that one was rejected does not mean that one has to make up reasons to be rejected consistently. You are much loved here on this blog Whalerider. Can you take that?
I know I have absolutely no authority on this matter but please stop.
Hopefully Ton will not buy on the bait but the fishing’s gone too far over a trifle. Might you be in a less vulnerable place Ton? Hopefully…
#3 James Mclemore
#19 ton
Ditto for me James. That is a gem. A gem is a stone, right ton?
yesri 27
yeseree, that’s right, a precious stone, much valued… thanks again James. Speaking of stone(d), thanks Innernaut for the salvia tales, your experiences sound generally and somewhat similar to my own with the “mint” — definitely not for “recreational” purposes.
Elena, thank you truly for your response to our friend the Whalerider… I had hoped that we really did turn the page.
Pray for peace, it starts “at home” it starts within and it does require a certain type of strength.
All the best to y’all.
22 innernaut
Thanks for the tales.
‘Life lacks the idea of looking for truly legitimate esoteric sources. Influence B does not count-only Influence C does.’
A revealing angle from RB who obviously looks for legitimate esoteric sources then counts everything in them, e.g. number of toes, number of fingers, number of sides in a square, (good to double check the last one occasionally). Now perhaps I understand his rationale - only influence C counts!
Good Lord, the fine ladies at the Oregon House store can also sometimes count, I shall show them more respect tomorrow and slyly observe the workings of their esoteric arithmetic.
Why is it though that great c influence seems only to be able to count up to ten? As the school evolves will it move towards triple digits, the 94 wordless breaths perhaps? These and other puzzling questions must presumably remain unanswered until my higher emotional centre turns terracotta color and combusts.
p.s. Shouldn’t we all be wearing asbestos hats?
For those interested in the plant conversation and in the subject of plants as sentient beings, poking around on this site might be interesting:
http://www.greenearthfound.org/index.html
It’s Ralph Metzner’s web site and contains links to books, full text of some of his writing, workshops he teaches, etc.
Ralph was one of the infamous three who did psychedelic research at Harvard in the 1960’s. The other two were Timothy Leary and Ram Dass (Richard Alpert). He went a less flashy, more academic route, attracting less attention.
waskathleenw(31),
I am interested thanks for the link. It’s appreciated.
Deleted on request of the author. — ES
Thanks for the link waskathleen 31… I tend to think that reconnecting with our biosphere as indicated by the “plant teachers” may show humanity a way out of the current morass we’ve created for ourselves and other living creatures. Somewhat related but taking a slightly different, perhaps less typically “shamanic” approach — here’s a site with an interesting philosophy… though you may already be familiar with bltc.
http://www.bltc.com/
On the darker side, here’s an article called Sex, Drugs, and Cults… Although the article does talk about other types of drugs (alcohol for example) an interesting take is that the “drugs” referred to here can are endogenous (i.e. dopamine and endorphins) which are produced under certain ‘cult conditions.’
“Two major evolved psychological mechanisms emerge from the past to make us susceptible to cults. Capture-bonding exemplified by Patty Hearst and the Stockholm Syndrome is one. Attention-reward is the other. Attention is the way social primates measure status. Attention indicates status and is highly rewarding because it causes the release of brain chemicals such as dopamine and endorphins. Actions lead to Attention that releases Rewarding brain chemicals. Drugs shortcut attention in the Action-Attention-Reward (AAR) brain system and lead to the repeated behaviour we call addiction. Gambling also causes misfiring of the AAR pathway. Memes that manifest as cults hijack this brain reward system by inducing high levels of attention behaviour between cult members. People may become irresponsible on either cults or drugs sometimes resulting in severe damage… Cult gatherings or human-potential trainings are an ideal environment to observe first-hand what is technically called the ‘Stockholm Syndrome… This is a situation in which those who are intimidated, controlled, or made to suffer, begin to love, admire, and even sometimes sexually desire their controllers or captors.”
ETC…
http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html
I was pondering overnight over the loss of structures in one’s life and how suicide is basically an expression of such a loss. I would even go as far as saying that most forms of crime are an expression of that loss.
It’s six in the morning and this’ll be just an outline of what I’d like to explore (together if possible) before I have to run out.
Some of the ideas are:
What people in cults are desperate to find is: COMMUNITY
They are willing to sacrifice their personal integrity and the integrity of their family in search for the integrity of the community. Deep down what they are really in love with or in desperate need of, is COMMUNITY.
The fact that they are willing to sacrifice themselves or first line, their families and friends or second line to the imaginary “community” in their hearts, makes it a Cult and not a community. It inverses the ideal of community and turns it into a hierarchic structure for the benefit of those in the inner circle. The COMMUNITY in the ideal sense of the word, that is, in the most “conscious” sense of the term, would on the contrary serve to protect the individual and the family.
In Latin countries where the female has still been in many layers of society subservient to the male, it is not uncommon to find women committing suicide after the marriage breaks apart. The connection to the community comes through the male and the structure of the family. When these dissolve the sense of loss is overwhelming.
I wonder if in very developed countries such as Sweden in which the individual is much protected by the state the strength of the instinctive well being in the social order does not run parallel to an emotional well being of the community and we get a high percentage of suicides because the individual becomes stagnant, the family and the community? As if “all were well” but in fact, the individual cannot affirm himself, he simply has to play along definite set of economic structures without struggle or possibility for inner or social development? I am guessing; a lot of research would need to be done to confirm this hypothesis.
The understanding of the fundamental connections between individual, family and society or rather, community or first, second and third line of work must necessarily lead us to an ample understanding of innumerable social and individual phenomena. The fact that these “realms” of existence are in traditional sociology not closely connected accounts for our own blindness to what we are really dealing with. Our social life is but the expression of our inner life. Our political structures are the expression of our level of being as human beings just as the coherence with which an individual “acts” in relation to himself, his entourage and his community are “ALL” an expression of his level of being.
A human being is an instrument with three strings: the individual, the family, and the community. Externally tuning these strings must necessarily tune his inner consciousness exactly proportionately to internally balancing his instinctive, emotional and intellectual centre. Any work on whichever sphere, helps tune the corresponding sphere.
A man cannot come to terms with his instinctive centre without coming to terms with the world of nature, at least in principle. S/he cannot come to terms with his/her emotional centre without coming to terms with his friends and family or the inner circle of his community and a wo/man cannot come to terms with her/his intellectual centre without coming to terms with her/his community. The intellectual centre is there for the sole purpose of understanding the laws that govern the life of human development through love or social responsibility. Objective social responsibility, or the balanced practice, the dialogue between the individual and the community are an expression of what mankind has achieved through its struggles from the Priest-King to the Individual through actual life on Earth. From one angle, all mankind has been learning is to “share the cake” like a child growing up: to share Earth. The consciousness or unconsciousness with which we share the cake is the reflection of our level of being. The same struggles that the ‘I’ has to go through to acquire integrity in an individual through work on balancing the various realms of his being are socially fought in the struggles mankind as a whole has to experience to develop a balanced community. The imbalance in mankind’s treatment of nature, the development of cities and concentration of industries at the service of a few men’s economic benefit and the detriment of a huge majority of people’s well being and the loss of human, (emotional) communities; the political organization that protects these state of things or the use of the intellectual centre at the service of the instinctive centre of those in power are all expressions of mankind’s level of being.
Tuning the strings of our inner as well as our outer lives is the aim of the Fourth Way: The Way of Life and it is alive and well! The Fellowship of Friends did not manage to kill it!
I must run, please allow me to correct later.
It is very strange. I went to the erowid website and found a picture and short bio of Gurdjieff. I went to the Greenearthfoundation website and found a whole bunch about Gurdjieff.
My “magnetic center” took me to the Fellowship Of friends and Robert Burton and I found no Gurdjieff. I guess that says alot about the formation of my “magnetic center”.
ton (35),
That link was interesting too, thanks!
Elena, a COMMUNITY college is awaiting your ‘presence’ to teach a class in humanities.
I trying to connect dots: The websites I’ve visited including this one say this to me.
The Monochromatic Knight a friend of Mr. Shiek wrote an article which included quotes from a book written by John Perkins (The Confessions of an Economic Hitman). Mr. Perkins if I remember worked for the United States Government as an economic manipulator in various countries. At the present time he interacts with Ecuadorian Shamans. The Shamans of South America have a notion called “the prophecy of the Condor and Eagle.
The Condor represents the Heart, Intution and the Mystical. The Eagle represents the Brain, Rational and Material.
The Greenearth foundation website has articles about the cycles of human activity. Including passages from Gurdjieffs Beelzebub. Everything so far is pointing to a major cycle of Change.
Robert Earl Burton is pointing to 2011 as his major departure date. At the 2011 website it too talks about a human activity shift.
The “plant eaters” have been looking to the “other side” for hundreds of years and have been taught. The “art” of expectation.
And the dots? Gurdjieffs arrival for the West. Shaman’s use of Salvia, 2011, the Union of the Condor and Eagle and Robert Burton’s unfolding of self.
This blog has brought patronizing to the level of Art.
It is quite interesting to see that there are some simple facts that most of those who express their opinions here fail to understand.
It is your free choice to leave the school and it is your free right to have whatever opinion about it and express it in anyway you want and in fact you are doing it quite diligently.
Yet, what seems to be quite odd is your complete & total lack of understanding that there are many students who sincerely and deeply follow the teaching based on their deepest understanding of how important striving for presence is for them and how important it is for them to be in the best environment for practicing presence i.e. the school under the guidance of the teacher.
This is a fact. No matter how many times you will be rewinding your tapes and spill your words here, you cannot ignore the fact that students stay or join the school out of their own free will. You are all eager to totally ignore this side of the equation.
Your claim that whoever left the school is “free” and those who stay or join are in “captivity” is pathetic.
35 ton
My first 2-3 weeks in the Fellowship of Friends was one of the most intense and pleasurable experiences in my life. I was literally high as a kite, and felt flooded with a kind of pure joy. I had so much energy I could barely sleep during that time. I thought it was some kind of proof that I had found the real thing. What you say about endorphins sounds exactly right. As with all drugs, no matter how good, there is always the other shoe to drop. I spent the remaining years in the FOF becoming more and more miserable, trying and utterly failing to recapture that initial bliss.
36 elena
I’ve spent a lot of time in Sweden. You may be at least partially right about the breakdown of family and community. The institution of marriage has become less important, and many couples co-habit and have children without ever becoming married — not a judgment, just an observation. Also, religion is almost non-existent, having nearly completely died out. It may be like what Fellowship members used to say about Marin County — when I moved there from the East Coast, I was warned by more than one person that that is where people go to leave the school. They said that it was so perfect there, you got to where you no longer felt you needed the Fellowship. The Marin Center at that time had about 30 or more official members, but only like 3 ever came to meetings regularly. After a couple of years, I left the school. But I think I was on my way out anyway. After years and years of people saying how “wonderful” it was at Renaissance, when I finally got there I found the place utterly depressing and kind of bleak. I guess in the end I wasn’t “good student” material.
But in terms of suicide in Sweden, I think it may have more to do with the incredibly dark winters, and the depression that many people experience from the lack of sunlight. But those other things may well be factors.
41 psychic
“This blog has brought patronizing to the level of Art.”
“Your claim that whoever left the school is “free” and those who stay or join are in “captivity” is pathetic.”
You are expressing negative emotions, Psychic. Sounds like your lower self speaking.
“It is quite interesting to see that there are some simple facts that most of those who express their opinions here fail to understand.”
It’s all so clear once you fall under the spell of the cult. Sadly, you life people will never get it.
“Yet, what seems to be quite odd is your complete & total lack of understanding that there are many students who sincerely and deeply follow the teaching based on their deepest understanding of how important striving for presence is for them and how important it is for them to be in the best environment for practicing presence i.e. the school under the guidance of the teacher.”
The main thing this “Teacher” has to offer can be found much cheaper on countless yucky male porno websites.
“This is a fact. No matter how many times you will be rewinding your tapes and spill your words here, you cannot ignore the fact that students stay or join the school out of their own free will.”
Free will? I thought “man cannot do”?
Please keep your messages coming Psychic. I thought the blog was about to die out a few weeks ago, then your “invitation” got people actively posting again. Thanks!
41 Psychic
You’re a loser.
41/Psychic
You state that many FOF members remain so “out of their own free will.” I gather that you find odious the suggestion that FOF members’ ability to choose is compromised or impaired in some way.
I ask you, is your will “free”? Assuming you say “yes,” what process did you go through to come to that conclusion? Did you examine only your subjective sense that you were freely choosing? Do you believe that such subjective sense is the only thing you need to examine to conclude that you are choosing freely? Do you concede the possibility that something outside of your conscious awareness may influence your choices?
In confidence schemes the mark seems to be “choosing freely.” Only later does he discover his choice to have been manipulated, his vulnerabilities discovered and exploited.
40 Arthur: “And the dots? Gurdjieffs arrival for the West. Shaman’s use of Salvia, 2011, the Union of the Condor and Eagle and Robert Burton’s unfolding of self.”
You’re joking, right?
40 Arthur: “And the dots? Gurdjieffs arrival for the West. Shaman’s use of Salvia, 2011, the Union of the Condor and Eagle and Robert Burton’s unfolding of self.”
You’re joking ( I hope)?
Psychic says: ‘you cannot ignore the fact that students stay or join the school out of their own free will.’
I believe students join the school out of idealism, hope and naivete.
Students leave after regaining a part of their ‘free will’; after they have realize that they do have a choice. And then sometimes they don’t realize it and stay, which I would consider a lack of free will, or a lack of understanding they have a choice.
There seem to be many layers and ‘personal stuff’ that one has to go through in ones life. The idea that free will is taking place upon joining or staying seems kind of ludicrous to me as it takes time to develop and is a process that usually leads to leaving the Fellowship
ton,
Somehow I missed your 480 on page 29. I’m late but thanks.
Wow, good news. Psychsick almost had a thought, retarded as it was.
Nuthead (46),
My dots. When I pretend that each dot is an LSD dot carrying with it all the information related to it they add up. I believe the current consensual reality states that everything is inner-connected. Some are aware of the connectedness, some suspect and some take the dogs for a walk.
The discussion on this page has taken some odd directions.
Salvia:
Many of us took loads of drugs in our earlier years - I certainly did - partly in a spirit of experimentation, partly from a feeling of “there must be more to life than this”. Innernaut’s descriptions are quite familiar. The enthusiasm for altered states fed right in to the decision to join the FOF.
Now, decades later, my experience is that states produced by drugs, self-remembering, meditation and the like, are only temporary. They can be fun, interesting, intense but they don’t have any connection with what is known as awakening or enlightenment. Ultimately they just substitute one illusion for another.
Predictions (2011, 2012, whatever):
No one is capable of predicting the future. These theories are nothing but mind candy, fun but insubstantial. How can we possibly give them creedence after our experiences with Mr. Burton? Surely we learnt something from our years of delusion?
Rumi poetry:
It’s not Rumi, it’s not poetry. It’s the Hallmark card version of spirituality: bland, reassuring, soporific.
Eg: “Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there”
That “eventually” is exactly what enables pseudo-teachers like RB to continue shearing the sheep.
Reality is right here, right now - there’s nothing else, nowhere to go.
The discussion on this page has taken some odd directions.
Salvia:
Many of us took loads of drugs in our earlier years - I certainly did - partly in a spirit of experimentation, partly from a feeling of “there must be more to life than this”. Innernaut’s descriptions are quite familiar. The enthusiasm for altered states fed right in to the decision to join the FOF.
Now, decades later, my experience is that states produced by drugs, self-remembering, meditation and the like, are only temporary. They can be fun, interesting, intense but they don’t have any connection with what is known as awakening or enlightenment. Ultimately they just substitute one illusion for another.
Predictions (2011, 2012, whatever):
No one is capable of predicting the future. These theories are nothing but mind candy, fun but insubstantial. How can we possibly give them creedence after our experiences with Mr. Burton? Surely we learnt something from our years of delusion?
Rumi poetry:
It’s not Rumi, it’s not poetry. It’s the Hallmark card version of spirituality: bland, reassuring, soporific.
Eg: “Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there”
That “eventually” is exactly what enables pseudo-teachers like RB to continue shearing the sheep.
Reality is right here, right now - there’s nothing else, nowhere to go. Except maybe to take the dog for a walk.
Psychic (41),
I’ve been reading this blog since the beginning and only missed one or two pages.
I submit to you that what Whalerider, Bruce, Elena and others have said about the evilness of the Fellowship of Friends is even partially true then it is not a school for enlightenment, religious instruction or spirituality.
I’m not an intellectual by any stretch of my imagination, but if you want to touch swords with the “regulars” on this blog bring sanitary napkins. These former Fellowship people know how to poke they learned well from Robert Burton.
Psychic 30/41: Nice. It sounds like Psychic is speaking with his own voice for the first time, rather than spewing out predigested soundbites of a propaganda machine. I would call that progress, which doesn’t immediately need to be stampeded down as “retarded loser”. Simply insulting him terminates thought just as much as any RB cliché about the dangers of the lower self. Maybe he is at the point where he (or his comrades) can start investigating his mind, even if most people here would disagree with his opinions.
Psychic says: “[t]here are many students who sincerely and deeply follow the teaching based on their deepest understanding of how important striving for presence is for them and how important it is for them to be in the best environment for practicing presence i.e. the school under the guidance of the teacher.”
He is completely right. Weren’t we all “sincerely and deeply” at one point? I, for one, do not count myself among people who have a “complete and total lack of understanding” of that fact.
If there is anything to argue about in his post, it is the definition of “free will”. (“Students stay or join the school out of their own free will.”) Perhaps that could lead to an interesting discussion.
I would speculate that in his post, Psychic is (perhaps unconsciously) attempting to simplify the situation down to the point where he can say “Your claim that whoever left the school is “free” and those who stay or join are in “captivity” is pathetic.” In saying that, he is again right. I think that such a claim would indeed be pathetic. The question is, is anyone making that claim? Maybe that is another point for discussion.
In my opinion, it is not about officially ceasing membership in the FoF. It is about an internal shift in attitude, which often happens to coincide with formally ending membership. But not all people who leave, leave for the same reasons, and some who leave may continue to be psychologically dependent on the FoF for many years (“not free”). On the other hand, there may be people who are formally members but have a high level of autonomy and would be considered extreme “outer circle”, who are much more free than others who leave but remain psychologically dependent. And on the third hand, there are people (such as Psychic) who actually enjoy and sincerely believe Robert Burton’s teaching, and resent attempts from the outside to “rescue” them, as insulting and patronizing intolerance. In my opinion, they are right. It is patronizing and personally disrespectful to try to rescue someone who believes differently than you, no matter how deluded you feel they are.
Thank you Nuthead.
JUST A THOUGHT
This has nothing to do with effort.
This has nothing to do with understanding.
Nothing to do with process, nothing to do with praxis.
Nothing to do with lack of process or praxis.
This is not about seeing anything new, or getting rid of anything old.
This is not something the mind could ever grasp. Nor does the mind need to give up its grasping.
This is nothing personal, nor does it have anything to do with the “impersonal”.
This is not about choiceless awareness, or seeing through the ego, or self-enquiry.
This cannot be expressed using concepts. Nor will it ever be expressed in the absence of concepts.
This is not about words. Not even these words.
This is not about getting anywhere.
This has nothing to do with any kind of future achievement.
This is not about following a path: there is no path, although there may be the idea of “a path”.
This is not about reaching a higher state: there are no higher states, although there may be concepts about “higher states”.
This is not about becoming anything, although beliefs about that may arise too.
This is certainly not about “putting an end to the I”. Only an “I” would want that.
This is most definitely not about “becoming more present” - the present was never lost in the first place.
This is not about waiting for an event called liberation - that would require time, and a “me” who would eventually become liberated.
This has nothing to do with going “beyond” anything - there is nothing to go beyond, and nobody who could go beyond even if they wanted to.
This is not about enlightenment. There is no such thing as enlightenment.
This is not about awakening. There is no such thing as awakening.
This is not about enlightened individuals passing on their understanding. That’s a good story, and a compelling one, but it’s just a story, and has no deeper reality.
This is not something that could be of any use to anyone.
This is not something that anyone would ever want.
But no matter - the “me” who would want this is just a thought anyway.
Just a thought.
See? Psychic really does do good things for this blog. Almost like an ex-student posing as a blind follower to stir the pot. But either way it works.
Thanks Arthur but they’ll probably need a super title in paper or someone in high places that can override all the demands before they can recognize the value of the presentation and not make fun of it.
Innernaut 42, that is very valuable, thank you for reading and appearing to understand the connections which have taken me a year to grasp.
This evening is the only lunar eclpse this year and will not repeat for ten years,….if I understood it right on the news.
Yes Traveller and Yesri Baba, Psychic is thinking. Congratulations Psychic! It is good to see you getting a little more desperate with the lack of arguments to present even to your own self. Yes, students are in the Fellowship of Friends by their own will but what the Fellowship of Friends is actually giving them has nothing to do with what they are looking for just like when one goes to a University and realizes they don’t teach wisdom there, just fact.
In the Fellowship they don’t even teach facts, they indoctrinate you to accept blindly. Open your eyes before you really go blind!
41 Psychic
“It is your free choice to leave the school and it is your free right to have whatever opinion about it and express it in anyway you want and in fact you are doing it quite diligently.”
Attention all current FOF members reading the Blog!!!!
Here you have the truth, directly from the voice of the Fellowship, the great Oz. YOU ARE NOW FREE TO LEAVE. Yes! You can go now, class is dismissed. Time to find out if you can fly on you own power.
Nuthead (53): Now, decades later, my experience is that states produced by drugs, self-remembering, meditation and the like, are only temporary. They can be fun, interesting, intense but they don’t have any connection with what is known as awakening or enlightenment. Ultimately they just substitute one illusion for another.
I don’t know, the states themselves seem to be temporary but the lessons you can take from these states can be long lasting/permanent (if only by realizing that a different state produces different thoughts which produce different emotions, different reactions…). Also, any and all states can be used as tools to some goal, anything from MDMA to salvia, DMT or ayahuasca has found uses in psychotherapy, shamanism and general search for well-being among some sub-cultures. People like Leary, Wilson, McKenna and many others would (have) argue(d) that drugs serve a purpose in awakening/enlightenment (a short-cut if you will), Alan Watts would have said that they show you where to go (’once you get the message, hang up the phone’). From personal experience states make some realizations easier to obtain (the work comes after the state, including the ‘realizing’), they can also strengthen personal (true) will which seems to be at the very bottom (top) of it all.
I would not disregard them, at the very least they are a kick in the butt that can turn people in a different direction. Surely, they are not a proof of anything other than that we (the modern we who want to know how everything operates) do not understand how, on what basis and why we function the way we do.
# Psychic
“One must patiently allow for time to align one’s being with one’s knowledge”.
R.Burton 18.04.77
Good luck.
60 Sheik
The principal lasting lesson for me is that “normal reality” is a construction of the mind.
But unlike Leary, McKenna and friends, I don’t see drug states as a short cut to awakening. It was extraordinary merging with the universe while on LSD, but there was no long term result other than the wish to attain that kind of state without drugs, which led to joining the FOF. After two decades of struggling to achieve this aim, I realised that the efforts espoused by the FOF/4th Way lead nowhere.
Now there’s a deep awareness that “higher states” are in fact not any more real or profound than the state I’m in now.
60 the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion
Nuthead (53): Now, decades later, my experience is that states produced by drugs, self-remembering, meditation and the like, are only temporary. They can be fun, interesting, intense but they don’t have any connection with what is known as awakening or enlightenment. Ultimately they just substitute one illusion for another.
I don’t know, the states themselves seem to be temporary but the lessons you can take from these states can be long lasting/permanent (if only by realizing that a different state produces different thoughts which produce different emotions, different reactions…).
—————–
I wonder what we all/any of us mean by awakening and enlightenment. It may be different for each person, and what we believe it to be is encased in the layers of mesh and filters that we experience and interpret everything through, so I don’t see how the “truth” about enlightenment can be anything but subjective.
Having said that . . .
I would agree with Nuthead that altered states substitute one illusion for another — IF the exploration stops there.
As Sheik says, the lessons learned can be long-lasting. Changes can be set in motion that sometimes have a profound and lasting impact. If we just go back to beer and the shopping network (or Gucci and the Met), then the state was probably no more than interesting entertainment.
It’s all in what is done with it.
Does it lead to “enlightenment”? I don’t know. What’s enlightenment?
When I wake up early in the morning,
Lift my head, I’m still yawning
When I’m in the middle of a dream
Stay in bed, float up stream
Please don’t wake me, no
don’t shake me
Leave me where I am
I’m only sleeping
Everybody seems to think I’m lazy
I don’t mind, I think they’re crazy
Running everywhere at such a speed
Till they find, there’s no need
Please don’t spoil my day
I’m miles away
And after all
I’m only sleeping
Keeping an eye on the world going by my window
Taking my time
Lying there and staring at the ceiling
Waiting for a sleepy feeling
Please don’t spoil my day
I’m miles away
And after all
I’m only sleeping
Keeping an eye on the world going by my window
Taking my time
When I wake up early in the morning,
Lift my head, I’m still yawning
When I’m in the middle of a dream
Stay in bed, float up stream
Please don’t wake me, no
don’t shake me
Leave me where I am
I’m only sleeping
Lennon/McCartney
Psychic, what’s your take on the fact that Robert Burton is hang up in the past because he cannot place his vision into the future after failing for thirty five years to even experience a decent intuition? If he were truly present he would not be trying to justify himself with the past.
He’s digging dinosaurs because he has to make something up to keep students busy and believing but his level of fantasy is not nearly as amusing as the Fellowship pretends. He’s actually trying to find his own essence in that digging but at this point, he’s lost complete trace of it. It’s painfully pathetic.
Appreciated your post Sheik. If everything you said could be connected to levels of being then each experience could increase or decrease the level of being of the subject. Too many drugs or mushrooms and the I gets lost in a limbo of incomprehensible realms of the instinctive centre. They, sacred mushrooms or plants, do seem to open up realms that are already within one, the physical DNA of the world of the spirit is codified in the instinctive centre or each human being’s body. They seem to do it though at the cost of depressing the sense of self when they are as widely abused as they are in modern times.
The practice of sacred plants with the guidance of a guru today can be replaced by the practice of self remembering or presence and the acquisition of a higher state or the accessing of a higher realm through the concentration of one’s own energy or trust. The emotion of trust has its own magic. The ‘I’ penetrating its different realms both inside and outside the individual (for consciousness encompasses them both). Both the outside and the inside meet in the individual.
There’s a great difference between the realms perceived in drugs of any kind and the realms perceived by allowing the I to surface. Realms perceived by external means, no matter how sacred, will give the individual a view of natural realms, which are not for that reason less sacred. But realms perceived through the appearance of the ‘I’ give the individual a view of spiritual realities connected to human evolution. The capacity to actualize those visions reveals the level of understanding that the individual reached with the experience. A whole lifetime can take to actualize the integrity of such experiences. They finally become “the flower”, the outer expression of that individual’s inner experience.
I wonder what the karmic consequences are these days for sincerely aiding and abetting a delusional deviant?
As always, I got nothing.
Hey My Sheik
Don’t know how you found me where you did, but so glad you did, you saved me from myself. Thank you. Thank you.
Probably, no one in the world would have picked up on the implication from those three or four words, all that implication, subtle, but wrong, with all my heart I knew it was wrong. Feeling vindictive, and put upon, lashing out in the most cruel way.
Vous m’avez sauvé
Clean slate
Cake
41 Psychic
Uh, yeah, about that “log that’s in your own eye” thingie…
Obviously, M. Psychic has missed the most important fact that separates those who are in from those who are out.
Bloggers are almost all people who once said they
sincerely and deeply follow the teaching based on their deepest understanding of how important striving for presence is
However, we now have information, knowledge, experience that is denied to M. Psychic; what you understand when you leave the insane asylum of the FoF. Since Psychic still resides there, he cannot know what it is like outside but persists in trying to “correct” us. Unsurprising arrogance, that.
. . .
Interesting discussion on NPR today in which author Susan Jacoby was making a point of the difference between anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism, that is, the belief in something that is contradicted by observable facts. For instance, it is anti-rational to suggest that 2 + 2 = 5. Sounded strangely familiar to me, I wonder why…. ?
JoelF
I’m with you Joel. I don’t believe Sidekick is “starting to think” at all. I think he’s the same fucking moron that he’s been all along. I’ll leave it to others to be magnanimous to this putz. We all gave the Flying Faerie the benefit of the doubt once too often, I’m not going to waste it on a mindless drone. If anyone here thinks Sidekick is starting to use his noodle for a change I have a very nice bridge to sell, and it’s been blessed by 44 invisible lunatics.
66 Mick Danger
At the very least, considerable psychological damage occurs - loss of the ability to think for oneself or to distinguish right from wrong, or to function normally in “life”, a general weakening of one’s being and life force, an increasing tendency to negate the reality of anything that disagrees with FOF dogma (even when excruciatingly obvious), deferral to a future lifetime of the possibility of spiritual awakening, schizoid separation from one’s true nature (”lower self”), increased tension and anxiety caused by suppression of negative emotions, acquisition of phony “good student” act, decreased ability to recognise or feel genuine emotions (both positive and negative), etc., etc.
That’s just for the average dupe. I suspect the effects are considerably more severe for those who know about RB’s corruption and try to cover it up, especially if they’re involved in recruiting new members, and even more so if they’re actively pimping.
70 Nuthead
Now, don’t hold back.
63 waskathleenw
“I would agree with Nuthead that altered states substitute one illusion for another — IF the exploration stops there.
As Sheik says, the lessons learned can be long-lasting. Changes can be set in motion that sometimes have a profound and lasting impact.”
* * *
It has been that way for me. There are things that were seen and experienced some 35 years ago that still serve as a guide. You could say they did lead me also to fof, but for me personally, they also led me back out of it. The most powerful thing in several of those experiences was precisely what Pensate un attimo said, “Just a thought”.
And thank you Pensate un attimo for that post at 56.
Psychic:
The choice to stay in the Fellowship of Friends is not free. It is very expensive. Payment is required. Robert uses fear for your soul as leverage and collateral. But the oldest trick in marketing is to make the consumer feel inadequate so they are motivated to buy your product in order to compensate. Most consumers are brand loyal.
And the choice to leave will save you more than just money.
To Psychic:
Would you explain how you justify and understand Robert’s sexual and financial improprieties? I would appreciate a rational and thoughtful answer, not just a repetion of the current dogma. I am not challenging you. I would sincerely like to hear how you explain these things to yourself.
You must have thought about this and come up with some answer for yourself. I don’t think anyone who is “in” has yet offered an explanation that makes sense.
73 whalerider
“Robert uses fear for your soul as leverage and collateral.”
* * *
I think that is one of the main answers to a question I have often asked myself and here on the blog in relation to what keeps the students ‘locked in’ to the fellowship of friends, even after perhaps being exposed to the information this blog produces.
It is fear. I remember some part inside of me cringing the first time I heard Robert say (paraphrased),
“For those who find a real school and lose it, it would have been better had they never been born.”
Boy O Boy!! That can be a pretty deep hook.
Talking about ’states’ in flatland. I would guess we would have a mighty laugh reading some of this hogwash with who we are in the foreground.
That’s one way I look at ’states’- me moving in and out of me, from background to foreground. Sure they’re all temporary in passing except for the me part.
Funny we say it is just exchanging one illusion for another. This is because we focus on and remember the illusory part of the experience and not the qualities of the experiencer.
I don’t advocate the use of drugs particularly. I kind of like what the Sheik said and the Alan Watts quote. I do think it is an experience some people should have to get an look at different ‘dimensions’.
Some of this distorted flatland pseudo neo-advaidist clap trap really frosts me.
Definitly like what Nisgaradatta had to say when asked about drugs:
“What drug did you take to get in the state you are in now?”
Thanks again James for ‘Sunrise Ruby”. I have never read Rumi. That poem is the most beautiful, concise depiction of realization I have ever read.
Nuthead 62 “It was extraordinary merging with the universe while on LSD…”
The night of my 21st birthday I went to a party some friends were throwing in the country, by a lake. I dropped a hit of “windowpane” and spent much of the evening perched up in a tree. I had the experience of “merging with the tree” and later that night I “saw god.” With the ruby sunrise I came down from the trip and the tree and I made a decision that would determine the course for the rest of my life — I reasoned that this state I had experienced is within me and as such I should be able to live in a state of “god-realization” without the use of a drug. So my quest to find “a way” to live in higher states began in earnest, I became a sort of “zealot.” Initially the search involved reading about descriptions of higher states and “methods” of attainment… I soon found a copy of “The 4th Way” which happened to have a FOF bookmark in it and the rest is, as they say, “history” — part of which has been related in the pages of this site.
You wrote: “…but there was no long term result other than the wish to attain that kind of state without drugs, which led to joining the FOF.”
I would say for me, that there is indeed a long term result and joining the FOF was part of it but as it turned out it was “somewhat” of a deviation… “states” may be transitory but that original experience still informs who and what I am, for “better” and for “worse.”
I would echo the question asked by waskathleenw (63) because it seems central to what motivated many of us here to get involved with the FOF in the first place… “What’s enlightenment?” (neti neti).
Elena 65 thanks for your insights here: You wrote in part: “The practice of sacred plants with the guidance of a guru…”
IMO the “plant teachers” are in and of themselves the “guru”– they can be seen as individual entities with their own unique character and lessons to impart… encountering these teachers is in certain ways identical to encountering another being… in other words, the experiences are not of the “I” but can be transmuted to become part of who and what one is. I would agree with you that the experiences gained from encounters of the sort under discussion are not to be substituted for development of the “I” through what we know as “working on oneself” — and this is not intended as an endorsement of using the “plant teachers” as a short cut to “enlightenment” — but I thought I might do a bit of reflecting here since I have had certain experiences with them… for what it’s worth.
76 baba: “What drug did you take to get in the state you are in now?”
endogenous considerations…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine
“How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with say, my knowledge of my room…”
Kafka
Ton: As regards BLTC, the only worry I have is this:
We are on the brink of a revolution in reproductive medicine. Decoding the human genome allows us to choose the genetic make-up of our offspring. The ethical choices we make - and the ethical choices made by our children and grandchildren - will determine how much or how little suffering exists in the world. Participating in the imminent post-Darwinian transition just means making - and persuading other prospective parents to make - informed reproductive decisions about just what kinds of (post-)human beings we want to exist. On the one hand, we can opt to retain the legacy wetware of our hominid ancestors. This choice entails condemning our children and grandchildren to a genetic predisposition to suffering and malaise. Or alternatively, we may decide that our descendants should enjoy lifelong mental health. Gradients of intelligent bliss can be the genetically preprogrammed backdrop to everyday life.
This part and some others on the website painfully remind me of the Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The only things needed in order to arrive at Huxley’s vision of society (ie. the only ones that do not operate already) are genetic programming (of the kind that BLTC seems to be thinking of) and soma (the notion of which is also touched upon on the website).
Scary scary scary. Or am I the only one who (almost without alternative) sees it from that angle?
Reading further, I found a response to my reaction - the last point on the website is an essay on why the Brave New World is a tragic piece of literature that has slowed down research in the area of genetic engineering and the search for ’soma’ (an insane notion).
Sadly, all I could find on the website was a proposition for global happiness and the ways through which that could be achieved, I think that the term they used was ‘abolition of suffering’. It seems that they missed the point - suffering is usually a reaction to something, it is not an irrational (uncaused) phenomenon. Like pain, it is an indicator. Like pain, sometimes it breaks down and over-indicates (in my opinion, there is no reason why we should feel constant pain, such as with arthritis, or polio), equally some depression is so over-bearing that it prevents any action to resolve it. So there is space for drugs, genetic engineering (and what have you) to reduce suffering and re-balance our brains and nervous systems, but to ‘abolish it’ frankly seems insane.
Happiness is as much (in its strength) of a behaviour-influencer as sadness, anxiety, or depression. It’s more pleasurable to behave according to the feeling of happiness, it is more pleasurable to feel happy, but somehow (extreme or ceaseless) happiness doesn’t seem to be the right state for introspection, self-change, or anything else really but hedonism (the search for pleasure). Contentment perhaps, happiness no, not for life.
Having said all that, the website is a brilliant resource on legal and illegal drugs and their uses and effects.
‘pyschic’ 41:
“It is quite interesting to see that…”
About 30 years ago someone in the fof decided this phrase would somehow get everyone to drop everything and listen.
The phrase caught on and never went away.
But no one ever closes the interesting stuff by saying, “Now, the REST of what I am about to say is not interesting at all, and I have nothing particularly enlightening to impart to the conversation, so you can all relax now as I ramble on indefinitely.”
Vena (74),
You ask a fair question:
“To Psychic: Would you explain how you justify and understand Robert’s sexual and financial improprieties?”
And I really like your follow-up comments:
“I would appreciate a rational and thoughtful answer, not just a repetition of the current dogma. I am not challenging you. I would sincerely like to hear how you explain these things to yourself.
“You must have thought about this and come up with some answer for yourself. I don’t think anyone who is “in” has yet offered an explanation that makes sense.”
I agree. Because then we’d truly have to think about it, and ask ourselves what it means FOR US that Burton is living his life the way he is living it.
70 Nuthead
So, other than the loss of a few bucks and a false sense of self-importance, there’s really no downside. Small price to pay for soul insurance.
“We all need someone we can dream on….” Jagger/Richards
Tea & Sympathy will be served elsewhere.
Psychic,
I check in on the blog every now and then to see if there is a different take on things and read your comment and some of the reactions.
I wrote on this blog in the past because I wanted to understand how ex students felt and also wanted to express my own opinions and experiences.
I have intervals with the FOF, and the Teacher, and do question things at times. But Psychic, at the end of the day we understand why we are here in the FOF; and trying to make others understand this is impossible; just like it is generally pointless for former students to convince current students that we are better off without the FOF.
I would not waste your time on this blog for there are very few bloggers here that have relativity and few who can debate the issues in civil way. The norm here is to be sarcastic, ridicule, judge and attack students who wish to express themselves. This blog is the playground for former students or students getting ready to leave the school, and it is better to just let them have it totally to themselves so they can heal; for when students enter it becomes a battlerground.
I love this show. It is, in many ways, the absolute opposite of everything Fellowship.
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/viva_la_bam/videos.jhtml
“I have intervals with the FOF, and the Teacher, and do question things at times. But Psychic, at the end of the day we understand why we are here in the FOF.”
Fat Boy, this is a great example of a thought terminating concept and spiritual bypassing. You’re saying that your doubts and questioning are characteristic of an interval, which when bridged brings you again to the realization of why you are in the FOF?
No need to feel any troublesome dissonance then right? It was a pesky interval but you made efforts and it passed and now you’re back on track, intoning your sequence and listening to no “I’s” unrelated to presence.
This is what people in cults do Fat Boy, and at the end of the day that’s how they are able to stay in spite of the obvious absurdities. If you can see this tendency to bypass for what it is, you might also see how and why you are still in the FOF.
Good Luck,
Leonhardon.
If you are a student in the Fellowship of Friends and are reading this blog, even if you skip or dismiss every other post on this page, please read ‘post’ #85 by Leonhardon. Down in the middle of those doubts and the ‘intervals’ is a voice that does belong to you. That voice is trying to bring you something that is outside of the context you have been schooled in.