Welcome to the 32nd part of the Fellowship of Friends Discussion. For previous parts of the discussion please visit AnimamRecro or the Main page of this blog. For a more organized reading check out The Fellowship of Friends WikiSpace.
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Hi folks.
some of the people who said they would write a letter only did that, ie ( said they would ) because if they actually had written there would be more than the handful that have arrived at Susans.
There are no more than when a number of people promised to send one.
Am tempted to post the petition as it stands with the few letters that have actually arrived as it seems to be taking a lifetime……
http://fellowshipoffriends.wikispaces.com/
Once it is installed some fourthway sites belonging to real fourthway people have promised to install it on their sites thereby giving it world wide circulation.
jx
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to
welcome the ecstatic experience.”
~Emily Dickinson
some sugar to help the medicine down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Mw6b1T50U&feature=related
jx
to uno, ton and all the ayahuasca and coffee generation (thanks arthur, I wish the same for you).
A timely and interesting discussion on ayahuasca is going on right now at
http://www.realitysandwich.com/ayahuasca_monologues
check it out. There’s food for thought, and I think it complements well the different aspects that we’ve been trying to explore here.
Personally, I was rather struck by this sentence from one of the posts:
“If I did so I would be sacrificing dignity for divinity, which to me leads to cultish activity.”
I am going to try to keep that one in mind….
Laura ~
If anything we were not taught in the Fellowship of Friends it was to trust ourselves and to learn how to be alone-together with ourselves, not alone-alone with the outer world mirroring what has traumatized our inner world doors in closing tight, almost airtight in certain ‘key’ areas.
If you trust yourself, then, you will not become an ayahuasca movie star: I know a few and they always get their asses kicked by Grandma, yet, they also know (when you get them to the campfire side and access their conscience) that their ego is a rising and falling tidal wave that controls them in some way beyond what they feel deeper they wish to be (after the fact they’ve been otherwise)… So, reminders, reminders and they keep going on the path rubbing their butts;
its a very humbling and one of the most human portraits I have ever witnessed to see one of these ‘divinities’ or ‘dressed in white righteous ones’ bent over and being bum rushed by Shakti.
Please do not worry, trust yourself; the only place a person can take that imagined sense of “divinity” is outside their soul, which, ironically enough, it just the yeast that makes grandma’s biscuits rise.
Trust your heart and sincerity will always be your ‘demon’, so far as ‘The Golden Compass’ goes.
________________
TRUST
Thanks Laura, will check it.
On the same topic:
‘uno’ on the previous page #312 you write,
among other things:
“So far as not being able to access those places without ayahuasca, well, that would not be fair to say really; not every spiritual ‘Love Dog’ lives in Africa or South America…”
I might partly agree with you here, it depends again on what you mean when you refer to “those places.” maybe we’re talking about different things… maybe not. locale and substances, (I would agree) are beside the point…
“not every spiritual love dog…” ?
seems too like you do a little comparison of and against “something else.” another’s frame of reference for example, putting yourself into the psyche of these other “spiritual love dogs,” “Tibetan monks,” “Buddhist monks also drink ayahuasca,” and etc. that’s not a criticism… but it does come off sounding a bit like, in your own words: “license to talk about things and use those very things we have never experienced…. so to make a comparison with something else…” taken in context, your statement here almost sounds like an attempt to shut down the topic of conversation with your “heavy heart” (?) a topic of some discussion on the previous page has in part come out of your own experience with your ‘grandmother’ ayahuasca (now there’s a symbol… it is through the digestion / interpretation of experience that symbols come into use to convey meaning… the experience itself is, as you know, another story)… ‘grandmother’ has served here as your frame of reference or at least a girder in the frame… and you don’t do drugs, right? ‘medicine’ yes but not ‘drugs’… (I think I understand). I would agree with the implications by whalerider, elena and others that once you get the message you hang-up the phone… it’s a necessary part of processing the “information rich” experience, this part of the “trip” as elena puts it, may take years or a lifetime…. or more. if you’ve been following my story here you know that part of the reason for my involvement in the fellowship of friends was connected to my attempt to find a “natural” alternative to accessing higher dimensions of consciousness revealed (to me) after ingesting ‘medicine’ on the night of my 21st birthday. After that experience and for many years I operated with the supposition that it must be possible to access “such states” or “those places” through “a system,” certain exercises, physical exhaustion, meditation, chanting, breathing, dance, trance induction, whirling, yoga postures, sleep deprivation, fasting, sensory deprivation, body-work, “magikal” rites, rituals, and etc, etc… I was searching for “access” without the use of “artificial substances.” Well, I’ve changed my mind about that. maybe ya’ll know something I don’t but based on my experience, although it is possible to alter states of consciousness through what some might refer to as “natural” means, the states that are created are not the same and comparisons fall far short. as for the processing of the experience: post experience, there are realizations one is given to work with, maybe that’s what you mean ‘uno’ when you say “those places” — the experience itself is another matter — IMO. as I’m writing this, the face of a man I used to pass by when living on the streets keeps flashing before my mind’s eye… he was as they say “stark raving” but not in a violent or aggressive way, his eyes were “wild,” wide-open, it seemed to me as though he was “seeing” things about which he was unable to communicate — maybe he was a permanent inhabitant of “those places” as ‘uno’ says or “such states” as elena puts it…. (or maybe he was just “crazy” — whatever that means). I’ve read about meher baba’s work with the “masts” in india which might point to examples of individuals who have “natural” or in some cases permanent access to “those places” and “such states” but it seems to me, as far as that goes, the inability to regulate the “state” would be it’s own circle of hell… “regulating” seems to be where the plants can come into it… ya I agree conscience has a lot to do with what is revealed…. but it goes far beyond what we normally think of as “the personal.” (disclamer: I realize this is all coming from my own perspective and is therefore limited and biased). :~)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(Sufism)
Jack (1),
Mine is hand printed out, signed, sealed in an enveloped, addressed to Susan Zannos and stamped.
My mail lady just left. I don’t own a car but if I have chance I’ll mail it today. Tomorrow for sure.
Yes, spring is here (at least in Florence), finally.
Doesn’t it feel great?
Time to wake up and come out of your caves, little bears, and you too Little Suzy, come on.
They are not good hiding places these days anyhow; you risk running into cultish people waiting for the end of the world, or even counting rhino poops (or, what’s worse, doing both at the same time)
Better enjoy the free sunshine and beautiful nature blossoming all around… and inside
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8tgIMB5rU9I&feature=related
‘ton’ ~
Thank you. The reference to ‘Love Dogs’ is from Rumi, this ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF4_KZfIfVI
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The using of ‘Grandmother’ for the ayahuasca vine is not my metaphor, it’s what ‘they’ call it, in the amazon, etc.
I believe when you say that I am putting myself in the psyche of the other spiritual love dogs, well, only if it’s the kind Coleman Barks is quoting Rumi… I believe, in the context to Rumi, that we are all ‘Love dogs’… Please look at the Youtube video, I think you’ll understand/feel better where I am coming from; I am most definitely not squeezing myself in the movie theater between any class of kind of person, actually I am right now writing back and forth with two people associated with guidance I seek, so, thanks for watching my back though (and riding shotgun), it can happen in here…
___________________
So far as “artificial substances”; the same ‘molecule gateway’ found in ayahuasca is produced by the human body, some have found that it is produced in several areas of the body, the lungs being one of them, this would explain the parallel that holotropic breathing possesses; those Tibetan monks are not hopping up in down in the lotus position for nothing, they are creating DMT, IMO.
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Yes, I believe there are ‘masts’ in America, actually everywhere.
Maybe the sense of the “shut down” is simply because it was written at the end of the post and that I was actually shutting down for the morning; yet, maybe there’s material there for me, a kind of ‘I want to have the last say and exclamation it with my heart.’ Very possible, there’s wormy little fellas crawling everywhere these days…
Did you know that the Hopi Indians are said to be descendants of the Aztecs? Now there’s a bit of a spark; maybe I will try to visit there this summer, wanna go?
__________________________________________
:.)
‘uno’ 8
you write among other things:
“…wanna go?”
ya, (hopi or aztec?)… that is unless I do the more responsible thing, stay here, work on this place so it can be sold. if i follow the pattern of the last several years, during july-august i lose my ’self’ on the road… i’m a photographer (among other things)… it’s a good way to meet people on the road, on-the-other-hand there are situations where you meet people you’d rather not. couple years back i visited hopi sites, “4 corners” is an interesting region but it can get overrun with the touristas that time o year… I was touring generally, it was vacation, no particular place to go but one destination was “the peyote way church of god” — on the way I got jacked-up pretty good by local police outside albequerque… the policeman says:
license, insurance registration…
is there a problem officer?
illegal lane change,
huh?
didn’t leave your blinker on long enough…
oh…
anything in the vehicle that can hurt me?
that depends on what you mean…
do you have any knives, firearms, or explosives, in the vehicle?
no, your honor, sir.
what’s in the back ? (points to back of truck)
step out of the vehicle… (radios backup) then asks: what’s inside the camper? do you have any problem with me looking inside? and so on it went… won’t bore with more details. afterward I did not thank him, his parting words were: “we’re” (meaning the police), “we’re not all bad you know.” my reply: “I didn’t say you were, you said it.” had a couple of “run-ins” and near misses driving through az. and texas… texas is a place I avoid as much as possible (no offense texicans). would like to visit austin sometime but don’t want to brave driving the rest of the state to get there. i know, it can happen anywhere… heard horror stories about driving lousiana… used to live in georgia, birthplace for the concept “redneck cop.”
if aztec, you meant ’south of the border.’ that’s another story…
“got-a-lot-on-the-plate” right now, can’t think that far ahead with much definition / detail. let’s talk about it in 3 months or so.
thanks for the good vibrations ‘uno’ keep soundin’ em out…
like yesri said, its’ about working with the memes…
all the best to y’all
Dear uno, whalerider, elena et al,
I have been wanting to share my reports from the field here for a while, regarding at least a few of these matters, but I have a hard time catching up with what is going here. I resonate with so much that has been said in the past few days, it’s quite amazing.
Anyway, for a start, I ‘d like to share some of my experiences with holotropic breathwork. Funny thing is, I first found out about it by renting a videotape at Abraham G.’s library, which used to carry a neat selection of movies and documentaries. I was immediately captured by Stanislav Grof and the things he was saying, and made an inner committment to try out his breathwork techniques. This was just a few months before leaving the Fellowship. At that time I was reading books about the holographic paradigm, and trying to make sense of things my own way, as I had found Robert’s teaching in so many aspects to be utterly unsatisfactory. So, like many of you, I was looking for new ideas to take me to a different place. This by the way happened fourteen years ago, and I am mentioning this to point out that the processes which you are right now undergoing at light speed took a much longer time for me to be played out.
To make a long story short, after years of varied and interesting but not exactly “mind blowing” explorations (yoga, holodance, meditation, sweat lodges, re-evaluation counseling, tai chi etc.) I finally got to the place where I was ready to participate in an holotropic breathwork workshop. I drove about four hours to a secluded place in the hills where the session was going to take place. There were around 14 people.
I didn’t know anyone and felt a bit shy, but soon a very pretty and friendly young woman approached me asking if I would be her sitter. It was her third time and she was very enthusiastic about it. What a relief. So I sat down close to her as she did her breathing. For the next three hours I saw this woman do the most amazing things. She danced, and cried, and laughed, and rejoyced, and gave birth, and moved her body like the most wonderful, lovely, free, unbound creature I had ever laid eyes upon. She appeared to me as a goddess. For most of the session I perceived that she was surrounded by a very palpable magnetic halo, like a sphere, about a meter wide. My fingers danced at its invisible confines, and I became so enamored with it that the facilitator had to stop me, as I was introduing into her experience. That helped to clarify for me the concept of boundaries in this technique. Breathwork is all yours, the others are there with the only purpose to help you bring to the surface what needs to be experienced. In that sense, it is a door, exactly as unoanimo has described. The day after, my own breathing session was just as charged with beauty. It was my turn to dance inside an invisible sea of energy, delighting in the most meaningful and moving sounds and images, and go through some very sorrowful moments too.
I came out of that weekend charged with a palpable energy and awareness shift that lasted for days and still reverberates quite deeply. That struck me as amazing, given the simplicity of the means by which it was obtained. Basically, breathwork is just you and your lungs and three hours of loud and powerful music in the darkness. Oh, and a few very friendly and reliable people, definitely a powerful element.
That experience started a journey of discovery which is slowly but steadily unfolding, where I started connecting and communing with energies of a seemingly transpersonal nature, in the sense that they are surely not coming from my “personal”, biographical awareness. These sort of energies had already emerged a few times in the past spontaneously, but this was a very good context to experience them more intensely. It’s always a journey to somewhere deeper, or higher, or should I say other, or should I say truly mine? I cannot find the right words for these states and encounters with the unknown. They may be the result of DNA unraveling, or we could even name them possessions. They are definitely bodily, heavily and ecstatically so, crushing and lifting one about as powerful waves, energetical rivers and tides. A body electric. And from that come so many insights.
This upsurging, this new rawness of experience in my case has also led to some very practical consequences. I have since left my job and started working from home because I could’t handle my busy lifestyle anymore. There have been some major life adjustments. For the past three years or so I have also worked with a plant teacher, and I will write more later about that. Gotta go!
Thanks for all your stories…
and here, straight from the mouth of the goddess
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lmUKzR9Kh-A
‘ton’ ~
Via your #270 of Part 31: you can send the Sheik your email request to be given to me and I can share them.
______________________________________
Long ago I drove from Louisiana to California and just about lost my marbles going across Texas (actually I think I did loose my Big Marble, the one you break the smaller ones with)…
Jesus! 600+ miles of seeing the same thing without any discernible nuance-changes was a bit much… Then came the rolling hills covered with thousands of cacti with arms and the little basket ball shaped ones, that was not altogether Christmas but it was better until the Night of the Living Dead Armadillos Tour… That pulled at the heart strings a bit, all those little guys and so handsome too.
I think I am a plane kinda guy, so I am going to fly to the Hopi and steep myself in their folklore for awhile; they’re rich in Kachinas, about 300 of them and their ant thing is pretty amazing too. Yes, in three months, maybe I’ll meet you in Aztec territory, I’ll be the one wearing the shirt with a picture of the Earth that says ~ ‘Where’s my Big Marble, have you got it?’
_____________
:.)
___________________
Susan Zannos
2520 Madera Circle #106
Port Hueneme, CA 93041
(805) 984-7975
(805) 824-5588
zannoss at yahoo.com
As Jack mentioned, there are only a few letters actually received. Other people have called or e-mailed to say they would be writing, and I hope that will happen soon.
The upside is that the letters received are very powerful–the clear, objective, brief statements of the facts about events experienced are many times more effective than rants and screams of outrage (we have the blog for that, after all).
Everyone who has ever spent more than a day and a half in the Fellowship has been witness to some of the shenanigans and chicanery used to extract money from the members and could send along a small account. Probably my favorite was the envelopes on the potage’ lunch tables labeled “gratuities for the servers.” Of course the servers never received any gratuities. I got curious and asked until I got an answer: the funds collected were used to defray expenses for the boys traveling with Robert. A tiny detail, but one that has it all: the lying to members, the use of any strategem possible to wring a few more dollars out of each and every one of us, the respectable masking the despicable, the elegant event and the rotten core…
But I digress. And rant. We all have witnessed something to report on. Please write.
Unoanimo and ton,
600 miles across Texas is a short cut. I have a friend who lives in San Diego, California (born and raised). She says coming to Texas is like coming to a foreign country. She too wants to visit Austin. Something must be going on in Austin besides Willy Nelson.
Willy Nelson’s bus (I dont remember if he was on board) was stopped and searched a few months back. On board were five or six men. The youngest was around 56 and the oldest was around 75.
The search found marijuana and mushrooms. I don’t remember whether anyone was arrested or ticketed. So, ton don’t feel too bad, even the famous get spread eagled in Texas.
The peyote eaters get a free ride through the state thanks to their federal permission.
So, I suggest ton, that you put feathers on your head and carry a guitar and you will probably skate through.
arthur ~
Maybe it was longer, perhaps the number 600 sticks in my mind because I created memory equating it with World 6.
:.O
arthur 13 “put feathers on your head and carry a guitar and you will probably skate through.”
that’s a good one. usually have a geetar, harmonica, indian flute and feathers on board, not on my head. what you describe is “probable cause.”
thanks zannos for the rant and jx for fighting the good fight.
‘uno’~ thanks for re-minding us to ask ’sheik’ about your ‘yage letters.’ while on the general subject, here’s one i recommend and you in particular are “sure to enjoy” (if link doesn’t load, “google” dale pendell).
http://books.google.com/books?id=eefFAAAACAAJ&dq=Dale+Pendell&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=dale+pendell&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=3&cad=author-navigational
lauralupa:
Thank you for your account of holotropic breathwork! I posted my experience many pages ago and yours mirrors mine. It is an amazing technique…accomplished just with the breath! (Not recommended for smokers, though.)
You can stop the process at any point if you feel you have had enough. And you are not left “burned out” afterward, you feel energized and peaceful.
It’s an excellent way to clean your pipes and get inspired NATURALLY and LEGALLY without risking Montezuma’s revenge or getting your ass kicked around the cosmos by your grandmother (although if you are white bread, you probably deserve both. No offense, unoanimo.)
DavidE – re your ref to “291″, if you mean Ton, no I don’t think that is the person you are thinking of. But go ahead and tell your Istvan Nadas story anyway. A lot of odd bulbs have hung on Bobby’s tree over the years and Istvan was one of the more incongruous ones.
And why not try out the Greater Fellowship site
greaterfellowship.ning.com
to see what other dusty memories are still kicking up dirt.
15 is newly moderated.
Ton & Uno: you can post your e-mail address here too, unless it’s a private one (in which case why not a start a new one).
Hello Whalerider ~
You wrote ~
“It’s an excellent way to clean your pipes and get inspired NATURALLY and LEGALLY without risking Montezuma’s revenge or getting your ass kicked around the cosmos by your grandmother (although if you are white bread, you probably deserve both. No offense, unoanimo.)”
______________________________
Grandma’s Defender? She speaks for herself in so many books, online stories and believe me, she can be incredibly NOT ass kicking, it just depends on your mood, true condition of conscience and constitution when you go to visit (Remember Neo and The Oracle? Like her and him… She told him what he needed to know, not what he was looking for.)
Joan Parisi Wilcox and Jimmy Weiskopf have written well balanced books…
I am wondering though how it is that you’re capitalizing ‘legally’ and ‘naturally’? I really do not get it; the stresses based on a very limiting man made judgment based on fear, ignorance and superstition superimposed on a gateway that’s been used for the most incredible soul-healing and evolution on the planet Earth for tens of thousands of years; the same goes for the ‘ways’ in which the other ‘Ways’ use the human body the produce ‘Higher Hydrogens’ so to create the door.
If holotropic breathing stimulates DMT production or a like substance (there’s got to be something being produced that opens the gateways for the soul in that practice which gets into the body’s rubic’s cube and solves to so the puzzled can put it down and move on), and since our body naturally produces DMT, then why the stress on aspects of ayahuasca that simply are not about ‘The Real World’? Otherwise all of us are carrying around in ourselves ‘America’s’ definition of a Schedule One drug, yet, IMO, I believe the production of this molecule is exactly what Gurdjieff speaks about when he says, “To create Higher Hydrogens” by super efforts (I would consider holotropic breathing as a sort of super effort)…
For me it’s definitely not an end all situation and I am now in the midst of understanding that it could be that our body’s are a kind of ‘plant’ too; it’s all under and above my chin, ‘As above, so Below.’ The Tibetans are a good example of this. We simply do not understand the deeper implications of the bodies our presences are encased in.
When I’ve heard Grof speaking, his descriptions of what holotropic breathing facilitates and the results; they parallel the ’spirit of the material’ I’ve witnessed with ayahuasca, though I cannot exactly say if it touches the same source because I have not done it, it’s on my list to learn and understand this ‘personalized’ Tibetan practice that Grof has developed; music and chants are also a very important part in traditional plant teaching ceremonies, Tibetan and Holotropic breath work.
In a world where pharmaceutical drugs, war, rape, alcohol, smoking, pornography, prisons, additions, possession and degenerative drugs are killing people and making them worse by exploiting and exaggerating their darker human qualities, I think I will stick to the ones who I can fall in love with and who show me my soul, not the part of me that is bound to reoccurring hopes, fears and desires that simply keep itself on the Merry-go-Round; I’ve been playing one foot in and one foot out of prison long enough, so, “Fuck the police!” as NWA would have it.
________________________________
L.t.y.a.
Correction ~
Additions ought to be ‘Addictions’; hey, well, additions too, do you really need that extra room?
I can’t do holotropic breathing. I can barely breath as it is.
When I drive across Texas I stay steady in world 96.
It was reported today in my town’s newspaper that coprolites were found in a cave in Oregon. Coprolites are human feces. They are studing the 14,340 year old fossilized things to add to the great tombs of human knowledge. Or, should that be great tomes?
Anyway, since Robert Earl Burton and gang study cave droppings the trip from Oregon House to an Oregon cave would add volumes to their collection of poopies.
arthur:
My heart goes out to you. I am glad to have made you smile with the “who let the dogs out” song and your memory of the young girl down the street. Remember, you can always let your dogs loose anytime here on this blog! Let’s be thankful that we are no longer FOF lapdogs, too. Have you had your morning toast yet? If my toaster shows up at your place, it would not surprise me. Don’t bother with the ancient, fossilized cave shit, get yourself some good shit. Take care of yourself. We all love you, arthur!
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Relax unoanimo. If you want to fuck the police, by all means, be my guest. In your dreams the police represent your conscience, we call upon the police in our dreams to wake us from a nightmare. Sound familiar? Jot down the next time you remember a dream like that and share it with us. Maybe you will have a dream like that TONIGHT.
I don’t really buy into Grof’s analogy of what happens in holotropic breathing, either. Also, the reason he studied breathing techniques is that LSD became illegal.
Grandmothers are by nature, loving and permissive and stern at the same time. I loved mine. She died. Tell me about yours? Did you know both of them?
The natural-legal thing is to make a point that you don’t have to break the rules or travel to some faraway place to arrive exactly where you are right now in this moment. Sure, breaking the rules is exciting and part of growing up. Staying within the “law” removes a layer of paranoia for the subconscious mind, maybe not for you, but definitely for others. It helps to make the trip more enjoyable if there is no underlying fear of getting caught, you know what I mean? Traveling to Peru would also remove that layer.
Unfortunately, it is human nature to only appreciate something when it is gone, otherwise we take everything for granted…like the air we breathe or the water we drink. That’s what the sages of ancient times keep reminding us of. Be present. Right NOW. So, yes, sometimes you need to vacate the premises and return like the prodigal son with a greater appreciation of what you already have and an deeper understanding of what is really important. The deal is, when you die you can’t return and appreciate your life when it is gone. That’s why “your life flashes in front of you” near death.
After so many years in the FOF, I used to wonder why some people would travel so far for meetings…to hear the same thing over and over? As ‘ton says, once you get the message you can hang up the phone, or as one Chinese poet said (Chang something or other), “a fish trap is designed to catch a fish, once you catch a fish you can forget the trap, words are designed to convey meaning, once you get the meaning, you can forget the words…show me a man without words.”
You bring up and interesting point…making efforts to get to higher states of mind. I agree that holotropic breathing is making a kind of super effort….but not like staying up all night to finish painting the Galleria so Robert can have a fuck fest.
#22 Whalerider
Word!
Does anyone know what is going on with Todd Milborn and the Sacramento Bee article?
Hello Whalerider ~
The first part of your post to me is indeed a surprise coming from you, yet, I do not know you so deeply, now I do.
You asked ~
“Grandmothers are by nature, loving and permissive and stern at the same time. I loved mine. She died. Tell me about yours? Did you know both of them?”
_______________________
When my mother left the picture I was 1.5 years old, then my dad had better things to do as well (although he had a room at my grandmother’s house and would visit once every two weeks), so, to answer your question…
My grandmother and great grandmother raised me from the time I was 1.5 to about 7 years old; my grandmother was a nurse who worked at the hospital delivering babies for 40 years, my great grandmother lived to be 100 and she took up the slack when her daughter was not at home; I figure that they both pretty much did a 50/50 shift with me.
My grandmothers continued to support me throughout my life when others did not or could not out of ignorance of my nature, etc. and when I went to university the moral support never ended.
I loved my grandmothers, they were the sphinxes in my life up until the last one died about four years ago.
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You wrote ~
“If you want to fuck the police, by all means, be my guest. In your dreams the police represent your conscience, we call upon the police in our dreams to wake us from a nightmare. Sound familiar? Jot down the next time you remember a dream like that and share it with us. Maybe you will have a dream like that TONIGHT.”
________________________________
Yes, I agree with you Whalerider; whatever is in your heart that could write such a thing to me is certainly a nightmare; I wish you well with it, it’s all yours.
__________________
L.t.y.w.
Jack,
I hand delivered the Susan Zannos letter to my mail lady. Susan should be getting it probably on Monday (04-07). I hope it helps.
Whalerider,
That was nice of you. I ain’t got the stuffings for my buttered toast. But, one day…..
Talking about Grandmothers and do you know both (asked of Uno). I dont know either of mine. They both died in the early 1900’s. But unverifiable rumor by me says that on my mother’s side all the grandmothers were Mexicans. One is suppose to have been somewhat important in a Mexican village. Maybe that’s why I was fascinated by things like druids, witchcraft, mushrooms, pyote, marijuana, Fourth Way, Fellowship of Friends, Ayurveda herbal medicines and now ayahuasca and cousins. Who knows? Maybe it’s all my imagination and none of this is real.
Rear View Mirror 231
I am glad that we share an interest in Robert’s choices of names and symbolisms. I explored some of my own thoughts about all the property name changes in a post a few pages ago. You mention the similarities between Apollo, Las Vegas and Versailles. IMO, they all seem to be different forms of isolated, self referential small societies whose hypnotic power is/was based on appearances and illusory dreams of luxury and grandeur for the few while sucking on the blood, sweat and tears of the common people. Please share what else you see in this connection.
Also, it’s interesting to note (oops, does that sound too fellowshippy?) that Isis the goddess also has a very strong connection with the moon. So he goes from Apollo, masculine Sun god, to Isis, female Moon goddess, and back again… isn’t that odd? They are such different characters! Maybe it has something to do with Robert’s very peculiar sexuality. He really seems to think that when he has sex he turns into a female goddess. Then Isis might represent him, and Apollo his ideal lover boy. Viewed from this angle, the Apollo rocket launched towards the Moon might have a strong sexual connotation. Well maybe it’s all imagination, like arthur says, but at least for a change we are playing with our own imaginative powers at deconstructing the overbearing delusions of our closest psychopath…
ton, jack
I have to play the devil’s advocate here for a moment on behalf of NASA: I recently saw the documentary “In the shadow of the moon”, and found it quite uplifting (pardon the pun) and at times even mystical. In fact, I recommend watching it.
I’d love to hear what you guys think about it.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uG4L7PL6Pvs
Dear Unanimo
You wrote:
So far as “artificial substances”; the same ‘molecule gateway’ found in ayahuasca is produced by the human body, some have found that it is produced in several areas of the body, the lungs being one of them, this would explain the parallel that holotropic breathing possesses.
Can you tell me more how this molecule is called so i can study up?
Thanks P.
Hello P. ~
Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), also known as N,N-dimethyltryptamine, is a naturally occurring tryptamine and potent psychedelic drug, found not only in many plants, but also in trace amounts in the human body wherein its natural function is undetermined. Structurally, it is analogous to the neurotransmitter serotonin and other psychedelic tryptamines such as 5-MeO-DMT and 4-HO-DMT. DMT is created in small amounts by the human body during normal metabolism[1] by the enzyme tryptamine-N-methyltransferase. Many cultures, indigenous and modern, ingest DMT as a psychedelic in extracted or synthesized forms. Pure DMT at room temperature is a clear or white to yellowish-red crystalline solid. DMT was first chemically synthesized in 1931. [2]
From Wikipedia (keyword ~ DMT)
You will find the book “DMT, The Spirit Molecule” by Rick Strassman, M.D., right up your alley.
Your Welcome
Reading about all this ‘medicine’ the thought of greed keeps running through my mind. But maybe that’s just me- Mr. ‘I want it all and I want it now’
I do believe they are a ‘door’ but it is the same o materialistic misconception as to which way it swings. “Who kept the dogs out- woof, woof.”
I was also going to say something about the mystification and romanticising of Shamans, Tibetans and assorted indigini but the timer just went off and I gots to get the cookies out of the oven.
Or, you can go to Erowid and read all about it.
Hi Laura, Ton and all, been moving in and out! So good to rest and leave you in peace and me too! Thanks for the holothropic breathing story, never heard of it but must check it out one day.
Have fun!
unoanimo:
I fear you glorify the plant messenger more than the message, and that is a dangerous path, my friend. Ironically, I fear for your soul as you do mine. Isn’t that nice of us? And I could be totally wrong here, please forgive me if I am. (Namaste)
I deal with demons every day. Yours are no different than anyone else’s. Compulsions are demons. We all have them. Some of us hide from them; some of us run from them; some of us dance with them. You don’t need to add extra DMT into your body to face them; you can do so each night through your dreams if you really want to know yourself better.
Anyone can learn to pay more attention to their dreams. Just start writing them down, whatever you can remember. Put a notebook by the bed. Your dreams are naturally induced hallucinations. They are an accurate and honest reflection of your inner world at any given point in time. You can learn to unlock their symbolic meaning, mold them, be inspired and even regenerated by them…any frickin’ night of the week.
Of course, there are those who feel the dream-world is reality, and this world is the dream. Who’s to say, really?
So sure, yes, I wish you the most horrifically beautiful dream tonight your mind can muster for you. Why the hell not? If you can handle a good, healthy dose of DMT, what’s the difference? Good or bad, you will wake from it a transformed man. Dreams are administered by our inner shamans at the right time, when we are ready, in the right intensity, for the right duration, and solely for the purpose of enlightening you. How could it be otherwise? Do you think demons are just there to scare the shit out of you like a Hollywood movie? They are the original wake up call.
By Allah, you have the power to awaken in your worst nightmare and turn it into a paradise if you choose to do so and are willing to make the effort! (…that includes leaving the FOF, or for you and I, rebuilding our lives post-divorce) It won’t happen on the first few attempts. You have to practice your medicine. You cannot do that when your mind is in the grip of a powerful psychoactive substance, for that you’ll need to rely on a guide; you have to externalize or out source control. (BTW, dopamine is a powerful psychoactive ‘brain conditioning’ substance, too, associated with pleasure and pain.and so if you happen to be in a cult of hedonistic pleasure and sadistic pain then beware: cults have guides with hidden agendas.)
There are no guides needed in holotropic breath work, just a personal spotter to remind you to breathe a certain way and to hold your arm if you have get up and walk somewhere else to take a piss. (OK, so there is one side-effect of which you must be warned, if you stop the breathing pattern and get up suddenly, you can get wobbly and keel over. So don’t go doing that on half-dome. Give your body a soft launching pad.)
THANK YOU for the loving account of your grandmothers, your guardian angels, we could not survive without them. I only knew one of mine. The one I didn’t know died when my father was a teenager long before I was born. She was a farmer’s wife in Kansas most of her life and had eight kids. The other one was a solo vocalist in local churches, a painter, and had an incredible memory for world geography. Philip Morris aided in her early demise.
I am sincerely sorry to hear about the loss of your mother. You gained two.
unoanimo:
One more thing, I almost forgot, here I get to deal with angels every day too, thanks in part to you.
lauralupa:
I love your mind, girl. The sun-moon-sun thing really got me going.
From what perspective does a person experience the sun and moon exchanging places? That would be from the Earth, Bob, people living on the Earth. For all of the fucker’s grandiosity about being such an exalted high being…communing with the idolatrous “gods”, his perspective is still that of an earthling gazing at the sky with a goddess within, as we all are, day in and day out.
unoanimo:
OK, just one more thing, ‘cuz you are my pal. To talk about your grandmothers…you had to talk about yourself. Isn’t that beautiful? That brings tears to my eyes peeling back that layer! That young boy without his mom only getting visits from his dad twice a week…I want you to know that we all love that boy dearly. We really do.
That’s my hug to you.
You send so much love out to us all at the end of your posts, please let some in. Love produces healing psychoactive substances, too.
Namaste
In earlier days not everyone received a good diet while growing up, nearly everyone but those in or near positions of power were to some extent hampered by a poor and limited diet and of course medical attention was at best often some kind of superstitious folk remedy. It would be unlikely that a citizen of former times had enlightened parents that would to go to considerable efforts to insure their children received a good general education and the kinds of aspirations and motivation that would send them enthusiastically out into life to make as much of themselves as they could. Good food, a low level of disease and a civil society has an enormous benefit to the intelligence of a population. We take for granted that everyone is more or less intellectually and psychologically capable and interested in a broad range of subjects. For the most part those in the industrialized countries of the world are raised well, treated well and in the main are good citizens and smart people. A prosperous middle class makes many things possible that were never really possible for the majority in past ages.
It requires a certain level of intelligence to be interested in the possibility of exploring the human capacity for higher consciousness. Those interested in such things in the past were either exceptionally rare individuals of the peasant classes or uncommon individuals of the privileged classes. In days bygone the fact is that there were few within the population with the necessary qualities and caprice of intellectual intelligence and emotional inspiration to look beyond the basic needs of life and explore whether this wondering personality speaking primarily from the mind was all that was possible as the active witness to life.
That is not to say that people of other ages were not interested in religion. A hard life gives rise to plenty of superstitious yearnings, but the human need for a belief in a benevolent and or wrathful supernatural deity is not the same thing as a realistic approach to rising above this talking voice in the head that usually believes itself all that there is. In some sojourners of our world there develops a deepening wonder if in fact there is not a higher potential witness than this opinionating internal commentator. This particular wonder is actually quite different than an interest in developing a good relationship with an all powerful invisible ultimate judge and arbitrator of all that befalls each man and life in general.
With a general rise in a population’s intelligence there will also be a general rise of interest in an elusive inner psychological potential that to some seems intrinsic but undeveloped in ordinary men. The perception that a man’s usual state of mind and usual state of being, though engaging and interesting, does not seem to be enough, and in fact in many ways the usual state feels definitely unsatisfying, is a perception that arises out of human beings that are functioning at the higher end of the human potential. In a world pressed by hardships, catastrophes and early death such interests do not arise in a general way among the public except in the limited form of worshipping a potentially merciful God that will hopefully make things right in an afterlife that is never too many days away from becoming a fact.
In modern life with so many fine and well-operating citizens covering the land the interest in a higher spiritual potential has more than just flourished, it has become a major industry. There is a bustling exchange of currency for little-known psychological and spiritual information and unusual experiences of altered awareness. And naturally there are many enterprising experts eager to make their fortune and promote their renown in the business of explaining to others how to develop their hidden potential and achieve permanent satisfaction in life. What generally happens, though, is that these intelligent citizens buy a course of instruction in a few of these methods designed to unlock the fabled higher mind buried within but because of their ability to rightfully assess their own sense of deficiency and to be fairly honest with themselves they soon find that beyond an initial flush of enthusiasm all of these courses in the miraculous fail to deliver anything other than a new set of beliefs and perspectives limited entirely within the purview of the usual constantly commentating personality. It is merely the exchange of one set of opinions and beliefs for another, perhaps better, perhaps not, but the inner wonderer feels precisely the same. This is exactly what these intelligent and well-cared for citizens want to escape, this narrator in the brain that always feels somehow trapped as a captive audience in a life that does not seem to really satisfy on a profound level.
How to buy the profound, that experience where the personality is entirely transcended and no longer has the power to interject its many complaints, judgments and attitudes into the experience of life? How to truly become someone else, someone with more wisdom than is usually experienced? Who owns the instructions for attaining such experiences and what is the price of such an experience? Again, what it is that is wanted, though not always precisely formulated, is the profound transcendence of this constantly nagging personality that basically has a very limited view of life and is in many ways oppressive. This is specifically the commodity that some intelligent people living in modern life wish to obtain.
The answer is that there is no one able to offer such an experience to anyone else for any price. Regardless how much consciousness one man has it is not within his ability to give the means for producing it to another. The only acceptable price for the inner transformation of ordinary human energies into profound energies is the development of such self-knowledge that it becomes possible to direct the thoughts, feelings and actions in such a way that there is a limiting of the psychological waste that takes place when the frustrations, longings and zealotry entirely direct the motivations of a human being. A citizen with the need to experience the profound has to learn to control the internal psychological and even the subtle physiological actions of his being. One approach to such control is the development of a witness that refuses to believe the reactions of the inner narrator, with intuitive aptitude a will begins to develop that refuses to take the active personality as the self and this change of perspective begins to allow an accumulation of internal energies that are usually used up in a crude way by the active personality.
Here is how to experience the profound: it is possible to find yourself in a collection of people each of whom is freely expressing his opinion about the nature of life and also about the many details of that life and suddenly you have a very good notion that you feel needs to be said, something that should be interjected into the mayhem of mouths, but instead you keep still. You realize that what you have to say is an impulse of the personality wanting to make itself known and that what it will say will in no way actually improve life, so you stop and simply experience yourself with this urge to speak while keeping the personality from doing so. You use the energy that was about to be spent by the personality to exert itself to instead become self-aware. Suddenly the accumulated energy begins to rearrange itself within your body, a wave of the profound itself sweeps through your nerves and a concentrated witness emerges that is calmly aware of himself alive in the fullest possible way for this one or two moments of existence.
This is one example of purchasing the profound, the control of speech, but there many such examples. These experiences are in many ways so subtle that those that supposedly believe they are interested in higher consciousness often fail to recognize these quiet seconds that gradually, accumulatively completely change the fundamental nature of a particular human being.
Transformation of the inner alchemic being of a human can only ever be bought from the mandate of the cosmos itself for barely a few moments at a time and such an inner transformation from lead into gold can never be sold.
Hello Whalerider ~
Thank you.
You wrote to me ~
“I fear you glorify the plant messenger more than the message…”
and ~
“I am sincerely sorry to hear about the loss of your mother. You gained two.”
______________
Not to pick at any scabs, really Whalerider, though I must be absolutely truthful towards you and say that you are not right about this… Maybe the ‘glorify’ part is mainly due to my needing to balance a certain ‘energetic thing’ that’s happening to me right now for about two weeks; I need to be close to familiar forces: thank you for the critique and look out for ‘refinement’… Otherwise, I have no time to glorify anything, let alone the very thing that un-glorified the glorified-sightseer in me…
The three ceremonies I took part in changed my life forever, physiologically and spirit wise; it feels like enough to last forever… I’m not a ‘regular ayahuasca journeyman’; it was like going to get open heart surgery on six hearts, not something you need to volunteer for if they get fixed.
I have been a dream-interpretor for myself and others for about 15 years now and have hundreds of pages; believe me, there’s a limit to what that level can show (no matter how strung out the interpretor is on Jung, Campbell, Castaneda and their own thing), I have verified it for myself time and time again, perhaps your equipment is different (?)
It seems (without my knowing it upfront) that I needed to go to where my dreams originate from (and I do not mean my actions and normal level of accessible and self-influence-able conscience), so, well, meeting that which dreams my dreams changed a few things… The subconscious is connected to other conscious things than oneself, IMO.
My mother is not dead, she just sorta left the picture and my grandmothers actually raised me till the age of about 10… just for record.
I wish I could share the messages with you, maybe that though would be glorifying the messages and not the work, then the work and not the worker and so on…
It’s a razor’s edge is it not? Death on one side and Death on the other and Death if you decide to show off and do The Split, then there’s the balancing act and the implied line that cuts like a razor… I suppose that’s the script that shreds itself as we try to sonnet-pronounce ourselves into one another’s hearts, aching or not.
_________________
L.t.y.w.
unoanimo:
Thank you for your sincere reply. Well then I was wrong, my fears were unfounded, and I am glad for it. Let us continue to glorify God.
Again you refer to going to the source of your dreams…in Jung’s travels in his unconscious mind he claims he never found God, The Source, there but only His/Her ‘landing pad”. The rest is up to us. Have you found the source to be other than you own pain? I mean, that which dreams your dreams is really a dream too, is it not?…or in the least a very thin slice of a much, much greater imperceptible whole. That’s pretty painful to realize…that you can never really see the end of infinity. Pain can sometimes feel like it extends forever in all directions…anyway, that’s what I feel in my life these days.
Surely that must be the razor’s edge of which you bravely speak, yes?…that we are forced by a painful life, a kind of living death on one side, to approach death’s threshold to find the source of our inspiration, a liminal, bardo place where certain brain chemicals are produced…and where we get a glimpse of death on the other side of the doorway…and a glimpse of ourselves in the middle and realize, we’re fucked either way…your parents did the big spilt didn’t they? So did mine at age 19. That kind of showing off would seem like a death to a young child, too, would it not? One’s parents splitting up. I grieve for my children and what they are unconsciously going through. Whose heart doesn’t ache really? The bigger your heart gets the more it can ache. All we have is ourselves and each other right now. But that will one day change forever, too.
I think my equipment is the same as yours, we are all equals here. Perhaps you and I use dreams for different purposes then? My technique is not to interpret them from a book, but to let each person discover their own meaning. They have always proven to be an effective tool for me and others to get unstuck, allowing us to continue on our path of discovery, for the future is the future we create for ourselves in this very moment, yes? Only words are written in stone. You said you mother is not dead, well, she might as well be to you. Have you contacted her lately since your grandmother died? Was she at the funeral?
A long time ago there was an opening in ‘I’ for higher states: (the numbers don’t seem to be important) two of the states broke through while ‘I’ was making strenuous efforts, others emerged spontaneously.
They were moments of profound Grace. The simplest of objects were vibrant with meaning, life, connectedness. Things which had repelled, bored or irritated or thrown ‘me’ into despair now appeared wondrous, intriguing, perfect.
After four years in the Fellowship of Friends I was drawn gratefully into Robert Burton’s radius. The moments of Grace stopped arriving.
Within Robert’s radius we were whirled into a frenzy of activity, debt, infidelity, hurt, abuse, violence; all of which we balanced out with desperate appearances at expensive garden parties and soirées… corseted in serene and immaculate exteriors.
The thing that I know about Grace is that ‘I’ cannot grasp it. It’s revelation of the beauty, vibrancy, and perfection of all that Is; is concealed behind the doors of ‘my’ perception. The stronger and more grasping ‘my spiritual ego’ the more deeply buried it becomes. Many of my friends have experienced the opening these doors through taking ‘psychedelic’ (mind opening) substances.
Robert Burton told us that most of us would not ‘awaken’; that a state of permanent Grace was not for us. He told us that he was the only one, and that his devoted helper Girard would follow. He instructed us to read the works of a handful of dead people who ‘achieved’ this blessing. He forbid exposure to living teachers, who were surely charlatans. He forbid mind opening substances.
Since escaping I have spoken with or watched, heard, read the works of a surprising number of living men and women who are what Ouspensky might have called ‘crystallised in higher centres’. That they are ‘enlightened’ is not a matter of belief for what they describe matches precisely my own fleeting experience.
These men and women grew up in many different cultural and spiritual traditions; the doors of their perceptions were opened permanently in a variety of circumstances, but their experience is the same. Many of them have been loosely bundled together as ‘Advaita’ (meaning ‘not two’) but names like numbers seem unimportant.
I have noticed a tendency to slug ‘Advaita’ in some. I find this odd… coming from ‘us’. It’s so obvious that there is a lot… infinity even, with which ‘we’ are not personally familiar, and it seems absurd to knock this. The kind beings that I have met have helped me and many of Robert Burton’s victims to escape. And that is what this forum primarily is about.
In the light of this I found Unoanimo’s attack one or two pages earlier particularly unpleasant, perhaps because it is so representative of the ego’s obliviousness to the lessons learned beyond the doors of perception. Orations like “… that’s what Advaita does, it numbs the heart, castrates the ovaries and gonads and puts the rest on a shelf for safe keeping… It’s the equivalent of a mummification methodology for the spirit or a double does of Prozac and Valium washed down with a shot of Wild Turkey and shot-gunning a 20oz Bush beer or both.” Could be funny, appealingly iconoclastic even; and yet they express that Zealot within- that promoter of division, of ‘mine is the true and only way’.
Beyond those doors I learned that there is no comparing, no down-putting, no smart ass-ing at the expense of an‘other’, I learned that nothing is too worthless to be dismissed, because beyond those doors all is perfect, there is no you and me, no two.
It’s hard to carry this lesson into every day. It seems to be a law that once ‘I’ am firmly locked back in ‘me’ I lapse.
Certainly an Ayahuasca experience which I am sure is being rightly promoted, seems more with in ‘our’ reach than permanent awakening… or even those fleeting, quiet, glory moments of Grace spontaneously received.
Cult watch.
An estimated 40,000 people in the US still believe in polygamy
Authorities in the US state of Texas have removed 52 girls from the ranch of the polygamist sect led by Warren Jeffs as part of a child abuse investigation.
Eighteen of the girls, aged between 6 months and 17, are in state custody. The rest are being found foster homes.
Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was jailed in November for 10 years for being an accomplice to rape.
He was convicted after he forced a 14-year-old girl to marry her cousin.
The self-proclaimed prophet is currently awaiting trial in Arizona on charges of being an accomplice to four counts of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages.
Abuse allegation
Officials from Texas Child Protective Services raided the sprawling ranch in Eldorado county, about 260km (160 miles) north-west of the Texan town of San Antonio, on Friday.
We’re dealing with children that aren’t accustomed to the outside world, so we’re trying to be very sensitive to their needs
Marleigh Meisner
Texas Child Protective Services
After the 52 girls had been removed and half of them interviewed by welfare officials, a spokeswoman announced that none would be returning to the ranch. Eighteen were legally removed into state custody.
“We’re dealing with children that aren’t accustomed to the outside world, so we’re trying to be very sensitive to their needs,” Marleigh Meisner said.
Ms Meisner said the investigation had begun after Child Protective Services were called by someone who alleged a 16-year-old girl had suffered physical abuse.
The San Antonio Times said a warrant for the search of the ranch sought records dealing with the birth of children by a 16-year-old girl and any records relating to her marriage to a 50-year-old man. Officials said the girl had not yet been found.
No arrests have been made and officials said the ranch’s residents had been “assisting us in our search”.
About 150 people are thought to live on the FLDS’s 1,700-acre ranch in Eldorado..
The 10,000-strong sect, which dominates the towns of Colorado City in Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, split from the mainstream Mormon church more than a century ago.
Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are meanwhile taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband.
Polygamy is illegal in the US, but the authorities have reportedly been reluctant to confront the FLDS for fear of sparking a tragedy similar to the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, which led to the deaths of about 80 members.
jx.
Hello Whalerider ~
You wrote (Thank you again) ~
“You said you mother is not dead, well, she might as well be to you. Have you contacted her lately since your grandmother died? Was she at the funeral?”
________________________
I do not understand this approach Whalerider, do you know something that my mother and I do not? What information do you think you have to say such a thing, “she might as well be to you.” (?) Wow, that’s pretty heavy duty… Ok, I can see that its going to be an 18 wheeler kind of weekend, no skateboards allowed on the Interstate (?)
I was kept from visiting my mother (myself) up until I was 18 years old, then I could do it myself, so I did… She never came to visit since the 1.5 era: (It’s a long story.) I recently visited her before coming to Europe: it is odd I must tell you, we are complete strangers to one another, yet, the openness and similar humor-spirit is there, we traveled around a bit together; it was a tough scene, she’s not in good health…
I also know now that I carry carbon copies of her unresolved abuse-traumas within: she and I have allot of canned goods to open when I land on the West Coast. There’s a whole ancestry side of my family-story that I do not even know, I feel like it will be a wild ride to climb those ladders and visit their tree canopy city, particularly her two or three brothers encampment.
No, she did not attend either funeral; the family-life system in my forest-heritage is fragmented, the same goes for the family-death system:
some things just happen without our hearts and spirits being able to get into it and act other than ‘it’ is in the moment; this is a very mysterious thing, one that creates huge periods of contemplation, healing and a really big settling down into a level of common sense that’s just alien to me on one level, yet, cosmically right on another.
You know, there are some who simply focus on what others have done ‘wrong’ and not on the ‘Real World’, that the concentration on such ‘frozen facts’ comes from a very deathly and dark place of inertia and an unresolved trauma within that needs our light of trust and heart…
I feel that sometimes human beings do not want to believe that healing and change is possible, that we can indeed be a good white python and shed our skins safely, without swallowing anyone by accident.
Yet, within even our eager lovers this thirst for the pain to stay, like some canvas that makes life more relevant, even goes so far as ~
if it’s not in the present, then they’ll find something in one’s past to be pain-filled about, not noticing how utterly unfair it is to the other to be the ‘adult’ trying to wear the other’s size 2 shoe…
There’s an atmosphere that surrounds our traumas, one of them is pain-shopping for the sake of pain-constipation and not digestion and passing: we are perennials and all perennials make their own compost, others roots rot in a sudden stagnant pool of water they never saw coming; a damn breaks upstream, who would have known?
_________________________________
I liked Jung’s honesty with himself and how he lived his life simply as he was (he did not seem too bombastic about his status-symbol), though, as I find out all the time here on the blog, we all have different stories and experiences: and what he says he did not find, well, I trust he was telling the truth…
And on one level he is right, you will not find god in your dreams, I mean, the dream itself is a prerequisite that I myself would not necessarily hold onto to tight; I guess it depends on the experience, some dreams are not dreams, they are actual journeys, IMO… Jung’s story: it’s not my experience and certainly not anything for me to compare mine to so to justify its existence. I like to feel that the soul of Jung never stopped and possibly found out that, like Rumi said, “The yearning you have for an answer is the answer you seek.”
_______________
You wrote ~
“Have you found the source to be other than you own pain? I mean, that which dreams your dreams is really a dream too, is it not?”
_______________
Yes, I have, because there was a very old trauma that I relived during my second ceremony that I would never have identified with this ‘human’ life; this trauma had been created by an everyday occurrence in another time and life ‘form’ and stored away like a ghost in a bottle; reliving it showed me that we are presences embodying human bodies and that we are not as we might ‘think’ and ‘be’ from the result of that ‘thinking and acting like’ a human…
Is my present sense of self any different than that of a whale’s? I most certainly doubt it.
Many might say that mine was a ’symbolic journey’ (I know this to be absolutely not true because it linked up perfectly with others things that have weakly omen-ed themselves throughout my life leading me up to that particular insight and I feel that it also was not my sub-conscious taking those ’symbols’ and constructing a symbolic play):
though the experience showed me that ’symbolic’ re-occurrences may often show up due to a previous trauma having been embedded and born again: in the experience my mother first showed up as the ’symbol’ of the introduction to the issue, like a table of contents, then this faded and something much more vast, deep, spiraling down and down occurred and then it happened, WHAM, the trauma opened up and the dance began…
It is very possible that part of the influence that flows through us in choosing our next incarnation while hanging out in the Bardos is the trauma-seeds we carry around who are destined to blossom; it sounds pretty yet it’s not meant to be the whole story…
So, yes, on one side of the coin you are spot on, it is “my pain”, yet, what is ‘my’, when you’re connected to All? It’s a project and a lifelong (and longer IMO) dance to walk off the drunkenness that Rumi sometimes seems to be speaking of having found himself in a tavern, not knowing how he got here and whose picking him up later…
___________________
I was looking at an anatomy poster the other morning and found it interesting that the human brain looks like a big seed (an iboga seed actually, LOL) with its roots drooping down and imbuing all its stems… Then there’s all those ‘others’ (organs, muscle systems, glands, etc.) in there trying to get along with one another:
what are their dreams and ambitions I wonder?
Poetics… sheeesh! And maybe not.
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Yes, my parents did do the “big split” and my father’s on his final third: I had two step sisters for about 2 years, then a step brother up to this day… I need to visit him too.
I sense that interpreting my prose-metaphors and paralleling it with my ‘real life story’ as interpreted by more of your own metaphors is getting me nowhere really; it seems that you are trying to justify something or make links that simply serve as links, but have no anchor attached… So we drift and drift, sketching the shoreline as we go; maybe I am wrong here…
I started recording my dreams about 22 years ago and have never used dream-interpretation books, it’s something that developed with an incredible friend of mine in the FOF long ago, she had studied Jungian Psychology and various other things; I found that I could intuit and make the connections… So I would write out the dream, find out as much as I could about the dreamer’s biography (and autobiography), what’s been going on in their life lately and take it home and do my mojo thing, watching for the mirror-factor and comparison thing, because what we want for others is not necessarily what they need from themselves and do not even know it.
To me the dream interpretation still has a roof though (by itself, I am finding out these days that it depends on the context of the waking-lifestyle of the dreamer).
‘Still has a roof’ because there are ‘things’ in us that sculpt our attitudes, levels of tolerances, mood swings, touchy buttons, explosive subject matter, depression triggers, impossible to be achieved expectations of others, unable to get beyond the argumentative level of certain horn-locking subjects, knit picking at superficial details and the like; superficial is a relative term.
For me, I had daily living patterns and habits that simply seemed normal and connected to being a safely, sometimes severely independent kind of person, until it compounded into an emergency; it’s a mystery Whalerider, it took a hellbent for hell divorce and three nervous breakdowns in five months to get me down off my ‘human form throne’, to grovel and eat the dirt and understand that I am inside one root of billions belonging to a very big something;
‘thinking’ oneself a safe fruit or seed is one stage, dropping on the ground when ripe, another.
I also grieve; I had a step-son in my marriage and I love him…
___________
I do not think my father and mother were showing off; maybe you could explain how that is possible in a divorce and forced custody case (?)
Yet, the pain in us does find a stage to create external symbols so to justify its living itself outwards and away from self revelation, so, I guess it is possible to “show off”… Maybe I showed off coming to Europe… If I did, it was not without its many conscious and sub-conscious supports, hopes and eventual verified unverifiable truths concerning love, fear, want and ignorance.
___________________
Rumi says that our friends are not necessarily what they show themselves to be for you, but rather what they show while being in their company yourself to be for yourself…
Thank you for your company and please be gentle with the use of whatever personally interpreted information you have concerning my divorce story; absolutely no one will ever know anything concerning my wife and I, the forces that brought our hearts together and apart, excepting ourselves and those forces; I do not wish to sound selfish here, it’s just that ~
It can be a very loving an expansive ceremony to compare and empathize one’s own story with another’s loss and gain by that loss and the in-the-moment-story as it seems, yet, speaking as if we know something about another in a matter-of-fact way is a dead end street Whalerider, one which I will try for the rest of my life not to turn down into.
Some dead end streets have vista points, which is usually the ‘real view’ of the person’s heart you thought the street was.
_________________
L.t.y.a.
yesri 30 re: “greed” and ‘I want it all and I want it now’
mmm… coookeeez…
greed is a “feature” of the times, in this culture anyway, it is a cultural thing, it’s “all-pervasive” and IMO a perversion of “natural tendencies.” I think we can we agree that greed is an abuse (not a virtue as the likes of a ‘don trump’ may believe). when the “human animal” is living “closer to the bone” for example in a “hunting and gathering” culture, what happens to greed? homer simpson, the affable “everyman,” is an archetype of “instinctive” greed (or would that be a symbol, or is it both?) an adult baby with an “oral / anal fixation” — hey that sounds like robert burton!
I agree “one” must want “it” badly in order to undergo the trials of “medicine” and then there’s no guarantee of what “it” is… the experience in and of itself prohibits abuse… that is unless a person has a strong masochistic streak, in which case, if the individual persists then an unbalanced condition only worsens and they ends up dead, or worse.
the expression of the experience can be fertile fodder for glorification and sometimes it can sound a bit like: “my ‘plant-teacher’ can beat up your ‘plant-teacher’…. my ‘trip’ was more profound and meaningful than yours…” and etc. that expression isn’t “greed” per se but it might somehow relate to the mania for “more” and “better” etc, definitely ego, “little ‘i’ stuff.” ‘uno’ puts it well: “I suppose that’s the script that shreds itself as we try to sonnet-pronounce ourselves into one another’s hearts…” the important part is what’s in the heart, important to remember the “script” here is a network between hearts…
thanks uno, good stuff, keep it coming… and thanks for your heart and words here whalerider. there are many ways to “see god” and as many perspectives as…
what is trust?
laura re: the nasa thread from past page, (i’m not sayin, i’m just sayin) the lack of transparency of governmental agencies leaves the door wide open to speculation and so grows an industry that thrives on “conspiracy” theories… hoagland’s “Dark Mission” was mentioned, there are many more like this with varying perspectives… google “project camelot” for video taped interviews. it’s food for thought if nothing else… but that’s just me, i read a lot of science fiction in junior high school.
jack 39 your post is timely, heard it this morn on the radio.
here’s a link for “must see” viewing — they’ll probably re-run it or have it on the utube in the future…
http://www.history.com/shows.do?episodeId=207853&action=detail
thanks all.
unoanimo:
“I recently visited her before coming to Europe: it is odd I must tell you, we are complete strangers to one another, yet, the openness and similar humor-spirit is there”
The true ’source’, perhaps?
BTW, your keen intuition is born of your pain.
“Some dead end streets have vista points, which is usually the ‘real view’ of the person’s heart you thought the street was.”
That statement felt like an eighteen wheeler through my heart, too, as all eighteen wheels screech to a halt at the cul de sac of my marriage. The view there is scenic, but not pretty.
Ever heard of the “crazy Ivan” maneuver? During the cat and mouse game of the cold war American submarines would shadow Soviet ones, hiding behind them in the sound wake of the Soviet sub’s props as they zig zagged across the oceans. (My father and uncle were in the US Navy Submarine Corps) Now, after a while the soviets caught on to this, primarily from information provided by the spy, John Walker. (Not the American Taliban) They devised the following strategy: suddenly and without warning, the soviet sub would turn broadside and stop directly in the US sub’s path to reveal it. Thus, if the US sub hit the Soviet one, it was the US’s fault.
My father who had top secret military clearance told me that on at least two occasions this resulted in the sinking of the USS Scorpion and a Soviet missile sub known as the K-129. The two sides learned to keep their distance after that, later developing powerful sonar that hurts the inner ears of my brethren, the whales and dolphins.
By blogging about my past, I pulled a crazy Ivan maneuver on my wife to see if she was own her own path or just following mine. Turns out we were on a collision course. Now she is on her own path, and rightfully so.
Thirty-one years ago it was passed down by our Teacher (Robert Earl Burton) that three days before and after the new and fool moons we could be affected by lunacy.
That major decisions should not be made, ie, joining the fellowship of Friends, proposing marriage or divorce, quitting a job, falling in and out of love, or leaving the Fellowship of Friends.
Is this still true? Well, today is the New Moon, and if you have been acting nutty lately, that’s why.
Thanks for your response unanimo.
Much appreciated.
Thanks for sharing all your stories and your ability to express yourself.
Thanks whalerider for your responses, as I am still grateful for the link you introduced to me “Get me out of here”.
Big hug for both of you and for anyone who wants a hug.
P.S. My name was a freudian accident and I am trying not to put my name on this blog for search engine reasons.
Hi Laura
this is all I have to say!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w9EksAo5hY&feature=related
jx
unoanimo:
Please forgive my matter-of-fact tone; it keeps the drama down to a minimum when speaking of such richly emotional subjects as our family of origin. I mean no disrespect to you or your family members. And I will for sure respect your boundaries around your divorce(s).
If we don’t allow our friends to challenge our deeply held beliefs, (and you have done your share with others here, as have I) then I do not know the meaning of the word.
You said: “…because there are ‘things’ in us…”
To me, this is emblematic of the inadequacy of the English language yet here on this blog, words are the primary currency for the exchange of concepts, and words convey many layers of meaning. (Will Strunk, author of “The Elements of Style” hated the word, thing.)
Things? What things?
Do you mean neuro-peptides? Stores of electrical impulses? DNA helixes? Or Alien beings?
Is this by chance also some of the remnants of the spiritual materialism that runs so deep in our consumerist culture and *pa-toeey* the FOF?
I ask because at the smallest sub-atomic level that our puny human minds have been able to penetrate, what scientists have “discovered” is that in the ‘reality’ of that micro-cosmos matter exists only as a probability, and that what really ‘matters’, what holds the universe together is the intangible, invisible relationships between particles, not the particles themselves. Even though we feel things with our hands, they do not exist. (Now that’s a Class A paradox.)
But your “things in us” isn’t material or is it?
Science informs us that at the subatomic level there is more ‘empty’ space that anything else. Does not that ‘empty’ space actually house a vast matrix of invisible threads of relationships, spanning across multi-dimensions of time and space? It would seem so. If we ascribe to the philosophy of “as above, so below”, then “as below, so above” must hold true, and thus our spirituality needs to reflect that reality in order to approximate the truth. Maybe we can somehow contain the intangible, too.
So I would argue, (solely for the sake of philosophic argument and not as a personal attack), that although your experiences of the “source” were compelling and convincing to you (albeit while you where under the influence of a medicine/drug) …what is real is the invisible connection you felt, not that ultra-thin slice of great magnitude that you defend called the source. There is really nothing firm to hold onto, and you will drive yourself mad attempting to do so. It’s just too big.
That particular spot that you touched (or touched you) on the source is long gone, existed briefly just for you, and only your relationship with it really exists…what you learned, incorporated, and put to use…is the thread that keeps one connected. Just like with our dead or missing relatives.
We are sourced from our mothers.
before continuing i want to pay proper and due respect and obeances, to those denizens and gods of the blog who have come before and who have been here from “the beginning.” i offer an oblation to the sheik, “bruce almighty” and all others, in the spirit of “linux” amen.
‘halftruth’ 36 i don’t disagree with your assessments… you write among other things:
“It requires a certain level of intelligence to be interested in the possibility of exploring the human capacity for higher consciousness. Those interested in such things in the past were either exceptionally rare individuals of the peasant classes or uncommon individuals of the privileged classes.”
I would add here that during certain epochs and under ‘certain’ circumstances, ‘those’ you refer to here might have been accused of ‘witchcraft’ and been burnt-at-the-stake, drowned-on-the-dunking-stool, or otherwise tortured-unto-death. Also you write of a: “talking voice in the head”… julian jaynes has some interesting things to say on the topic in the “origins of consciousness and the bicameral mind” but maybe that’s where this riff comes from? as for the rest of your post i’ll have to get back to you on it greg… er, ‘halftruth’ — mostly, i address you here because i like to ’say’ yer name: i just walked past 1/2 of a telephone conversation that was going like this: “if obama gets elected…” like i said, i was walking past and didn’t hear the rest, much less the other side of the conversation… o, wait, from downstairs i am hearing something: “about the war” and the word “bullshit” is filtering through…
arthur 43 you rote: “Thirty-one years ago it was passed down by our Teacher (Robert Earl Burton) that three days before and after the new and fool moons we could be affected by lunacy.”
first of all, I would like to take full responsibility for my own lunacy… I cannot “blame” the moon but do give credit where credit is due… can we at least change the language here, if not the point of view? I do not think of this bit-o-wisdom in the same terms you put it here: “passed down by our teacher.” what you refer to (periods of “lunacy”) was/is passed down by THE MOON ITSELF… I consider the condition of the moon’s relationship to the earth true apriori: that is, before (and irrespective of) “robert burton” and or anything he says — though robert burton may have been the first place you heard it… the moon’s effect/affect on the liquid nature of earth and the humans who are, if nothing else predominantly liquid in nature, is old news by now… maybe it’s not often thought about but the “ancients” knew it, it’s ‘by no means’ a new or recent concept and it most certainly didn’t originate with “our teacher” as you phrase it. can i suggest in general here, that any “truisms” this creature, this gollum, has managed to latch onto, for the use of it’s own purposes, be re-examined and in the process of examination, to give credit where it is due. I would also “say” and request in this connection that robert burton not be referred to here as “our teacher” — you can speak for yourself as far as that goes.
i got a little distracted but jest to go back to a question in a previous post — and i don’t mean to break-up the love that’s flowing here… but… in a more “traditional culture” such as the ‘hunting/gathering’ situation suggested, co-operation — by and of necessity — replaces greed. if that’s an idealized, ‘romantic’ view, i blame it on reading too much “indian lore,” daniel quinn, and related stuff. inter-tribal conflicts notwithstanding, it makes sense that for “primitive” cultures, successful survival depends upon a high degree of cooperation amongst “tribe” members. historically speaking, strictly agrarian societies relied on cooperation, but the simple exchange of goods accelerated with the ‘industrial revolution’ and concomitant ‘mass production’ where, in the name of realizing “profit” a “side-business” grows up involving “need-creation” through certain “marketing techniques,” advertising, etc… that brings us back to the subject of hypnotism as a means of creating and controlling “the market” and a culture, “our culture” of “depersonalization.” (see “Century of the Self” on the utube – in 24 episodes!). now we have capitalism using “democracy” as a code word in the interest of creating “free markets,” leading to military-industrial involvement, trillions of tax dollars that go into “government contracts” (a recent example in the news re: your-tax dollars-at-work is “Blackwater” the mercenary outfit)… the definition of fascism includes collusion of government with big-business and just to prove the point we have exhibit “A”: the greed and excesses of corporations like exon with those “big-oil boys” in office –”mission accomplished” — ya, right. the concept for the corporation grew out of organic co-operation between and amongst individuals… the irony would be rich if only the consequences were less tragic.
‘jack’ 45: am sure u have more to “say” but if i may chime in thanks for the most entertaining rammsteining amerika.
and what would blogging be (?)
without a little nostalgia?
james (and others) you may have seen this,
nevertheless it’s seems 2 b
good historical overview —
see the whole thing if you haven’t already:
39 is newly moderated.
Hello Sea ~
You wrote ~
“In the light of this I found Unoanimo’s attack one or two pages earlier particularly unpleasant, perhaps because it is so representative of the ego’s obliviousness to the lessons learned beyond the doors of perception.”
_________________________________
Yes: I absolutely agree with you, that’s why I emailed the Sheik the same day and asked him to remove both posts, which he did not do (due) to being on vacation… I have not gone back to check if those ‘homicide outlines’ are still in the Blog-street…
I sincerely apologize to you and those Advaita persons; it was a whirlwind of hades blowing through my soul and well, the feces got deep and that was a gas bubble from the corpse of my rotting ego that I was dragging back from my final ‘cookie convention’ with the Oracle; again, I apologize and hope the Sheik reads this and those emails long ago skipped.
Thank you for your post.
___________
:.)
Hardtruth (36) “You realize that what you have to say is an impulse of the personality wanting to make itself known and that what it will say will in no way actually improve life, so you stop and simply experience yourself with this urge to speak while keeping the personality from doing so.”
Thank you Hardtruth for the clean style and your punctual description of letting go of an identification. Thank you also for your softness of tone. I have only one question where you say: “…and that what it will say will in no way actually improve life.”
What makes you think that what it will say will in no way actually improve life? Or make it worse? Wouldn’t you agree that if words had no power Robert would have had a great more difficulty to brainwash us? That students have some how managed to become oblivious of what Robert does, how he lives and treats them to idolize him for the things he says? It is one of the signs of idolatry: People no longer look at the facts but hold on to the imaginary picture. “Common sense” becomes oblivious.
Words have as much power as the Sun that turns us every morning because they point us in a direction where the speaker wishes to take us. I’ve been throwing up more than speaking but when we sometimes manage to speak here, we are priceless. That speech has become another meaningless act for the majority does not speak about speech but about the majority. We do not know how to value another human being, there is nothing surprising about the fact that we know even less how to value the power of words.
It is lovely to hear the cleanliness and elegance of your post. In its objectivity it lacks warmth as you hide almost detached from what you are saying but there is much warmth in its desire to communicate. Its tone reveals the refinement of your struggle. Whether you are Greg or somebody else, the public square welcomes you.
Uno, I’ve been much enjoying your personal story. Mishima I believe was raised by his grandmother which might have something to do with his attachment to the culture’s essence. In time, it is wonderful to realize that it does not matter how life organizes where one receives love from, it comes in different hands and the fact that it doesn’t come from one’s parents tells us about the suffering of our age. It can then guarantee that sooner or later we’ll be tempted to forgive them, our ancestors and our time as much as our selves and our children.
Does it not seem to you that we are being tamed by the expert whip of life?
Whalerider. (42)
So I would argue, (solely for the sake of philosophic argument and not as a personal attack), that although your experiences of the “source” were compelling and convincing to you (albeit while you where under the influence of a medicine/drug) …what is real is the invisible connection you felt, not that ultra-thin slice of great magnitude that you defend called the source. There is really nothing firm to hold onto, and you will drive yourself mad attempting to do so. It’s just too big.
……
We are sourced from our mothers.
Don’t know what your experience is Rider, but it is difficult to ride a whale if you don’t find the Ocean a source! Or rain drops, particles of the Great Water and fire, little drops of Sunshine. Humans fall through miracles from the Ocean of Love where all of us contain each one of us. One is All, All is One.
Each day we are meant to actualize the magic of unity, by establishing and reinforcing the connections between each other, for the simple joy of the one being who drops us for the pleasure of seing us regain him like yo-yos!
Life is a game of hide and seek in which children play at becoming what they already are.
Death, for us: a game in which adults play at actualizing their aim to return, eager to be at every ritual of mankind.
The cosmos pours itself freely into death and life, re-adjusting a perfect dialogue like a mirror in which the flesh is only the physical expression of death’s energy. Life is death’s rose. When a human being dies, they make a party in the other side to welcome the newcomer returning home. We greet them goodbye with flowers so that they remember what life really was.
Human beings are the story of love between life and death. A permanent flirting between matter and energy; songs of light; a music of eternity; the hand of the infinite returning infinitely like a rose.
The cosmos pours itself down from within us and when we can catch its wind like kites in the sky, it leaves a tail of grace, of gratitude, of the grandeur that contains each one of us. The more one remember one’s self, the more of US re-members itself. Then one knows who one belongs to and understands why any form of harm on any one of us is a great harm to the Us in all of us. Perhaps we’ve called it, The Spirit.
P.S. Thank you Sea for a joyful dip in the Ocean.
Unoanimo said
“I’ve been playing one foot in and one foot out of prison long enough,”
________
Thank you for those words, unoanimo.
ton:
Now I understand why I kept getting out of my car with it still in gear and the motor running all those times. Great clip.
It also touched off an interesting memory. When I was living in Mexico for a short time, almost 40 years ago, I met a very interesting Indian gentleman who shared with me some very powerful cannabis. After smoking it, we had been sitting in silence for quite some time when he turned to me and said,
“The hemp plant is better used stretched just a few inches above the ground to stumble over, than it is as rope for climbing.”
42 ton
To each their own. I believe it is an experience everyone should have. I hung up the phone quite a ways back. Not only because the message was received but because it seemed silly eating up plan minutes talking on the phone to someone standing right beside me.
I am probably going off blog soon. You have my e-mail yes? Drop me a note if you are coming out this summer. I would LOVE to see you.
First of all, I reread my breathwork story at #10, and there’s one technical detail I need to correct: the magnetic halo seemed to extend for about a meter away from her body, so that would be a field about three meters wide. Sorry for being pedantic, it’s one of my demons…
Elena, Sea, hardtruth and more, thank you all for your thoughtful and inspiring posts. Is it just me feeling this or is the blog receiving its own outpouring of Grace?
Uno and whalerider,
the conversation going on between you is incredibly interesting and moving for me. It’s wonderful to witness these intimate and honest exchanges in such a public forum. I feel that the best way for me not to feel like I am just feeding off your emotions is to contribute my own little songs and stories.
Here is another holotropic episode, and one that slightly freaked me out, since I was new to the ideas of communing with the spirits and shapeshifting. During one of the workshops (BTW, they have been very few and far apart, and I am definitely not an expert although I’m considering taking the course to become a facilitator) I found myself sitting on my legs, knees spread wide, bum resting on heels. My lower back started moving up and down, I let myself go with the flow, and was transported into a cyclical, rhythmical movement that went on and on and on. It did require a certain amount of physical effort, but there was a lot of energy going through and it felt just beautiful and ecstatic. At the end of the session, when we shared our experiences, a couple of people said to me – ah, it was nice to see you horse riding so happily!
Of course! That’s what it was… I had not thought of that, maybe because Laura never rode horses. A woman also told me she had seen my face change to that of a young woman, who looked like someone from Central Asia. When I returned home I did not tell my man about her comment. Later that night, after we made love, he told me how he had been struck by seeing my face turn into that of another, much younger woman. That was one of the first of many shocks that made me realize (I am still reminded all the time) how little I know of the invisible world and that what I like to call myself is a very mysterious vessel indeed.
I am very grateful to this blog and its contributors because I encountered you all at a most intense time in my life. One of my daughters was just recovering from a very serious illness and there was a lot of intense suffering to be processed. I had intuited that one of the motivating factors for her falling ill was that for a while I had been flying around too high, not grounded, creatively inspired but out of touch with the world around me. I had to put on the brakes and really try to give myself to the ones I most loved. It worked, and I came out of it transformed, but also emotionally exhausted.
Coming into this virtual space has been a godsend in so many ways: it has allowed me to shed light on some of my unprocessed past, to meet again long lost friends, to share my loves and ideas and find new ones, to become more secure in my self expression, to find a mental haven away from the daily toil, to encounter kindred souls, and now also to put into writing some experiences I have always been afraid to share with anyone except a few close friends. My parents were so adamant in their materialistic view of the universe that everytime I encounter spiritual realities I am the first one to doubt them.
Thank you uno for invitation to trust. We are not alone, not in this universe.
forgot to add today’s song…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DXBots5bdzQ
Elena:
“Don’t know what your experience is Rider, but it is difficult to ride a whale if you don’t find the Ocean a source! Or rain drops, particles of the Great Water and fire, little drops of Sunshine. Life is a game of hide and seek in which children play at becoming what they already are.”
Exactly. Mother Earth. My experience is no different from yours or anyone else’s in that regard. We are all equals here. Thanks for the reminder, mom.
Dear Unanimo,
Would you be so kind to email me the info where to find more about holtropic breathing and which chemical is activated. I am on the GF.
Thanks
55 Laura,
Thanks beautiful to read thanks for sharing .
All others, thanks too……
It is someting to be here, check in, share and harvest and see all the possiilities with which I am surrounded anyway.
Thanks
51 elena
“I have only one question where you say: ‘…and that what it will say will in no way actually improve life.’
What makes you think that what it will say will in no way actually improve life? Or make it worse? Wouldn’t you agree that if words had no power…”
I was speaking about a particular instance, a recent personal experience. Sometimes there is nothing more selfish or false than refusing to speak up. Usually what personality has to say in the area of offering opinions on the subject of how the world should be run, or whether people really are already born conscious or not, is useless. In a psychological sense general formulations, such as always keep your mouth shut and you will wake up, are rarely practical. In fact this is exactly how good ideas turn into bad outcomes, the forced imposition of specific indications on general circumstances. The key is the phrase “intuitive aptitude.”
Words certainly can contain enormous force, depending on the speaker and particularly depending on the immediate state of the speaker. Today the speaker has accumulated a quantity of quality energy but tomorrow, or even a minute later, it is gone and again there is a routine personality talking a considerable amount and not really communicating relevant perceptions. At the same time, generalizing about the personality and making it seem like it is only an enemy of higher consciousness is incorrect. The personality has a specific function in the actions of people, when it is directed as a tool to interact with others it can be used to lessen unnecessary inner agitation. It is involuntary personality that creates the suffering that is felt by something within that wants far more out of life than to be saddled with a limited state of mind.
Little Suzy has woken up, and crawled out of her cave, but not quite ready to start becoming active on this website yet.
However am reading it every day.
I am in a healing phase of my life on Maui, having some great days and some not so great, but mostly being quiet to both my internal and external environment.
#39 Sea
Thank you for the post. I was one who threw a punch at Advaita: “This flatland psuedo neo-advaidist clap-trap really frosts me sometimes.” You might notice in the post that relates Tony Parsons that Mr. Parsons devotes an entire paragraph to the parroting of Advaita phrases such as ‘there is no person’ or ‘all is one’ etc. as if just saying this stuff is truer than saying a zillion other ’spiritual’ things.
My little rant was brought on by someone recently converted to Advaita calling the poem “Ruby Sunrise” by Rumi a ‘Hallmark Card’. The truth is I don’t really know what they meant but it seemed to be a put down. That poem, to my mind, is one of the most beautiful and concise description of what Advaitists are trying to communicate. Near the beginning it states “there is no more me”. Later it asks “is it a red world?” suggesting our uniqueness- the particular color we imbue, and yet says that color and the light are the same. Then it says to wear this earring as an adornment- the All we are wears us as an adornment as it does all creation. Perhaps the line “keep digging ,there is water down there somewhere” is what caused the person to call the poem a ‘Hallmark Card’. The revulsion to the years of blind donkey whipping of ourselves the fof and rb hypnotized us into- totally useless (or was it?)
Most of the people I have read or met that seem genuinely ‘enlightened’ spent a greater or lesser length of time in the knucklehead phase of their ’spiritual journey’. Didn’t Tony Parsons search 41 years before the penny dropped. Some say it is a process, some say it is instantaneous. Some like Ken Wilber, who has the ‘non-dual’ message at the heart of his philosophy, write tons of brilliant books on all aspects of everything and some say don’t read anything at all, it’s all a bunch of crap, go figure.
To me it is like finding out how a magic trick works. The trick seems so mysterious and impossible. Then you ’see’ it- the slight of hand- and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. How could I have been so stupid? It has always been right here- it is me. Unlike the ending of the mystery in the revelation of the magic trick, the mystery is just beginning.
Follow your ‘Grace’ and in those times when ‘Grace’ seems nowhere to be found follow, go into, what is there, that is ‘Grace’ too. All roads lead to the Sea.
Yesri Baba (54),
“I am probably going off blog soon”. Does this mean mini-vacation or gone for good? Have’nt you been on this blog since page one? A long time.
Yesterday I had recurring thoughts the essence of which were, “you’ve sent in your petition letter, now say goodby and go”.
“To each their own” But, today the thoughts are saying, “without this blog, you would have not known about Animan Recro, Ayahuasca (dot) com, ibogaine.org., Erowid, Reality Sandwich and all the links off these. They will keep you busy for a long time”.
I think it was last page at #94 that Unoanimo accused me of starting the “thread” on plant teachers. I mentioned that Bob Burton needs a dose of Salvia and coinsidently Unoanimo was thinking about Ayahuasca.
I believe it was at #113 that Lauralupa continued the “thread weavings” on plant teachers. Asking and giving hints.
Then at #144 Elena asks how can we “weave in each’s others tapestry?” Which was answered by Unoanimo’s “break the needles and give the thread to invisible children”
Whalerider at #157 says, “pass the Threads on to the surviving children”.
Then at 178 Elena says, “may the weaving in each other’s life be clearer each day”.
At 192 there is a knot tying.
For me, whether I stay or go, it is a magical carpet, weaved by some unique people. And, as far as the Fellowship of Friends that noose has been cut for good.
“free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I’m free at last.
wakeuplittlesuzywakeup:
Our hearts go out to you in your struggles.
While you were in your cave, have you seen any cave paintings in there….any images on your journey to share?
Remember, it’s not what you say on this blog that is really important, it’s the connection with us that you feel, the thread (thanks arthur), that matters. Take us with you. That thread can tug on parts of you that can help unlace and open your heart in your healing process.
The last time I sat on Mckenna beach in Maui (where the locals go), I intentionally took some time to close my eyes, feel the warm sun on my body, take in the feel of the sand, the smell and sound of the ocean, the ocean breeze, the small island in the distance, the trees and shrubs behind me…because I knew I would return there in my mind later after I returned while riding the bus home from work or to help fall asleep….a little “sense memory” exercise. It is so effective, that when I see or hear the word Maui, like in your post, that’s the association that comes to mind.
Have a safe journey ‘home’.
namaste
Whalerider and others:
I am surrounded by all the indoor plants outdoors, as my former husband put it. I just came back from a Jin Shin TARA session which I can only describe as energizing. Amazing really.
My pathway to healing has taken me to this island where there is lots of heart. Deep in the mountains of Haiku there is lots going on and I am grateful to be here. My life is quiet but not lonely and for the most part I am content most of the time.
I am however meeting my emotional demons that have come up to the surface of my being to greet me. Most of what I see in myself I have seen many times before but not with such clarity. I am being instructed to love myself. This is the hardest thing to see and admit to myself has been lacking in my life. I know that this is the key. After this hurdle has been crossed I will be able to do what I’ve always known has been my life path, to heal others.
Caves can be useful for protection. Just don’t read too much into wall art created by bored cave dwellers.
.
Wakeuplittlesuzywakeup:
“I am being instructed to love myself.”
Holy crap on a cave wall…as much as I make sure each night to tell my children that I love them, and that their mother loves them, too (even though mommy and daddy aren’t living together anymore), I just realized not once have I ever instructed them to love themselves!
Thank you for that gift, suzy, you’ve helped me to wake up to something vitally important that I am going to start adding to my children’s budding fourth dimensional time bodies:
Love thyself.
Then maybe by planting that seed indoors it will be able to flourish outdoors.
63 Arthur
I am not so free. Some of the ‘thought forms’ on the blog are very intrusive, quite difficult for me. I have participated for exactly the reasons you mention. It is a wonderful tapestry woven by profound people. I hope my thread has been unique and colorful. I will certainly check in from time to time. Take care and love yourself my friend and I will try to do the same.
Woman awarded $6.5M in religious discrimination suit
12:01 a.m. PT Apr 7, 2008
By Trina Kleist
Staff Writer
A Sacramento jury agreed that a woman who worked for a now-defunct business office in Nevada City was the victim of reverse religious discrimination and awarded her $6.5 million.
But Michigan-based Kelly Services is expected to appeal the decision reached Friday, which would keep the case tied up in court several more years, the woman’s lawyer, M. Catherine Jones of Nevada City, said Sunday.
Life-long Nevada City resident Lynn Noyes, 59, worked for Kelly Services for 10 years in the Nevada City software development and multimedia office. Employees created software used to test Kelly applicants all over the country, Jones said.
Most of Noyes’ co-workers belonged to the Fellowship of Friends, a Southern California-based group with a compound in Oregon House, in Yuba County just over the Nevada County line.
Noyes had been passed over for four other promotions prior to the fifth promotion that prompted the lawsuit, Jones said. The previous promotions all had gone to fellowship members, she added.
Jones argued Noyes was denied a promotion to a management position in 2001, despite having a management degree. A fellowship member she contended was less qualified received the promotion instead; her boss, office manager William Heinz, had belonged to the fellowship since 1976, Jones said.
Noyes sued Kelly in 2002, though she continued to work until getting laid off in 2004, Jones said.
Kelly Services investigated complaints in 1999 that the fellowship influenced operations at the Nevada City office, Kelly lawyer E. Joseph Connaughton said.
“They didn’t really do anything,” Jones said. “Kelly just let Heinz continue to promote his fellowship members.”
A nonmember had been offered the promotion first, but turned it down. The person who did receive the promotion was seen as better for moral, Connaughton argued.
The Kelly Services office closed in 2005.
This morning I said to my 6 year-old daughter, “I want you to love yourself.”
She said, “I do.”
I asked, “How do you know?”
“Because I AM myself,” she replied.
Dear Suzy,
it’s so nice to hear from you. I feel close to you in your journey and wish with you that all you wish comes true.
I looked up Jin Shin Tara and it seems very interesting, thanks for mentioning it here.
I keep a beautiful statuette of Tara, the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion, close to my bed. Just yesterday I was thinking of her, realizing how the presence of this personification of a beautiful, healing and loving female energy has subtly helped me through the years, and remembering a sweet trick I learned from a buddhist friend, to fall asleep at night visualizing myself resting in her lap.
There are many colored Taras, each representing a different aspect of the goddess’ energy (green for compassion, black for power, blue for transformation of anger, yellow for prosperity etc.) I associate them with the positive aspects of the Mother-Source that Whalerider was talking about.
Also, one can read these verses and be reminded of Yesri’s crystal clear explanation of Rumi’s poem:
‘Some have a vision of you (Tara) as red as the sun with rays
more brilliant and red than lac and vermilion.
Others see you blue like the sapphire.
Some again see you whiter than the milk churned out of the milky ocean.
Still others see you golden.
Your vishva-rupa is like a crystal which changes its color with
the change of the things around it.’
~ Arya Tara Shragdhara stotra
As I was looking up this info (ah, the joy and ease of copy-and-paste), I ran into a brief mention of something called “woven-thread ritual”. I have no idea what it is, but it could also be used as a poetic name for the invisible work that arthur was speaking about.
BTW, yesri and arthur, recently I also have recurring thoughts that my time is almost up here, but since I would terribly miss you both, please drop me a line on the GF before you decide to go. I’d like to be able to keep in touch and also have these insistent dreams of a western summer…
I could mention more coincidences at work, but I am going to stop a bit ’cause my head is starting to “spin”
namaste, y’all
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=t9bDR9ygd8k&feature=related
Bruce, thank you. I’ve been missing you much and last night I couldn’t get connected to say so to you and thank Laura for her immense warmth and the rest for sharing.
Yesri Baba, sorry to hear you are that disturbed by System language, I am guessing. Sad that such an insignificant detail would draw you away from participating. I’ve certainly bared with a huge amount of language that I would have not payed for but when there was too much of it I simply avoided reading the post.
Hardtruth, 60
We’d have to share what you understand by involuntary personality for me to expand on your thread. I tend to agree with what you say but would enjoy your expanding on:
“The personality has a specific function in the actions of people, when it is directed as a tool to interact with others it can be used to lessen unnecessary inner agitation. It is involuntary personality that creates the suffering that is felt by something within that wants far more out of life than to be saddled with a limited state of mind.”
What personality are you talking about? False, true? Personality does change. It can be like a young tree in which you cannot get on but already gives fruit or a big mango mother that you can play chase with your friends and still pick the fruit!
#69: Dear Whalerider: I hope that she doesn’t get buried too deep in the “I AM NOT” myself as so many of us have over the years of living on the planet. I am deep in the great process of developing the I AM. Thank you for your words. It has given me a few connections I hadn’t had before about what’s happening to me.
Thank you Laura for your Tara additions. I live in a sanctuary surrounded by Buddha’s and statues, all having their own unique energy. They are silent yet whisper their subtle hints to me as walk by.
Note: in reference to this particular article I contacted the writer and let him know that Apollo IS NOT in San Bernardino.
Kelly worker wins $6.5 million in suit
She says she was held back for not practicing other workers’ religion.
By Denny Walsh – dwalsh@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, April 5, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1
A former employee of Kelly Services, a worldwide provider of temporary workers, was awarded more than $6.5 million in damages Friday by a Sacramento federal jury on her claim that the company failed to promote her because she is not a member of a religious group that other employees belong to.
Lynn Noyes, who worked nearly 10 years for Kelly in Nevada City as a software developer, sued her employer in December 2002, and 17 months later she was laid off.
She claimed that a less qualified employee was promoted to software development manager in April 2001 because he is a member of the Fellowship of Friends and she is not.
Noyes claimed that the Fellowship of Friends is a religious group and that denying her the promotion was intentional reverse religious discrimination.
With approximately 2,000 members, Fellowship of Friends is a church organization founded in the esoteric Christian tradition of Fourth Way, according to its Web site.
Noyes’ lawyers, M. Catherine Jones and Robert Burch, presented evidence to the jury that, between 1997 and 2001, there were five promotions to management positions in Nevada City for which she was qualified. Four of those positions went to members of the Fellowship of Friends.
An anonymous letter sent to Kelly’s Michigan headquarters in 1999 complained of “unfair practices with respect to hiring, promotions and salaries,” such as “promoting employees with lesser qualifications and seniority” because of their religious affiliation.
But, according to evidence presented by Noyes’ lawyers, Kelly’s subsequent investigation of Nevada City chief William Heinz’s hiring and promotion practices failed to result in significant changes.
Evidence presented on her behalf showed fellowship numbers continued to climb until nine of the 15 full-time employees on the floor where Noyes worked were members at the time she filed her suit.
The jury deliberated barely 3 1/2 hours Thursday afternoon and Friday morning before delivering its verdict.
A prepared statement issued after the verdict by Kelly general counsel Daniel T. Lis says: “We believe today’s decision was made in error with respect to both the law and the facts in this case.
“We are confident that there are a significant number of grounds on which we will appeal, which we intend to do.”
The company’s trial lawyers argued that Heinz, who is a Fellowship of Friends member, did not unilaterally promote fellow member Joep Jilesen into the job sought by Noyes. Rather, they argued, the decision was made “through consensus of the Nevada City management and employees.”
“Significantly, Kelly first offered the position to Donna Walker, who was not a member of the fellowship, but she declined,” the lawyers wrote in a trial brief. “Equally important, Mr. Heinz was initially opposed to … Mr. Jilesen because he was concerned about the appearance of favoritism.
“Ms. Noyes, on the other hand, was not perceived as the best choice to boost the morale of the software development group.”
Kelly lawyers insisted the Fellowship of Friends is not a religion, but rather a “philosophical group” that could not be used to sustain a religious discrimination claim.
But the fellowship describes itself as focusing on “an esoteric interpretation of religion associated with teachings of the Old and New Testaments, traceable also in Greek philosophy, and probably originating in Egypt and Asia.”
About a third of its members live near or on a fellowship-owned compound in Apollo, a hamlet in San Bernardino County about 40 miles northeast of Barstow. Members are required to donate at least 10 percent of their monthly gross income to the fellowship.
After four days of listening to testimony and viewing the evidence, the jury found that Noyes’ “lack of certain religious beliefs was a motivating factor for why she was not selected.”
The panel awarded her $647,174 for economic losses, including past and future lost earnings and benefits, and noneconomic losses, including emotional distress.
It awarded her $5.9 million in punitive damages to hold Kelly up as an example and deter it and other companies from discriminatory employment practices.
Kelly pioneered the temporary staffing industry in 1946 and now operates in 37 countries and territories. Its revenue in 2007 was $5.7 billion.
For my friends here:
Why would a school of consciousness need the students to spy and tattle on one another, why would there be repercussions for criticizing aspects of the school? Why would such paranoia be necessary in a learning center based on consciousness? If there was genuine consciousness involved none of this fear would be necessary, this kind of environment only exists when it is necessary to protect fragile lies.
#75: Although I never participated in tattling, I saw in myself a feeling that I ’should’, almost the same energy within a family, like for the good of the whole. I think it’s a pretty emotionally complicated environment to be in, always struggling to figure out within oneself what to believe. Basically ‘going around in circles emotionally’. Not a healthy environment for any real personal growth.
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. Whoever is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without first accepting the need, over and over again, to forgive those who inflict evil and injury upon us. The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. They may come to themselves, and like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, their heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbour, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means rather that the evil act no longer remains a barrier to the relationship.
Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or the cancelling of a debt. The words ‘I will forgive you, but I’ll never forget what you’ve done’ never explain the real nature of forgiveness. Certainly one can never forget, if that means totally erasing it from his mind. But when we forgive, we forget in the sense that the evil deed is no longer a mental block impeding a new relationship.
Likewise, we can never say, ‘I will forgive you, but I won’t have anything further to do with you.’ Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again. Without this, no man can love his enemies. The degree to which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we are able to love our enemies.”
Martin Luther King “Strength to Love” p 48-9
Whalerider, #69
COOL!!!
The Christians insist that everyone forgive their enemies, yet they can never explain why God neglects to forgive Satan.
I tend to agree, there is nothing so criminal in our situation that one would not wish to forget or forgive except letting the Fellowship continue on the same path it has taken to get where it is.
Forgiving is not condoning.
74 Kid Shelleen
Clicked on the Finn Brothers link this morning before going to work. They were new for me, and it was a nice beginning to my day. Thank you so much.
hardtruth:
Technically, I believe Christians must first accept Jesus into their hearts as the Son of God and then ask God in Jesus’ name to forgive them for their sins to be forgiven and receive God’s grace. IMO, I don’t think God is being neglectful in Satan’s case. The ball is in Satan’s court, as with the rest of us poor souls. Apparently, Satan said he would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. That’s why while Jesus was on his vision quest in the desert and Satan appeared, Jesus had to tell him to “get behind me”. Maybe Satan cut in line at the watering hole or thought he was better than everyone else due to his charisma.
One could argue that Satan has narcissistic personality disorder, too.
82 whalerider
Somehow there is something missing in your belabored justification.
The original translation was likely something along the lines of “Forget your enemies.” History is laden with these misconceptions inspired by the slip of the pen.
83 hardtruth
‘Forage for your enemies.’ works too.
________________________________
You-Me-Us-They,
I found this TULIP today ~
Is not regret but a sign in the sky pointing to a story much greater than itself? What be the blossom of Hercules without the roots of the lion and the poisoned clothes? To find that story is to stop the quivering and to not find the lover is to choose to be found instead of ideally looking.
_________________
:.)
Hello everyone
Recently, clearing a large bag of picture frames I found a frame with a picture of Robert in it.
My first thought was of keeping it in the inside and put something new on. As I started to dust it I noticed the glass and the picture were glued together by moisture. I tried to steam it off but there was no use the photograph was stuck to the glass, I pulled and it actually teared and couldn’t save it, it had to go in the bin, and it did together with all my other rubbish.
That produced a shock in me. Then the thought came to me. This is a photograph of Robert being stuck and all being lost.
From post 83 hardtruth wrote:
“The original translation was likely something along the lines of “Forget your enemies.” History is laden with these misconceptions inspired by the slip of the pen.”
So, what you’re saying is that there is no such thing as hard truth?
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/top-10-crazy-cults-1.html
Hello Unoanimo,
You wrote (found):
Is not regret but a sign in the sky pointing to a story much greater than itself?
Let’s call the “much greater” a “star” then.
Create new celestial maps.
Make them full of those stars.
Thank the “regret” (and its friends) for the help.
And, since you are at it, fully prepared and never finished, create your own compass to navigate.
As I see it, it will be Uno-uni-que!
Trust. Trust the seas, the winds, the boats, your maps and never doubt your own Uno compass …
Go!
Go without fear now that JOY goes with you.
After turning around the globe of biography it is not with little pleasure that I find myself landing where my “blog” began.
The pleasure undeniably recognizes that it is also home and the fact that he stands less than fifteen minutes away confronts me with the reality that time and space are also our accomplices.
So far from the ill trodden idea that life was anything but burden, I allow myself to fall like a butterfly on a rose, delighted with our good luck. It’s spring, outside and inside and the possibility of new beginnings calls out like mothers to a child.
The questions remain equally undeniable.
The Fellowship of Friends continues to take money from people who dream for a better world in countries where they cannot take a look at the world they are paying for; men continue to be imported in and out of the Galleria at Robert’s convenience and the systematic practices that fortify the gradual disappearance of the self from individuals who gave it up to idolatry and the abuse of many justified with the hierarchy, continues its momentum.
At what point would you say “NO”. What would you have to see to know that it is time to say “No, this cannot go on?”
There’s a very good scene in a film called Icaro, I think, in which a man is asked to help with a test in a great University like Harvard. He walks into a room and is told that a man will come out and stand in front of him and he will ask him some very easy questions and give him the answers as well. When he asks the same questions again and the man makes a mistake, he must give him an electric shock that will be a little stronger each time. He is told the other man has agreed to the experiment. So the test begins and the man that makes mistakes starts receiving electric shocks until the man giving them stops, horrified at how much the other man is suffering.
At that point the man in charge comes up and explains the test which was meant to show how much suffering an average person like any one of us, is willing to induce into another person for the simple reason that an authority like Harvard University is saying that it wants you to participate in a test. The man electrocuting the other one simply assumes that it is tolerable, acceptable because a University like Harvard would not submit anyone to doing anything incorrect. He is told then that the man receiving the shocks is simply an actor and was actually not getting hurt.
If an average person like us is willing to do that in Harvard, what more are people who’ve fallen into blind idolatry for a divine conscious being be willing to do to others? How bad does the tragedy have to be for you to wish you had stopped it while it is possible? For how long are you willing to watch people getting economically, sexually, intellectually, emotionally and physically abused by the Fellowship of Friends before you are willing to stand up against it and stop it? It is about being responsible. Tragedies can be avoided. The tragedy of this kind of tragedy is that not enough people do anything to avoid it. It is unnecessary suffering that produces tremendous necessary suffering so that people get a glimpse at the dimension of our sleep. Forgiving is not condoning. We know too much to allow for anyone else to get hurt even slightly. Why would we? How could we? Even if no one else were to join the Fellowship of Friends today, how much more tragic do you want the picture of the people already inside who will not resolve this situation while Robert is still alive but will have to resolve it when nothing is left but their frail imagination? How many older students and not so old get up from that fairly intact and with enough to go on to a decent life? How many much more tragic endings are we going to have from those who remain? Who still neglect to read the blog or talk with ex-students because they don’t want to know? How long do you think they can not know before a real tragedy happens? Or do you really think life let’s us get away without showing us who we are? How young are you?
You may call me “bad news” but tragedies happen when people neglect too many red lights.
Hey all,
This doesn’t relate directly to any of the above comments (as far as I know), but for those of you who like sci-fi:
I recommend the movie, “The Island” starring Scarlett J. and Ewan McG.
It’s a fun film, but it’s also a striking metaphor for the Fellowship of Friends.
Today’s card
Please have a look at the interpretation of the Zen Master:
The lower self wants you to think it is doing the
opposite of what it is doing.
Love, Robert
So Sahn (Zen Master): The mind that consciously
thinks “I am practicing” or “I will practice” is not
truly practicing, but rather deluding itself.
________________________________________
Funny not? …eventually lead you to the present….ahahaha!
Your life could not be any different than it is. Not
one thing could be different – and it will EVENTUALLY
lead you to the present.
Robert
MORE ABOUT THE FAKE TEACHING OF THE FAKE TEACHER:
These are some recent thoughts from ROBERT BURTON
The School is becoming more purified. Those who wish to stay have remained, and those who wish to leave Influence C have left.
We may be few, but we are better. We want to go as far as we can with this precious system.
In schools, the un-sensational is sensational. In Paradise there are only unpretentious conscious beings.
Presence can be seen as nothingness, because it receives its identity from having nothing in common with the machine.
Finally you create an immortal astral body that nobody can see.
Why Robert Burton is a fake 93
I have to admit that he is good at what he does, turning everything to his own advantage. Reminds me of mr. Berlusconi, Italy’s favorite narcissistic psychopath.
I am truly sorry for those still caught in his crafty web, because he’s just going to keep sucking their blood till the very end, all the time reassuring them that “everyday, in every way, we are getting better and better”.
BTW, it seems that the Paradise imagined by mr. Burton is a very sparsely populated place… I wonder what the unpretentious conscious beings do all day besides giving shocks to pretentious Fellowship students. Does anyone know if there are any female residents besides Elizabeth the first?
You-me-us-they, your lovely words made me think of this Bjork song. I hope I am not the only one on the blog to find this woman simply amazing…
It’s tricky when
You feel someone
Has done something
On your behalf
It’s slippery when
Your sense of justice
Murmurs underneath
And you’re asking:
How am I going to make this right?
With a palmful of stars
I throw them like dice
Repeatedly
I shake them like dice
And throw them on the table
Repeatedly
Repeatedly
Until the desired constellation appears
And I ask myself:
How am I going to make this right?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ex_M6DT1ig
“The lower self wants you to think it is doing the
opposite of what it is doing. Love, Robert”
Truer words were never spoken. Bobby’s lower self wants you to think he is helping you by selling you something you you already have, while his hand is in your pants.
>>>>>>><<<<<<<
Two days ago on my way to pick up my kids at school, I was approached by one of the moms I know. She was very distraught and crying. She told me that Eddie, one of her closest and dearest friends had finally died after a long and protracted struggle with AIDS. We stood on the sidewalk hugging for a several moments. She said, “I feel this emptiness, a huge hole in my life now.”
I told her that at the smallest sub-atomic level, there is mostly empty space more than anything else, yet the universe manages to hold itself together and remain solid. Do you know why? I asked.
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and shook her head no.
“Because of relationships,” I said. “It’s the invisible relationships between everything that hold the universe together. Eddie’s body has changed form now, but your relationship with him has not. You will always love him.”
She thanked me, and in her smile I could feel this was great comfort to her.
We’d like to think of the astral body as a separate entity or that paradise is a place where separate beings are walking around in robes bestowing goodness, but it is not like that. We are all one entity in paradise.
I thought of my post to you, unoanimo. I hope that any wounds I have caused are beginning to heal up nicely and that the swelling has gone down. There may be a bit of bruising and tenderness on the spot between us, but that will soon go away, too. I am glad you manage to have a relationship with your mother, no matter how difficult that may be. It’s good to have you back, my friend.
Watched movie “Downfall” last night, Hitler’s last days in his bunker. Bruno Ganz the actor did an excellent job in impersonating such lunatic. There were some parallels with Robert Burton. The human and almost endearing side and the crazy psychopath personality hand in hand.
#93 quote from R.B.: “The School is becoming more purified. Those who wish to stay have remained, and those who wish to leave Influence C have left.”
Argh. This word “purification” has incredibly negative connotations throughout history… has led to many wars, and many crimes.
There’s the “purification” related to religion and race, and there’s another type of purification… the purification of ideas. What’s considered “impure” is any questioning of authority, any critical thinking, and any ideas from the outside.
So, one translation of the above: “Any new ideas truly originating from You — we can’t have that. Please make sure that what you say is accepted by me before you say it. Please make sure that what you think is accepted by me before you think it.”
If there’s an “Influence C” as Burton describes it, they left the Fellowship long ago, or never joined it. Maybe they’re with us — to help us leave?
97 Rear View Mirror
Or…the pure lunatics stay, and the purely outraged leave.
91 brucelevy
Thanks for the Billy Cobham. I had to do a search for that guitar players name (Mike Stern), just to see who it was. The guy gave me goosebumps.
Robert Burton uses the idea of C Influence as a threat like the fundamentalist Christians use Hell and Eternal
Damnation to frighten and coerce.
“People who know little are usually great talkers…”
And to paraphrase Mary McCarthy:
“Every word he (Princess Bobby) writes or says is a lie,
including “and” and “the”.”
“The School is becoming more purified. Those who wish to stay have remained, and those who wish to leave Influence C have left.” Robert Burton
Burton is selling these fools something he doesn’t own, schizophrenic delusion is not C influence. Add that to the long history of spiritual rape and people that stay there and continue to pay this manic are a seriously malfunctioning collection of converts.
102 hardtruth
“collection of converts”
…and a few perverts.
veramente 96 ganz is a brilliant actor… you’ve probably seen Wings of Desire by the also brilliant director wim wenders…
here’s a possible “preview” of robert burton’s downfall… cover yer knobs boys!
99 James McLemore
The axe he’s playing looks like it was cross bred with an SG. Probably custom.
bruce,
in attempting humor, my last post may have been a bit insensitive (i realized after posting), didn’t mean to offend anyone.
on a lighter note– i saw billy cobham a couple of times when i was still in highschool and was totally mezmerized…. check-out the drum solo about 5 minutes into this.
Welcome back Veramente.
Thank you 93 WHY ROBERT BURTON IS A FAKE, for providing us with brainwashing doctrine to dissect.
“The School is becoming more purified. Those who wish to stay have remained, and those who wish to leave Influence C have left.”
We are the chosen ones.
We are luckier than life
They are the six billion dead people on the planet.
We are the only conscious school on Earth.
I am the only conscious being alive.
All the students that have left were making the school impure? So as soon as you leave the School you are a dirty bugger? Nothing of what you did or do there was of any value to you or the Fellowship of Friends? Keep separating from others who have supported me for over twenty years, they are not worth listening to… on and on for how long?
“We may be few, but we are better. We want to go as far as we can with this precious system”
What precious system when he discarded the fourth way and has not yet stated that he has replaced it for anything? Pathological brainwashing is not a system, let alone a precious one.
“In schools, the un-sensational is sensational. In Paradise there are only unpretentious conscious beings.”
Keep your humbleness, I’m the only one around here that can look and do “sensational things” because you are paying for them and I’m getting away with it. You are in your six or seventh lifetime, keep working, when you get to your ninth lifetime you might have some fun of your own.
“Presence can be seen as nothingness, because it receives its identity from having nothing in common with the machine”
“Nothingness” is what I want from you so please continue to remember yourselves, not express negative emotions and go and work like a machine in life to make money to support me while your nothingness continues to idolize my divinity.
“Finally you create an immortal astral body that nobody can see.”
But the emperor’s new clothes will look great in your imagination.
It is fascinating how Robert keeps emphasizing exactly the right things to make people continue quietly accepting his form. He uses the idea of humility and unpretentiousness as in “nothingness” to evoke the passive side of student’s devotion. This way he can keep us, if we are still there, concentrating on our own work and not aspiring to participate in an overt way. To overtly participate, which is one’s birthright as a human being, is labeled as “pretentious”. Only those who committed blindly to giving up their will to his can have a role in the Fellowship of Friends. Or those who have enough ego to not care what happens to the rest. Then they are the “inner circle’s chosen ones” wearing the silk clothes that he “uniforms” them with or making money out of Fellowship privileges.
For how much longer will you allow Robert to humiliate you day after day?
Hello all-
thank you all for your heart felt postings. As someone attempting to extricate my’self’ from the FOF and wanting to help as many as i can see they’re way out too- would a few of you please take a moment to return in your postings to the ‘facts’ of why the school is corrupt. If someone checks what is written here for the first time let there be undeniable truth about the FOF without them having to look too far.
I want to see the whole thing closed down not from a vindictive destructive place ( I already passed painfully through that) but because it simply must be done. Too many have suffered and not in a good ‘transformative’ way- Children have suffered and are suffering. There is a core of people within the FOF being slowly disillusioned and it is wonderful to watch- minds slowly being cranked open after years in the dark. It is happening!
You have all done so much here let’s keep pushing on. I have a veritable sack load of illegalities committed which I will, when it is safe to do so, bring to the authorities. Robert MUST pay for what he has done. They are trying to clean up they’re act with new ‘management’ by kicking out karen Johnston, Linda T, Richard B ( a true victim) but it will not stop the rot.
So Bloggers please keep the facts streaming PLEASE!
Oh and btw Susan Zannos- one little fact, the money from the potager lunches was cash used to pay the boys for blowjobs.
love to all
106 ton
Do you mean the knob gobbling? Doesn’t bother me, but thanks.
106 ton
If you mean the Hitler reference, doesn’t bother me either.
Vena wrote: “Robert Burton uses the idea of C Influence as a threat like the fundamentalist Christians use Hell and Eternal Damnation to frighten and coerce.”
I find it ironic that the fof once held Walt Whitman’s words in reverence. (Burton once stated, “He’s our father, you know.”) And yet Whitman, maybe above all, was shouting from the mountain top that we should leave.
==============================
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them;
I am more resolute because all have denied me, than I could ever have been had all accepted me;
I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule;
And the threat of what is call’d hell is little or nothing to me;
And the lure of what is call’d heaven is little or nothing to me.
-Walt Whitman
“Finally you create an immortal astral body that nobody can see.” – RB
Reminds of the giant invisible pink elephant. We know it’s there because we can’t see it.
Love
Horny
Today’s
The sequence is helpless without the great nine of
hearts.
Love, Robert
Bernard of Clairvaux: Without grace, man’s heart is
incapable of thinking good thoughts; its capacity to
do so comes from God.
THOUGHTS FROM THE TEACHER
“The Message in Greece”
Apollo, April 6, 2008 Volume 7 – Number 28
“We ought, so far as it lies within our power, to aspire to immortality, and we must strain every nerve to live in accordance with the highest in us.” [Aristotle]
The Greeks are wonderful in both verse and art. “We ought, so far as it lies within our power”—as a steward—“to aspire to immortality”—BE—“and we must strain every nerve to live in accordance with the highest in us”—the four wordless breaths. It takes everything we have, does it not? BE. *_A lovely kore from the Acropolis Museum, Athens (525 BC), represents the nine of hearts. She has a wonderful little smile, and four locks of hair, representing the four wordless breaths, falling over her solar plexus.
“May the Gods make you beautiful within.” [Plato]
May the sequence make you beautiful within—the four wordless breaths. Some schools, such as the Mesoamerican, intentionally created unattractive works in order to convey the idea that beauty is reserved for presence. *_A Roman copy of a Greek statue in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, depicts Aphrodite (3rd century BC). What we see is Aphrodite as the nine of hearts in long BE form. In our Guercino painting at the Galleria she was later portrayed as Venus in long BE form, with her legs crossed, like card twenty-one. Here her garment of virtue—the sequence—has been laid aside, and draped over a tall, slender urn. The sculptor did something discreet. He showed the four fingers on her right hand—the four wordless breaths—apart from the body—the sequence. On her left hand he also showed the thumb apart from the body, referring indirectly to four and four.
“All that we do is done with an eye towards something else.” [Aristotle]
“All that we do”—the sequence—“is done with an eye”—BE—the “eye” of the sequence—“towards something else”—the four wordless breaths. *_A Minoan fresco from the throne room of the Knossos Palace, Crete, depicts Three Cretan Ladies (ca. 1600 BC). Here, in the place of the three Wise Men, are three wise women, representing the three Be’s. Each of the three women—who also represent the nine of hearts—shows four fingers on each hand. The woman on the left is turning away from imagination. The woman on the right has four locks on her forehead. It represents the white queen on the chessboard “getting the victory.”
“Different men practice different arts in different ways, but the best men practice the best arts.” [Plato]
The best sequential men practice the “best arts.” Hesychios of Jerusalem said, “The science of sciences and the art of arts is the capacity to master harmful thoughts”—imagination. *_The theater in Epidauros, Greece (ca. 4th-3th century BC), consists of a circular stage with twelve sections radiating from it. It represents the Amduat radiating out from the sun.
“Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly, and of their own accord, preparing themselves for dying and for death.” [Plato]
“Ordinary people”—the ten thousand ‘I’s—“seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy”—sequentially—“are directly, and of their own accord, preparing themselves for dying”—BE. Similarly, Leonardo da Vinci said, “While I thought I was learning how to live”—the sequence—“I was in fact learning how to die”—the four wordless breaths.” *_A Greek statue in the Glyptothek, Munich, depicts a Fallen Soldier (490-480 BC). On his right hand shows four fingers, representing the four wordless breaths, while his shield represents the sequence shielding the four wordless breaths from imagination. The steward has completed his sequence. He represents the “old man” dying.
107 Elena
Welcome back Veramente.
Thank you Elena : )
——————————————————————————-
Talking about drugs: Religion is opium for the people.
Robert Burton has founded a new religion, the FOF people are taking his opium every day and will never get anywhere.
Wake up and Leave! or better: take legal action!
Why Robert Burton is a fake:
According to Wikipedia:
“The King James Version of the Bible mentions whales four times:
“And God created great whales” (Genesis 1:21);
“Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me? (Job 7:12);
“Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas (Ezekiel 32:2);
and “For as Jonas [sic] was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40)”
Whales symbolize the four wordless breaths, as whales breathe air, yet live their lives underwater, and don’t use their mouths to speak, just eat. In the last reference Matthew 12:40, “The Son of man be three…” represents the three Be’s. Also, a whale can travel in the ocean four directions, north, south, east, and west, symbolizing how the four wordless breaths can enable you travel to a fool’s paradise.
Call me Ishmael.
From wikipedia:
“Ishmael soon learns that Ahab does not mean to use the Pequod and her crew to hunt whales for market trade, as whaling ships generally do. Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby-Dick, a white (sperm) whale..”
The captain’s obsessive hunt for sperm will eventually lead to the demise of the (fellow)ship and it’s faithful crew. Your conscience is your lifeboat.
Love, whalerider
112 Why Robert Burton is a fake.
“The sequence is helpless without the great nine of
hearts.
Love, Robert”
Isn’t that anthropomorphism?
Jesus, what a fuckknuckle.
113: RB quotes… Very sad.
Really, it’s always been sad, even if we weren’t awake enough to realize it at the time…. e.g., predictions for 1984, 1998, 2006, references to hell, 9 lives, ladders, arks, new civilizations, and other delusions, sexual shenanigans with his male followers.
But it does seem to be increasingly sad.
whalerider 115
Speaking of sperm whales, I thought you might like this
:.)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SirOxIeuNDE
113
So, here we have 5 different thoughts illustrated with the greek art etc.:
Thought #1: It takes all strength we have to make sequences
Thought#2: When you reach presence, you see the real Beauty
Thought#3: The aim and the destination is the state of wordless presence
Thought#4: Best men practice the sequence (best art)
Thought#5: Stewart has to die
Why does he think that making sequences is so hard?
And what does it mean that stewart has to die?
Let’s see if I reach to 4 wordless breaths, it means that the stewart is dead – right?
So, here we go: be, hold, look, back, look, be, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Where is the drama? Who died? I don’t get it!
test
Recently re-discovered Randy Newman, enjoying his wit and his gall. This performance I especially like – struck me as a song that some of us in FoF for many years could sing – actually could be coming directly out of RB’s mouth. “I’m Dead but I Don’t Know It” – a lot of phrases that almost directly relate, especially maybe the last sentence… anyway, great satire.
Test
Quotes from Robert:
“The School is becoming more purified. Those who wish to stay have remained, and those who wish to leave Influence C have left.
We may be few, but we are better. We want to go as far as we can with this precious system.
In schools, the un-sensational is sensational. In Paradise there are only unpretentious conscious beings.
Presence can be seen as nothingness, because it receives its identity from having nothing in common with the machine.
Finally you create an immortal astral body that nobody can see.”
I’ve been thinking some more about this quotes and in the process of dissecting Robert’s brainwashing I think it useful to try to figure out together how he does it. It seems rather dry to take old angles so I am grateful to those providing us with current angles.
It is clear that many of us already know how it works but being more detailed and specific about it, is of my interest for the sake of a more thorough study.
There seem to be basic principles that Robert guides himself by and constantly goes back to, so that he can re-implant the same ideas that will reinforce the status quo within the Fellowship of Friends.
In the quotes above Robert both inflates and deflates student’s ego. He inflates it in angles like:
Those who remain are more pure
We are fewer but better
And deflates it in angles like:
Stay un-sensational
And by encouraging “nothingness”
On the one hand, he works on the imagination student’s have of being more conscious than life, purer and better, and on the other he accentuates their needing to remain “at bay” “controlled” He uses un-sensational but Robert is nothing but sensational himself with all the consistent extravaganzas of his entourage that students have become to inflate as aspects of his divinity but when he affirms stay un-sensational and: “Presence can be seen as nothingness, because it receives its identity from having nothing in common with the machine.” He is delivering ideological justifications for remaining submissive within the Fellowship of Friends: You are not the machine if you remain humble is what he is actually encouraging so that he can control students from expressing themselves.
This “submissiveness” is actually the most damaging practice for students within the Fellowship because we gradually loose the ability to stand up for our selves no matter how desperate our situation may be and remaining or leaving the Fellowship “quietly” if we ever manage to because we have become convinced that we are simply not in our ninth lifetime and cannot make the impossible efforts that consciousness requires. We leave or stay with shame for the fact that Robert never acknowledges us means we are not “good enough”. With this he continues to guarantee idolatry for his own persona.
The fact that people end up forgetting their own aims when they joined and not really being a student but using the Fellowship for their own instinctive convenience so that it continues to draw students who will pay for their maintenance, is no less corrupt than what Robert himself does. They become Robert’s guarantors of legitimacy.
In post 113 it is easy to pinpoint the mumbo-jumbo language of overstated higher imaginary aims and the use and abuse of Culture for Robert’s petty cult emphasizing the divine, a search for immortality and all that Cult crap that we thought and think is so deep, humane and worthy of blind sacrifice. I say “we” because I doubt I was the only stupid fool eating this crap up for seventeen years.
“We ought, so far as it lies within our power, to aspire to immortality, and we must strain every nerve to live in accordance with the highest in us.” [Aristotle]
In this paragraph and there are thousand similar ones in his brainwashing, we can see the dissonance or duality clearly. First we must aspire to immortality and then strain every nerve to live in accordance with it. This is important! I am pretty convinced that the success of the Fellowship of Friends lies a great deal in the management of such language. The first part on immortality evokes our deepest religious search, faith or beliefs in higher possibilities and the second part on “straining every nerve” justifies the sacrifice of our “selves” for the “School” when we believe the Fellowship is such a thing. It is the same pattern at work as giving up one’s will to one’s teacher who is an enlightened being. With this, he gets us rolling around the vicious circle of aspiring to great aims such as consciousness and immortality, while at the same time in practice we strain every nerve to continue dealing with the fact that we are only “good enough” to pay for donations and events at tremendous costs and separating from our increasing feeling of ineptitude and worthiness within the Fellowship. No matter how many people have worked for the Fellowship, no matter for how many years or in what job, NO ONE WAS EVER MORE THAN “DISPENSABLE.” The artist’s talent as much as no matter who’s physical work, love or conviction went only as far as Robert could use it to legitimize the Cult as a School, never for the joy or acknowledgement of rightful participation of the individual making the effort. Without such acknowledgement, love and recognition, individuals fall into a psychotic pattern of making effort endlessly without ever gaining anything from it for themselves or the community around them. The community gains superficially, the external goods manifest but the inner growth falls into the pattern of idolatry and the Cult leader becomes he sole recipient of human energy. His ego grows at the cost of his follower’s self. He “sucks” it out of them like a spiritual vampire. Without such acknowledgement and recognition, without a flowing dialogue of acceptance between individuals, a self consuming mechanism takes place within the student-victim and the pattern of endlessly trying to satisfy the teacher’s will to achieve it, sets in. As long as the teacher does not grant him or her that satisfaction, the individual will continue to work and make effort and strive for it at his own cost. The pattern of idolatry will deepen to extreme proportions of self-mutilation and idolatry. Jamestown is an expression of that extreme. Strong as the “individual” is in our modern western world, we remain vulnerable to such Cults because we do not trust our own self enough to be the “authors”, the “authorities” of our own life and surroundings, of our own human communities: we “make” up communities, cults, because we buffer dealing with the one we are already in. Hence, our efforts in no matter what sphere of society today, continue to go to individuals without scruples like Robert Burton, who will take advantage of our weakness and unconditional love for the support of their lifestyle. This is the symptom of our time. Becoming free from it was what we were searching for or at least I was and still am. The Fellowship of Friends did not manage to steal my most inner being nor anybody else’s. It happens only in as much as we allow it.
Sorry that the connection up here in Oregon House is so slow that I cannot get my long posts in one post.
A) “The School is becoming more purified. Those who wish to stay have remained, and those who wish to leave Influence C have left.
B) We may be few, but we are better. We want to go as far as we can with this precious system.
C) In schools, the un-sensational is sensational. In Paradise there are only unpretentious conscious beings.
D) Presence can be seen as nothingness, because it receives its identity from having nothing in common with the machine.
E) Finally you create an immortal astral body that nobody can see.”
First I would like to challenge the notion that people who are currently members of the FOF are fanatical believers who swallow this stuff uncritically and devotionally. There are many, many, who are members but choose to buffer what comes from Robert Burton – simply ignore it, or look for alternative symbolic meanings, or grains of esoteric truth that it might contain after all.
So I would like to draw attention to Robert Burton’s psychology. Current members: make an experiment and just take what your Teacher is saying as meaning exactly what he says. Just hear his words, and think of what they imply. Go deeper and examine the assumptions behind his statements. Who is your Teacher, and do you really want what he has to offer?
A) Yes, many people are leaving the Fellowship and you might be wondering what is happening. But don’t worry, I have looked into these people’s hearts and I know why they are all leaving. It is simple: they no longer want consciousness, they want to sleep and so have abandoned what is higher. What is higher is, by definition, the Fellowship. So you see, I have just proven to you that what is happening is actually good: we will be rid of useless people who disagree with me, this dead weight. And, since you are still here, you must fortunately be one of those who wish to stay. Good for you, well done, dear. I hope you appreciate that I am counting on your continued support.
B) Yes, many people are gone now – but don’t worry, those were just bad people who have left, so as a group we are better now. Don’t you feel good about being better? We’ve had some rough times, but it’s all over now. You have stayed so far, so you are definitely staying, right? Let me tell you what we – you and I and all of us good people – want: we want to stick it out with my system, with Robert’s teaching. Because we don’t want to be like those bad people who fall away when the going gets tough. And yes it’s tough to apply my teaching, but that’s why it’s precious: because we are special enough to hang on even when it’s tough. Q.E.D.
C) Yes, you may think that my teaching is boring and repetitive and uninspired and plagiarized and obsessive-compulsive – but I have a good explanation for all that. You see, in SCHOOLS it’s always that way. No, really. I know there have been noble esoteric groups just like us throughout history, and they were all studying my sequence, yes I know it because the voices that I talk to have told me. And once we get to Paradise, everybody will be acting just like us, you’ll see. Oh how do I know about Paradise? Well… Just ’cause. I’ve always believed in Paradise. What do you mean how do I know? I don’t remember, I think maybe the Oldest Conscious Being in the Universe, who has visited me several times, has assured me of it.
D) What’s all this talk about ‘nothingness’ that these B-influence virus people keep bringing up? Gosh that seems like a good buzz word. Let me put it through the Robert-Burton-meaning-maker. Here: put in content on one side, run program – and out comes either ‘presence’ or ‘the sequence’. So yes, nothingness definitely means presence, in case you were wondering what those people leaving the School are talking about. It’s nothing, they’re just talking about ‘presence’ – which is what you already have here, dummy, so why would you want to leave the School? Yeah, ‘presence’, whatever it is, has nothing in common with the machine. So you see, any faults you may find with me, have nothing to do with my ‘presence’. And by the same token, anything that you might be thinking or feeling, has nothing to do with ‘presence’, it’s all just your useless lower self. ‘Presence’ is completely abstract. Please exist without your body, thoughts and feelings. Then you will be real.
E) And finally you will create an immortal astral body that nobody will be able to see. And then you will zoom out of here and get to hang out with other unpretentious and invisible and intangible individual conscious beings such as noble Goethe and Epictetus, under the Orion Belt, shooting the breeze through infinity and never, ever, ever, have to have anything to do any more with these dirty and messy machines that you all are now. And YOU will exist forever! Amen.
PS: ‘Cause the Oldest Conscious Being in the Universe told me so.
In Texas, the “polygamist sect (cult) encourages fear”. They too have a Temple where young virgins are sacrificed in the clerestory.
Who else encourages fear while performing sex?
In my opinion, Rodney Collin’s sister-in-law was the best title for a book, if I can remember correctly, “Call no man your Master”.
And, there are a lot of Masters selling books, tapes and ‘gatherings’.
That should be HAS the best title for a book.
For you littlesuzy
Re: 129
In fact, if RB was a better business person he would be pushing the “above” as an aid for doing the sequence…
“Goodness, maybe you could voluntarily purchase one of these from the FOF sequence store for your dear little house. It will assuredly bring you closer to paradise, especially with the optional accessories that we make here ourselves, in our dear little shops.
Am I going to hell?
131 brucelevy
Did you mean for making fun of that great invention, or for making fun of, and calling RB a “fuckknuckle”?
Either way you probably are in big trouble.
#129 Thanks Bruce. Not Buns of Steel but looks like the ultimate bum ride. ooxx
108 is newly moderated.
In 85
I should have ended:
That produced a shock in me. Then the thought came to me. This is a photograph of ROBERT BEING STUCK AND TURNING INTO RUBBISH
108. Dandelion.
Dan de leon. When a child I thought they were the prettiest flowers, with their golden manes…..
Have you been here?
http://fellowshipoffriends.wikispaces.com/
if the link I have enclosed doesn’t work you can click on the link at the top of the page.
If you get the time have a look at the petition if you haven’t already.
We could use all the help we can get.
You might also refer your friends ( tell them that overcoming feminine dominance is also in relation to ones teacher ) to the link below as it is a little more concentrated in terms of documentation of Robert Burton’s abuses. You see we like to have a bit of fun on the rest of the blog……. by the way I have a used hawaii chair going cheap if anyone is interested?
http://fellowshipoffriends.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/res-ipsa-loquitur/
all the best!
jx
Sorry SHEIK decided not to wait on the moderation and chop this in two instead.
108. Dandelion.
Dan de leon. When a child I thought they were the prettiest flowers, with their golden manes…..
Have you been here?
http://fellowshipoffriends.wikispaces.com/
if the link I have enclosed doesn’t work you can click on the link at the top of the page.
108 Dandelion….continued.
If you get the time have a look at the petition if you haven’t already.
We could use all the help we can get.
You might also refer your friends ( tell them that overcoming feminine dominance is also in relation to ones teacher ) to the link below as it is a little more concentrated in terms of documentation of Robert Burton’s abuses. You see we like to have a bit of fun on the rest of the blog……. by the way I have a used hawaii chair going cheap if anyone is interested?
http://fellowshipoffriends.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/res-ipsa-loquitur/
all the best!
jx
This is from the Associated Press written by Jennifer Dobner, it’s about the polygamist ranch and the girls:
“All their lives, the girls in the polygamist sect (cult) in the West Texas desert were told that the outside world (life people) was hostile and immoral, and that venturing beyond the brilliant white limestone walls of their compound would consign them to ETERNAL DAMNATION”.
That’s the same thought I lived with for over twenty years. “Boy you did it this time, it’s the moon for you and ETERNAL DAMNATION”.
Bunch of “damned” liars the Fellowship of Friends is.
The Tibetan Lama is saying that enlightenment is beyond all ideas and practices…and the ‘fake teacher’ of course do not understand:
From the last thoughts of Robert Burton:
“All teachings must ultimately be put aside. Enlightenment is beyond all ideas and practices.”
[Tibetan Lama]
“All teachings”—the precious sequence—“must ultimately be put aside. Enlightenment”—the four wordless breaths—“is beyond all ideas and practices”—beyond the sequence. *_A seventeenth-century painting in the Rubin Museum, New York, depicts a Chinese master who has put aside his sandals—his sequence. His thumbs and two fingers on each hand, which are visible, represent the sequence, while the other two fingers on each hand, which are concealed, represent the four wordless breaths hidden from the lower self. Here we see the prehistoric symbols persisting in sign language. All teachings must be put aside.
Why RB is a fake 140
Can someone give this man a brand new decoding machine? The one he is using has really gone awry.
Alternatively, we could buy him an hawaiian chair to use at formal events to at least make them a little more lively.
Robert’s latest wiseacreings add a new meaning to the famous buddhist sutra:
“Gone, gone, gone beyond. Gone completely beyond.”
122:
That was too good!!!!!!!!
Thank You!
Just in case some missed it:
bruce 110 — ya, using hitler as joke material, some would probably find offensive… that was not the intent. any offense in reference to ‘cock gobbling’ was of course directed toward robert burton.
fellatio ‘performed’ by robert burton on young men ‘entering the fold’ has the effect of emasculation, literally / physically and not just ’symbolically.’ this ‘act’ as performed by robert burton, is another aspect of the ’system’ of ‘mind-control’ used in the fellowship of friends. suppressing the fact of his homosexuality was part of the trap, i don’t know if he still tries to, or is able to hide it (?) during my stint, dissembling his homosexuality, hiding ‘in-the-closet’ was his method and means for snaring the naive and unsuspecting. he literally feeds upon the masculine element of those unfortunate enough to get sucked-into the deception — it’s not just semen i’m ‘talking’ about folks….
this doesn’t explain it but it is another illustration of
why ROBERT BURTON IS A FRAUD.
http://www.sadlyno.com/wordpress/uploads/2008/04/clown_car.jpg
on a lighter note
Pompous presentation:
half truth 146 thanks (i think) for the pompous presentation
the speaker in your video has it backward from the first sentence, he says:
“the teachings of george gurdjieff are at the core of all that is most profound in religions, philosophies and esoteric knowledge…” etc and blah blah, blah…
if this sentence were reversed there may be some truth to it, as:
“the teachings some ‘religions, philosophies’ and etc are at the core of george’s teachings” (and not the other way around as the speaker asserts).
the fact that this is ass-backwards doesn’t suprise me… if you look at who posted the video it’s a former fellowship of friends student… i recognized the name.
two thumbs down…
it gave me a headache.
mirage
feel a warm hand on my shoulder
quick turn, no one there
fingerprints smudged all over this glass heart
look and look no one there
and dusty footprints on this soft soul
no one there, no one there
eagle eyes suddenly myopic
head spinning round and round
who are you, what are you and why?
moth holes and tears are beginning to appear
in this gauze cloth tightly bound around me
from where, from where, from where?
made an art form of self-protection, being numb
now extremities begin to tremble
stop before I become undone
unraveling at light speed, please stop
want to run my finger in that worn groove
hear someone call my name
look at my hands, see them as familiar
recognize them, know they are mine
but you already have taken possession
of all those short words: me, you, we, I.
how did you do it, gain access to my mind?
leaving me with all these questions
who are you, what are you and why?
mind less
Cake
hey Jimmy Mc
last post should read:
“the teachings OF some religions,”
etc.
What is in a name…Robert Burton
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_burton.html
http://bloggingtherenaissance.blogspot.com/2008/02/renaissance-aliens-i-mean-renaissance.html
For Current “students.”
“Love is not love which
alters when your teaching payment ends,
Or bends not bending to your teachers will”
W. S . a little paraphrased…
j x.
If the link I enclosed above says we are sorry this video is not available just click on the blue writing above, for the direct link.
jx
Questions:
Wish all the “boys”, men, married men, single men, men with several children, came forward and told the story of how Robert Burton tried to get in their pants. How many?
How many got confused by this fucking sexual abuser?
How many had to pay the price of confusing their sexuality/intimacy with the “highest” teaching on earth?
Is that really “a small price to pay, dear” ?
This was his formula back then, has it changed?
One of the main features of the Fellowship of Friends is a social stratification phenomenon whereas there is developed an underclass of little people, nobodies, people that have no real social connection to the more prominent personalities in the cult. Generally this stratification is based on just a few factors, usefulness to Burton sexually or as an effective manipulator of the ranks or those with money that are willing to hand over sums to Burton when called on to do so. The underclass, those with no sexual, charismatic or significant monetary status are generally considered “less evolved beings” and are explained as “being on a lower lifetime.”
This social stratification phenomenon gives rise to all the more corrupt aspects of the human psyche. There develops a competitive atmosphere of trying to get noticed, to be seen associating with important people and the entire range of all the more disgusting antics involved in trying to ingratiate oneself with those that seem to have influence and access to Burton himself. There are hundreds of people in the Fellowship cult that willingly accept the position, indeed aggressively vie for it, of over-eager ‘teacher’s pet lackey and snitch’. In their deformed and altered minds there is a spiritual aspect to this willingness to emotionally grovel to those of higher status, it is believed that the willingness to humble yourself at the service of higher ups in the school demonstrates the kind of higher being that might eventually get counted as someone living in a closer lifetime to the goal of attaining ‘man number five’ status.
Among those that become sexually active with Burton it is possible to watch the transition of a confused, worried neophyte seriously going through a psychological crisis over going against his own nature and becoming a passive object of Burton’s obsessive lust into someone with a sense of power and position, at least for a month or two while Burton’s favor lasts. Though for some the infatuation and ‘privilege’ continue much longer. Of course many of these guys are literally whores as there is a quid pro quo for their services, so much for the oral third line work and then double that for the anal third line work. Those in the leadership roles and those with the money have learned over the years to give full attention to and treat these objects of Burton’s dalliances with every sign of respect. They are often charged with relaying “esoteric messages” from Burton to the higher ups and an unfavorable review from one of them to Burton could result in a demotion to a lower lifetime.
Meanwhile those with nothing to offer other than working at a job and handing over money to the cult enthusiastically accept all the various chores heaped on them by the local chiefs appointed by Burton. They imagine that they are doing the inner and outer work of the Fourth Way, but in fact they are merely pawns in a social hierarchy haphazardly designed by the predictable and prevalent human weakness of each ambitious devotee to beg approval from the boss and admiration from the other unknowns. These miserable Fellowship peasants desperately imitate the entirely artificial affectations of Burton and his henchmen to assume the appearance and the protocol of what Burton imagines is the elite class. After a few years of this absorption all things refined every male follower acquires at least the faint mannerisms of a certain variety of gay Narcissi.
One particularly corrupt aspect of the Fellowship culture of delusional self-sacrifice is the widespread and long established practice of ratting your fellow spiritual followers out to the authorities. In the Fellowship version of morality the willingness to report any and every sign of personal failing in others to the authority figures demonstrates that the informant has an advanced understanding of psychological principles. In the Fellowship of Friends this is one of the unimpeachable aspects of higher evolution, the reporting of all manner of indiscretions so that the “real being” of the offender can be generally established and through constant reporting and repeating of the reporting anyone’s particular reputation can be determined so that his specific chances of advancing up the chain of command over others will be limited. To such ends eavesdropping on private telephone calls over extension phones, sending spies to and agreeing to spy at parties and report “non-intentional” activities and even husbands and wives informing on the private peccadilloes of their spouses are all vigorously encouraged. Of course among the Fellowship little people, where there is little other means of gaining attention, the practice of informing on the other nobodies is epidemic.
now I think is funny, I smoked and got fined a few times, and my “friends ” reported me, I think it is sad, and maybe this people felt better about them sleves, that is possible, and on the other hand, they helped me to get out of the FOF, so be glad if you are watched by big brother.
Now what is Robert Burton up to?
“being on a lower lifetime”. I always thought membership in the Fellowship of Friends would help raise one’s alchemy from lead to copper. Refining one’s Being in the process.
I guess I’ll have to improve on my own, and what a chore that will be. Man#1. lead alchemy and a Jack of Clubs center of gravity.
No wonder I can speak sing-song Pidgin Chinese to my dogs and they knowingly understand.
hardtruth 32/153 post #15441
on April 13, 2008 at 7:14 pm
So absolutely correct and courageous of you to say so. Your description is very very accurate. Although, those who are in it would not describe it as such. What did the fish say when asked, ‘How do you like the water?’: Fish said, ‘What water!?’ When you are in it, you do not see/know it.
The fourth way idea of A influence, those of the ordinary values of life – values not in pursuit of consciousness, are very alive and real in the Fellowship of Friends. They are not exactly the same A influence trappings that you would find generally in life. They are rather specific to the criminal enterprise culture that is rampant in that environment. They are perhaps even more intense and insidious under those circumstances. Perhaps one of the most important of these A influence pursuits in the Fellowship of Friends is to be in a position to exercise power and influence over other peoples’ lives; specifically to be able to do the fourth line of work. Fourth line of work being defined as work ON other people. People, at a minimum, get personal satisfaction in the manipulation of others, for good or for ill. But, also, personal value is earned in the pecking order and view other people have of you. This is a systematised infrastructure established by, and maintained continuously, from the top dog on down throughout the entire organisation for the ultimate gratification of said top dog. I know, because I speak from personal intimate experience and am glad to testify to it along with the 15,000+ other post here and, hopefully, speak for some of the 15,000+ former members that had similar experiences but are silent about it.
You have just got to ask your self, ‘What does this have to do with consciousness and conscience that you came there for?’
Hardtruth and Associated Press, thank you for pinpointing this abhorrent practices. Strange to know that they happen just like that in any cult. That because in the hierarchy of idolatry, the whole hierarchy is corrupted into such behavior. None of these specific things ever happened to me perhaps because I didn’t have enough friends but I would report on myself! and payed fifteen hundred dollars for breaking the sex exercise before marriage!! I am laughing now!
Still, it seems good to remember that we were all in a set up that mauled our soul and each one of us went into it with the best intention. Each one knows for himself the degree of that best intention. The artists as much as the lower ranks served, convinced that they were serving something worthy. We were all used. The few that divided into two people and resolved the dissonance through severing what they could no longer just buffer are clinical cases. The Fellowship run over them.
Our tragedy is worth our compassion.
With that I do not mean don’t post about these things. It is very good to see them especially without the need to pinpoint all the exact people that would do these things to us. It could have been worse, it could still get worse for those that stay or join now but it is comforting to know that there were no truly horrendous crimes. Of course, I mean deaths and such things but the systematic rape, the deep fraud of a pretty cheap club culture instead of a conscious school and all the wasted energy of our real efforts for deep inner distortions of our understanding, seems horrendous enough to continue insisting on the need to not allow any more decadence to flow down its path.
You have great clarity and precision about many things Hardtruth, thank you for sharing. It is difficult when you tend to get over aggressive but hopefully the need for that will be less each day. The more we value each other the easier it is to accept one’s self. I’ve certainly had my good share of aggression.
Thank you all for your consistent participation. I certainly need you still and hopefully will continue to find you in one form or another. It is good to hear what you have to say and to have a place where to express my self. Participating on the blog has a tremendously great effect in understanding where one really stood in the vortex of this mess. It helps to swim out of the vortex when one knows the forces at stake. It is, with all its deficiencies, a very healing practice as Laura also suggested in that beautiful post you gave us a few days ago. Now I even feel connected to your family and your daughter. Talking of which, I am with my younger daughter in San Francisco and our process of healing continues better each day.
It was so good to be up in Oregon House and see both students and none students.
#158: After reading this past of Elena’s post about Hardtruth I am reminded of myself, back in 1994, upon leaving the Fellowship. ‘It is difficult when you tend to get over aggressive but hopefully the need for that will be less each day.’
I experienced incredible anger. It certainly pressed my emotional buttons! I especially felt anger about the ongoing abuse along with a feeling of outrage and frustration with not being able to do anything abut it.
Anyone who knows me now would kind of be surprised at my out of control anger at the time, which is so unlike my nature. I believe it is a part of healing process and cannot be ignored.
lauralupa:
Thanks for the Laurie Anderson link. I am one of her fans and have seen her both speak and perform. She is indeed a remarkable woman.
Elena:
“It was so good to be up in Oregon House and see both students and none students.”
Your use of the word “none” caught my attention.
Please understand that I do appreciate your outspoken nature, Elena, and trust that you will continue to freely post your feelings and thoughts to get them out and in the open. You are a spokesperson for many who remain silent.
You are also fresh out of the cult. I would like to respectfully call your attention to one of the unconscious indoctrinations that may still be afflicting you and others like you.
Robert Burton refers to himself as a “teacher” because we are taught in school from an early age to respect and obey our school teachers as important authority figures in our lives. He establishes an unconscious “frame” as it were, to exalt himself above others and manipulate them into remaining in the subservient and lesser role of his “students”. He then exploits his position as leader of his cult, I mean, ’school’.
I challenge your use of the word “student” and the frame(s) that the word establishes.
Yes, one could argue that we all are students of life on this planet and the smallest child among us can be our teacher. My children are for me. In that regard, Robert, is no different than anyone else…except for the fact that he doesn’t spend too much time around children, does he? (And I certainly wouldn’t want him near mine, even as adults.)
IMO, children would be too challenging for him and would see through him in an instant. He would bore them to tears with all his repetitive quotes and nonsense or have them cracking up with his ramblings about cave poop! Now that I think of it, if he did start hanging out with young kids, maybe he’d start a new form of divination by reading the shit patterns in diapers like tea leaves. But I digress…
Professional teachers have ethics otherwise they get fired; IMO Robert is a sociopath and has none.
As hardtruth has so eloquently pointed out in his diatribe, his group is filled with an underclass of dependent followers, not students. A student learns to be independent of his or her teacher. A follower, by definition, remains a follower, which is the case for those still entangled in the Fellowship’s web of lies.
By continuing to use the frame of “student” to describe members of the Fellowship, you indirectly establish and support the frame that Robert is a “teacher”, and I really don’t think that is your intention… You may want to update that file and discontinue use of the word in the Fellowship context. Your daughter is a student, but not a follower, right?
You would better serve others up in Oregon House if you were to refer to members of the Fellowship by their actual condition: they are followers. In doing so, that just might awaken conscience in a few lucky ones.
This is my perspective, 23 years later. Take it for what you will.
Whalerider,
Beyond the terms is us. It was good to see the people I shared life with for seventeen years without getting to know them. The desire to get to know them is still there as alive as ever. In a structure of idolatry we cannot come close to each other because the vision is blinded by the “divine figure.” That’s just an aspect of what happened to us. It is so good to be digging out the details of how things went so wrong. May it be engraved for ever in our hearts that we never make this mistake again in any lifetime.
I appreciate your desire to talk but the detail is inconsequential. How do you want me to call them? My friends who I lost and never had? Like you? It does make one wonder who is more deranged inside or outside when we make these efforts to communicate that we don’t really wish to hear what the other person is really talking about and have gotten stuck in the insignificant. Is it just an excuse to talk?
We may be a lot of things but we are also Robert Burton’s students. He is a hell of a Teacher and we learnt to divide ourselves into two people and sacrifice ourselves for his sake. That is how efficient a Teacher Robert Burton is and his methods. One day we will only look at the cream and the cream will look almost the same over an “organic” cake. It is interesting how inorganic and fake the Fellowship managed to become together with the rest of us. Many still argue that they have not been damaged while I am still trying to pick up the pieces of distorted mind that can’t stop thinking while the heart wonders how it is possible to surrender more fully to this amazing world. For those of us who have managed to walk out with our multiple pieces, it is still good to remember that there is nothing wrong with beauty or the King of Hearts, or believing in conscious love or to continue the struggle to unite rather than separate from other human beings and the world around one. If we each just remember to check with our own heart, and not a puppet we want to have our responsibilities taken over by, we may actually manage to communicate one day or resonate a chord of mutual well being. A community, like a marriage, sets out on a quest and it is difficult to succeed. But we remain forever connected even if we never talk. Our life is not a carpet full of wholes where no one weaves for fear of moving, but a carpet woven stitch by stitch with great joy for the weaving.
I wish you and your family to be doing well together or independently.
Looking over these past few days’ ‘blogs’ (mine is my real name) about Burton, I have had to struggle with bi-polar disorder for 18+ years and the side-effects of medication for it. I worked hard to gain my Certificate in Post- Compulsory Education and in January this year opened my Academy of Precious Metal Arts. I hope to go completely freelance by August. One thing I have learned from my own teaching – I am there for my students, not they for me. As regards the Self – it cannot be ultimately selfish – as Miyamoto Musashi, the Samurai mystic wrote “Go beyond Love and Grief – learn to serve humanity” I’d love to communicate with you all again after so long away from this site!
As an after thought, look up Google – bi-polar affective disorder artists – CBs by the handful! (N)
Dear Tony Parsons
I thought 3(1) – 2 was beautiful! How about this – “Life by its very nature is Eternal – Death and Birth are only doors”
108/Dandelion
You should’t necessarily look here to see what is “going down” under your veritable noses. I would enjoy hearing tales from the present in that money-grubbing-fuck-fest.
151 and 164 – 166 are newly moderated.
Elena:
I respectfully disagree. I assure you (and others) that the terms we use are not inconsequential in the least. Words convey meaning, conscious and unconscious.
Again, I want to remind you that you are freshly out of a high intensity, high control CULT. Study the idea of “framing” as a psychological reality and you will understand where I am coming from. I highly recommend George Lakoff’s book, “Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate” for further reading.
Lakoff illustrates the power of framing regarding the people who are pulling the strings of our president, George Bush. An example is how framing works is how the president lobbied to have the tax on inheritance repealed, known as the estate tax. For many, many years this tax was accepted and unchallenged by the public. It mainly applied to the rich class, Bush’s friends, who were most impacted. He succeeded in changing how the public thinks of the estate tax by reframing it in his speeches, (undoubted written for him) by calling it instead the “death tax”. The media took up use of the term. Why should someone be tax upon their death? In a matter of months the tax was repealed.
I totally get the emotion behind your post, and feel the love you have for your friends. That is beyond debate. I was referring to the indoctrination embedded in your thinking. The words you choose are related to both how you think and feel. This is the deranged language you have used for 17 years and keeps others imprisioned.
“We may be a lot of things but we are also Robert Burton’s students.”
Robert Burton is not my teacher! This is how ingrained the Fellowship is in your thinking! Can you take that in? He ceased being my teacher when he violated my personal boundaries to have sex with me, and fuck you for saying so. A criminal who steals your car, ‘teaching’ you to always lock it is not a bona fide teacher, they are a criminal who has taught you something.
A teacher teaches his or her student to be independent of him or her. Don’t our children teach us so through their rebellion? Robert Burton is most certainly not a teacher he is a cult leader, plain and simple and I will argue with you as long as you wish until you concede that point, if that is what you really desire. You are defending him by calling him a teacher and continue to relagate yourself as his subordinate. You have freed your body from the Fellowship, now free your mind.
What do others think? Are there any bloggers out there who also think Robert Burton is their teacher?
169 whalerider
Actually Frank Luntz (the antiChrist of politics and semantics) coined the term “death tax”. He and Hitler used framing quite well in the service of their masters and egos, as does Mark Penn Mark. Just a detail…the framing didn’t cause it to be repealed. The top rate was lowered by one percent in 07, where it remains until 2010 when it comes back as before. I think it’s a yearly legislation, and in the event the Democrats don’t fuck up an almost sure win, which they very well could, it probably will be re-framed as the estate tax, which it is.
That’s not me peeing on your leg, it’s raining.
whalerider 169
Whalerider, I think you are quite correct in pointing this out and asking the question.
I recently spoke on the phone with an old friend who had just officially left the Fellowship. It was a nice conversation, yet I couldn’t help but notice how much his thinking and modes of expression were still under the influence of thirty years of indoctrination.
When distancing oneself from the cult, new realizations live side by side with a lot of old dogmas not quite ready to die. Complete deprogramming takes a while, and I am convinced that people here need all the help they can get to be able to rethink and deconstruct the complex mental framework that has enabled the Fellowship to keep them locked inside, sometimes for a very long time. There are various layers of deception, and it can take years, and many tears, to peel them all off. Fortunately we can be of some help, since we have had to go through all this ourselves!
To stop labelling Robert “Teacher” and us “students” is a very good start. For years I told myself and others the story that I had been in a Fourth Way group, and that I had left because my “Teacher” had some major problems I couldn’t live with.
But truly, after painful rethinking, I now agree with Whalerider: though I was a member of Robert Burton’s organization for years and paid many, way too many teaching payments, he was never my “Teacher”, and he never taught me anything of real value, nor, I am sure, he ever truly considered me his “student”. I was just a pawn in his game. There was never a real intellectual or emotional connection between us. Not only he ignored me, but he hurt in different ways many of my close friends.
How could I keep calling this man my teacher, even for years after leaving? I guess the idea of years of wasted “teaching payments” (monetary and otherwise) was just too hard to swallow. Nowadays I don’t consider my Fellowship years a total waste, but I do know quite clearly that the good I still find in them did not come from the man I used to call Teacher.
Remember Goebbes? “A lie, repeated often enough, will end up as truth.” How many times has Robert Burton referred to himself as “The Teacher” in all the time you have spent in his “School”?
Teaching dinners, Teaching payments, notes from the Teacher, thoughts from the Teacher, The Teacher says …
He sure did (and still does) his best to hammer these words into our brains!
Now please turn on your brand new decoding machine and translate:
Cult leading dinners, thoughts from the cult leader, etc…
Language influences thoughts, so changing the language helps to change the mind!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4FeyGTmw0I0
Not long ago I used the phrase “our Teacher”. Ton brought it to my attention. My intent was “tongue in cheek”, but it didnt work out. the short time I was IN the messages I got were, “the Teacher said”.
Personally, I used ‘group think’ for a long time after being ejected for not being ‘Fourth Way’ material (thank you influences greater than ‘I’). People even ‘photographed’ me for having a strange personality. At the time I wasn’t practicing ‘when in Rome, act like a Roman’. Now I drink and cuss with the best of them.
This is strange: Yesterday I had the thought, “I wonder what happened to nigel harris price, I miss his unique posts”. And, here he is.
Whalerider,
Your desire to fuck me could have taken a different turn to this one if you weren’t so interested in finding justifications to separate rather than resonate.
I certainly would not say fuck you for any reason. That to me is a lot more offensive than anything Robert Burton ever did to me, coming from you. If you wish to disregard what I have been saying here for a year to stand up against me for this ridiculous discussion of terminology, please be my guest.
I do not disagree with you that I may well be under the influence of the Cult still and I could have phrased the sentence as We have all been Robert Burton’s teacher rather than are but to me those very slight differences are not revealing the gist of my long lasting position on the Fellowship of Friends, which, coincidentially is ever so close to yours.
I wonder to what extent you ever were Robert Burton’s student? What did it mean to you to join a conscious school? Did you leave as soon as he fucked you as you say?
I guess the issue for me here is that I am not at all interested in throwing the baby out with the water. Robert used the system to make us work for him but that does not mean it is the system’s responsibility. The fact that he extracted two simple, minute ideas from the system: self remembering and the non-expression of negative emotions to reduce us into helpless beings against his all encompassing authority, does not in any way mean that the System as shortsighted as us.
You might relish on standing on the shit and fucking people up as you are telling me you’ll do to me for the rest of your life if you wish without ever remembering what was beauty and how beauty was used to brainwash us down to the toenails, but that is not in my interest. I will come out of this with more beauty and conscious love and firmness on what I know to be true than any of the innumerable things that made life difficult for so many years. For how long you wish to dwell on the horrors of the Fellowship of Friends is up to each one of us. You’ve been doing it for 23 years. I’ve been doing it for a year and it is more than plenty.
That does not mean I will not continue to expose the Fellowship where I see it fit. It means I am not personally unhappy about it anymore, I do not feel harmed to the point that I cannot recover my dignity. I will continue to fight it until it is closed down because I do not accept it harming other people and I will sign petitions and do everything else in my hands to make it stop its practices and yet all the horrors of the Fellowship of Friends do not come to the ankles of what is true and beautiful in this world.
You are so angry and heroic about your conviction and yet you cannot bring yourself to even sign the petition because it may have negative consequences for you in the long run, you may be “publicly exposed”, you mentioned is your fear. Hopefully you have reconsidered your position. That alone takes so much of your conviction and puts it in the trash. So please go and fuck somebody else if that is what you like doing with people, I am too used to being mistreated to consider your cheap language anything but cheap. On the contrary, if you can really bring yourself up to what can take a man to an airport when he is serious about what he is offering, then please don’t hesitate to renew your invitation. We fight only with those we truly care for.
I was just watching a luncheon given by the Associated Press where Obama was speaking. The main speaker mistakenly called Osama bin Laden, Obama bin Laden. As the speaker was still on the stream at the end it was obvious he didn’t mean to do that and didn’t even know he had done it.
Come on folks Let’s give each other a break. Sometimes we do say things we don’t mean and it doesn’t mean a damn thing!
If we just keep getting caught up in words and arguing about what they mean, like what’s happening in politics right now it really waters down the whole reason why we’re here trying to help others, IMO.
When people want to oppose someone anything can be used to do so, even their red shoes.
It actually makes me laugh to observe that things can be turned around to the extent in which I am now the deluded student you are trying to help come out of the Fellowship of Friends Cult with your fuck you language.
But since you wish to insist on the point I’ll address Laura’s post. Laura, you are someone I deeply admire and resonate with and yet Robert Burton is my greatest teacher still today. I have learnt more about how horror is laid out on people, used masterfully and deployed like an expert from Robert Burton than from all the books on fascism and mind control that I ever read. He will forever be the Teacher I will relate back to to know what is necessary to avoid. For that, I will always be grateful to him, he has shown me hell.
Some of you here might wish to put Robert Burton as the devil today but to me he doesn’t have such powers. The fact that he divided into two people and was unable to carry out the Work of a School in the big sense of the term is simply tragic. But to me, he is nothing but a poor deranged human being in need of intense therapy, in fact, a community that were able to embrace him with all his madness and limited him from harming any body else in any way. Since we do not have that, jail from two to five years would do him well. It would simply be harder on him.
Unlike you I do not hate him but his practices. Not who he is but what he does. Like everyone else in the Fellowship and the world around us, being proffessional or “Proffessional Being”, means you can detach the human being from the inhuman practices and CHANGE. As long as we accept that CHANGE is possible, then we can work in finding solutions, human solutions, not just “fuck you” solutions.
Dear Elena,
thank you for all your kind words towards me. I need to point out that in my case the renouncing of Robert Burton as my Teacher is not an act born of hatred, but more like part of a process of liberation, like arthur saying “I’m free at last.”
I have an ex husband. We haven’t been together for as long as I’ve been out of the Fellowship, but I still consider him my (ex) husband. For all our troubles, during our time together we loved and lived and worked as husband and wife. I feel differently about still calling Robert my (ex) teacher, because I really don’t think that he fulfilled that role for me in any meaningful way.
As I have mentioned before, I do feel I have learned a lot through the Fellowship experience, but that doesn’t make Robert my teacher, since he never truly behaved as one in his relation to me. Instead, I would say that the Inner Teacher has shown me a lot of lessons using as raw material (impression) my encounter with the man Robert Burton (not a devil, although one might see him as a person possessed by demons), and I feel that to be much more correct. I am still transforming a lot of those impressions, years after that encounter actually ended.
So, who is the real Teacher here?
Sorry for all the semanthics, but as you can see I can’t get over my neediness for clarity.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vVj-BA0Zufk
Very well put Lauralupa. I wish I had the ability for such clear ways of expressing myself sometimes. (sigh)
Hmmm… and right now I wish I was in Maui doing Jin Shin TARA!
I guess the grass is always greener on the other island :.)
Elena
I believe you are on the Path of True Teaching yourself – using eloquent language to explain the way out of ‘confusion’ and ‘inner conflict’ and not just using words to ‘tickle the ears’ (Bible – I think Corinthians?) of one’s followers, as I feel Burton has done, in the past and probably even now. Ruskin, the Evangelist of the 19th century talked of most (my impression, really) enjoying a ‘thing well said, rather than a true thing’. I feel there are three steps in one’s emotional and mental extrication from the ‘horror’ following their (certainly in my case) physical seperation from the FOF – Truth, Dignity, Balance. In my teaching, I have to show what is possible by means of showing ‘transferrable skills’. I do not mind sometimes looking an idiot to ‘get the idea across’. It is my belief that my students pay for me to show them how to succeed and not just to tell me how well I teach (they imply that by their dedication to turn up to my classes). I am hoping to go through my poetry files to find extracts from others’ ‘angles’ on the subject, but there is one from W B Yeats that I remember that, being part-Solar, means a great deal to me “Now I WITHER into the Truth”. Hope this helps. N.
Here we go…
Yes Bruce
And on TV just after that 179 was a program about televising trials – OJ Simpson, Louis Woodward etc. Just a thought for those with weak sphincters! Glad you remember the last blasts. Good presence on your part, mate!
108 Dandelion
Thanks for the correction. I guess I was wrong again. The envelopes reading “gratuities for servers” really were gratuities for servers. And here I thought we had been lied to.
Bruce:
I was wrong. Thank you for the correction, it was Luntz who coined the term estate tax and worked for Fox News.
The Lakoff book explains that, “on the day George W. Bush arrived at the White House, the phrase ‘tax relief’ started coming out of the White House.”
Other examples of framing: compassionate conservative, collateral damage, war on terror, Operation Iraqi Freedom, pro-life, partial-birth abortion…
Elena:
My apologies to you (and anyone else) for the crude, two word shock.
Words do matter! That was my point in saying, fuck you. Can you get that? Did it really fit with what kind of person you think I am?
Thank you for owning your statement, “we are also Robert Burton’s students.” That is offensive to me. Speak for yourself. He is your teacher, not mine. You stayed in a lot longer than I. To me now, he was never a teacher at all, but an imposter, a fraud, a person masquerading as a teacher. Teachers teach independence. Once the fucking started and I felt my soul imploding, I started planning my escape.
Ever have a nice deep tissue massage, like accu-pressure or Rolfing? The kind of massage that hurts and feels good…breaking up that crystalized lactic acid in your muscles known as knots?
You feel strongly that you would never say fuck you to anyone, and I feel just as strongly that I would never call Robert a teacher or his followers students. He is a cult leader, and his followers follow him. I never called into question your devotion to your higher self, as you did mine. I don’t appreciate that.
As far as my private, confidential conversations with you about the petition, are you the type mean little girl who went around pulling people’s pants down on the school yard? Should I be afraid of you?
Thank you Nigel.
What do you teach?
Having said all that about Robert, truth is, I do not think anyone should ever try to have a teacher again! I think we are all each other’s teachers and there are myriad areas where you can see things about me that I cannot see about myself and vice-versa. With only one reference we can get easily lost because the teacher-student relationship becomes “comfortable.” They end up fitting into each other’s feature. At the same time, I would not say there are not enough people with more developed experiences that I would not be delighted to share with.
Perhaps it is that in our time, I don’t believe we can have a fruitful relationship with each other if there is an inequality in our conception of BEING. If one starts from the position that someone has more being than one’s self, one is already submitting one’s being to an authority and that is already pathological. We are equals in our I. Our most intimate self is as authentic in each one of us. The differences come in our experiences so we can teach each other from our experiences not from our superior being. Life is too complex for anyone to have all the answers about everything. We each have a few answers in what ever area we were given to live with, develop with. Learning then is an appreciation for what you might know that I never even came close to suspecting. It is a constant surprise. “Being” is only taught by the beauty with which we relate to each other. Conscious love is the only true being and I am still eons away from it but not as far as I was in the Fellowship of Friends. Unconscious love which is what we have almost all the time, is conscious love’s little brother! Whalerider where are you? To have been taught what is not is almost as good as to have been taught what is if one can turn it around to one’s advantage. In the Fourth Way, life is our real teacher.
Bruce, could we share another beer soon? Lost your email, mine is ludoteka@succeed.net if you’d care to do that. I can laugh a little more than a year ago! And I promise not to talk about consciousness of any kind! I know you are finer than that!
183 whalerider
I think you meant Luntz coined “death tax”. And thanks.
184 Elena
“I do not think anyone should ever try to have a teacher again!”
I can only speak for me, but I wouldn’t trust anyone who “propounds” the offer of being a teacher. And the more well known, the less I believe them. Guru syndrome is an incredibly difficult disease to avoid in a “teacher”. They all become corrupt, and they all live in splendor, eventually.
So I guess I’m saying, if you can see their work, or they talk about work they’re not worth a shit.
Some people, at some point in their life/ inner continuum might profit from some kind of student/mentor thing (teacher) for a period, if for no other reason than to learn how to glean the useful from the pathetic. My feeling for myself is that after a certain point one basically has the answers, but they might not have the will or desire or aim to follow them. Finding another teacher, or continuing to “Seek” might often be a cop out to actually “finding”.
That’s just me.
Yeah, Elena let’s do Tuck’s again, anytime.
Dear Elena
You may not know me from the Fellowship, since when I was a member, Girard was with Barbara and my leaving was messy. to say the least. I was diagnosed with clinical depression – the stress of working my backside off as a trainee silversmith and jeweller (and still not making enough money for donations, GUILT ETC.) That is what I teach – practical skills so that people can develop their own design ethos – really I should call myself a tutor/facilitator – and students sometimes teach me things and do so among themselves – peer teaching. It’s a lovely social thing for me being emotionally centred and my students are true friends and not subordinates as you and I both experienced in the
FOF. The one great thing the FOF did for me was to introduce me to Whitman. Did he not write and do the Foffers take any notice I wonder? “Knowledge is not finally found in schools…..”
P.S I value your serenity as I value mine when these opportunities to contribute to the investigation and hopeful dismantling of the Fellowship fire up semi-mania in me. Do not give in to Whalerider and Bruce taunts(N).
So here you are Whalerider, this is indeed mostly for you. Spare yourselves kind ladies and gentlemen.
You can be as afraid of me as you like if that is where you wish to go but I am not aspiring to play your wife so why don’t you fight with whom you are angry at and not all women around you? You have stated publicly that for now you do not intend to sign the petition here on the blog and I do not have a blog personality totally severed from the rest of my life. In or out, I take what I share with people and incorporate it.
You do like to reduce things to avoid the real issue, don’t you. The issue here is not that you and I have a private conversation and I am exposing your dick, the issue is that you have this tremendously heroic language about what can and cannot be said about the Fellowship and in your actions you are not willing to do much to stop it. You’ve heard me screaming at it for a year, exposing my husband and everyone else around me for their and my inconsistencies, what makes you think that you are free from such exposure? You think you can come here and just get hurrays for your hard language from me?
If you wish to continue justifying your self and your separation rather than your resonance with what you and I have in fact both being saying louder and clearer than most anybody else here, please go ahead and do so but don’t be surprised if you find me when you look for me. I hold you in high enough regard to not wish to touch you any further. I do not look for you with insignificant differences to make a tragedy of our connection. Our mutual inconsistencies are just that. The rest of us is also here and you are never going to see it if you keep covering it with muck.
Maybe you could call out again to see how many back you up against me. Evoke that kind of mass behavior that Robert relishes in so that you can feel more comfortable with your actions. Maybe you learnt more from The Teacher than you are willing to admit.
I understand what you are saying and there is nothing to disagree about. Your teacher or not, submitting ourselves to Fellowship of Friends indoctrination, taught us, controlled us, manipulated us. The Teacher of this Cult, that degenerated cult leader and the rest of his inner circle, as you wish to call him, imposed on us a way of life that TAUGHT US certain things. We are talking about different things Whalerider. They are not the issue. You and I are the issue. You wish to fight and disagree. It is a pity that we have not yet had the opportunity to love each other deeply. I hope it comes to that soon enough. Life keeps turning around and we go up and down. We’ve made a treaty with another student, I mean, ex-student, to love each other while still allow for brutal disagreement! Then “resonating” is only a matter of time! With right conceptual structures and practices, we cannot turn against each other. We can only make things better. Can’t you see that THAT is what false personality does? It is always trying to separate.
So let me ask you one thing. I have said a million things on this blog. Why do you take only the one thing in which you think you can find an issue to oppose me and don’t acknowledge the myriad things in which we happen to agree?
You have in the past. If you and I were not the issue here, why are you doing so now?
Please do not allow love or something that could have been that, turn into bitterness. We still have time for such an experience even without ever taking each other’s pants down!
But don’t think I am afraid of such thing.
And even if you don’t sign the petition, there are many other things that you talk about that I appreciate listening to.
Thanks Nigel for standing on this side of the sew-saw for a little while. It does get a bit hectic to be up there on one’s own most of the time, especially when what I really like is just to sew-saw! Hope that is the spelling.
Bruce, sent you my email so that you could give me yours or a phone I could call.
Nice one, Elena!
P.S. Remember we are 8 hours ahead when I read this. Could be an ‘all-nighter’ as we say in the psychosis trade – my GP is going to love me when I go in tomorrow to get my prescriptions.
Lauralupa 171, right on.
Elena I don’t think Whalerider is gratuitously picking a fight with you so much as reacting to his own pain, a pain which the language you use triggers in him.
I read him as trying to show you that some of the modes of expression you use remain cult-bound, your best efforts to the contrary notwithstanding. But clearly you are trying to break out of such shells, you just can’t throw the all pieces off at once.
Elena:
Please see post #31-26
You think that confronting your thinking is somehow “opposing you” and then you resort to evoking my dick in your post. Hmmm…
So be it.
This may either open a can of worms, or lead to some interesting discussion, or lead nowhere. But here goes…
I’ve been thinking recently about the handful of psychiatrists and/or therapists who are part of the fof. I don’t know how many are in the group, but I’m curious about them right now. I’m sure some people in the fof often approach them to look for advice and guidance — while trying to come to grips with the weirdness they are experiencing.
But here’s my question… When these counselors/therapists are approached, what do they say?
I’m guessing that some of them struggle with the reality of the fof in their own way, while also dealing with the struggles of their fellow cult members. But my concern is this: I doubt that they ever — EVER — recommend that someone leave the cult, or suggest in any way that this is a viable option. If they do suggest an escape from the fof, I commend them for that, but I doubt that they do.
For a professional counselor to offer advice to anyone in the fof, and to also be a member of the fof concurrently — this is the definition of “conflict of interest.” I sincerely doubt that they help their patients understand the dysfunction of the Fellowship of Friends as fully as they could — nor do they help them understand how remaining in the fof is a recipe for poor emotional health, and how leaving would benefit their psychological well-being.
With or without knowing it, these people are making a strong contribution to Burton’s agenda.
Maybe there are exceptions. Maybe, overall they have indeed helped some people to leave by engaging them in thoughtful discussion — intentionally or unintentionally.
But it’s just something to think about… What type of “professional” guidance do these people provide when a fellow fof’er comes to them with the question: Do I stay, or do I go?
You know what Whalerider, I think you like me a lot more than you are willing to admit to yourself because what is the point of this going on and on about us. For this is only about us. I have not started talking about pulling pants down, in fact I don’t start this dialogues. It is you who brought such thing up. I asked you a question that you are not willing to answer. Deviating the issue again?
Veronicapoe, I thank your interpretation. You might want to protect each other as much as you like but there are some clear guidelines that we can stand by if we want some honesty in between us. Some dialogue and some struggle in that dialogue just as much and I am not going to take garbage that doesn’t belong to me or run away because Whalerider or anyone can tell me to get fucked while no one questions him about it but supports him instead. It all helps us to look at our selves and it hurts. Insults turn back against the insulter and he is still protesting about it, give me a break!
Confronting my thinking Whalerider starts becoming very suspicious when you do not address real issues but pick on superficialities. Your ideology and mine have been closer to each other here than anybody else’s, perhaps that is why we’ve come this close to each other. You do not enjoy that closeness, I’m not running after you, can you take that and leave your self alone? And me in the meantime? If you want to talk to me, talk to me, don’t just fool around.
I actually asked Ton to be soft on you when you addressed what seemed very intimate information about him that only Greg had exposed before and had gotten thrown out of here, why are you so eager to fight. For you are eager. On what account. But it takes two and I am hardly game for it. “So be it” is fine with me. You already said it a long time ago and no one blasted you for it and yes it hurt but no body knew but you.
I just looked at 31-26. That is good news! I had not seen that post, maybe it came out later? For I do read you. You see, it matters to me.
The tone matters more than anything we say and your tone is not kind. So I know the words you convey are charged with something else. Teacher or no teacher don’t matter. There have been some real issues that we’ve never come even close to approaching but I am glad to know they are out of my system and I can leave knowing I gave back everything I received from the Fellowship. In the meantime, it is a pleasure to participate for as long as there is enough fuel worth the effort.
Laura, thanks for the tone. Indeed I was not addressing you specifically in that part of the post that you answered but it is all right to not be clarifying these things all the time.
There’s a beautiful new episode of “American Experience” about Walt Whitman.
Bring boxes of Kleenex to the living room. Yeah, lots of tears. Good tears, though.
Dear Elena
Just keep on and also thank Bruce for pointing out my blog to you. I am not sure whether Animorecro allows personal information to be posted but since I have no fear of retaliation and also believe that Higher Beings work with sincere seekers/workers, you can find my telephone number in the Exeter, England telephone directory or ask directory enquiries. (Dear Animorecro – this would greatly help in the discussuion process). Elena, I have printed material I would like to send you copies of.
About Psychotherapists
Obviously with my mood disorder, I have come across many consultant psychiatrists in my road to (present) stability. Shall I just say that there is a world of difference between, say, an inpatient psychiatrist, who would obviously benefit financially by keeping a certain number of patients/clients in mental institutions or ‘on the books’, so to speak, and the lovely lady doctor who comes to see me from the Crisis Resolution Team here in Exeter whenever I seem to be encountering a ‘blip’. Actually, the aim of said team is to keep people out of the local mental institution if at all possible since they have found that patients recover quicker in their home (natural) environment. As regards ’shrinks’ in the FOF, some of them are well trained, others are just taking advantage of the ‘power/dependency’ relationship that is built. I would even venture to say that Californians have psychiatrists to the extent that we in England have men to empty our waste-bins. Enough said!
To Arthur in 172
Glad to be of service to your wishes through the help of Higher Forces. Actually, I have an apology to make to Animamrecro and, inadvertently, to you. I stopped ‘blogging’ when a subscription was asked for and, as has been usual in my play from my early twenties, I did not have any money to spare. I only went back these past days out of curiosity and found the site free again. All I can say in my defense is that my payment is my explanations of experiences and things I have ‘lifted’ from others’ writings. I have been extremely motivated by the third force of what Elena has been writing in the mode of Huge Love. I wanted these words from Whitman to get to her (probably tucked up in bed, dear love! at the moment ) but offer this to all who want to gain from it. I included it in a few choice Christmas cards in the just-gone-season:-
“Love the earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take your hat off to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body………..” from ‘Prologue to Leaves of Grass’.
All men and women on Earth have work to do in the Great Play – it is not reserved for the Elite Few…..Nigel.
Physicians were part of FOF from earliest days. Recruit #3 was Dr. B— Shenk-r. Shortly thereafter came Dr. B-rn-rd B-rg-r. Two out of the first ten. They then recruited their friends, also physicians. Let’s not forget erstwhile heir apparent and walkaway Dr. D. McD.
I asked one of the early physician walkaways, someone who left in 197x before FOF even had a name, about the high number of physicians in FOF. He responded that physicians are always being hit up for answers. They want someone to tell THEM the answer. They have more money than your average bear and because of their own desire for certainty they can become easy marks in a sophisticated con game such as FOF.
Elena:
Good god woman! OK, have it your way, now I am mad at you. In my posts to you I have supported you, stood up for you, encouraged you to post, appreciated you, admired your passion, respected you, apologized to you and as soon as I point out an element of your indoctrinated language, you overreact in extreme! I never said I don’t like you! You attempt to intimidate me into silence by divulging confidential information about me, accuse me of dodging issues, “opposing” you, not liking you or other women bloggers, being angry, superficial…so what is really at play here? This isn’t about just ‘you and me”, that’s you. I would confront anyone else who calls Robert a teacher or his followers students as I have in the past. You are just being defensive! Read up on ‘framing’ and you will understand what I am saying. Please. The Fellowship indoctrination is sometimes very subtle.
196 nigel harris price
“thank Bruce for pointing out my blog to you.”
You must have me confused with someone else.
Re: 193 and veronicapoe 199:
Yes, the role of physicians in the fof is interesting, too, in addition to the role of mental health practitioners. Many physical ailments grow out of psychological ailments. Of course, most modern doctors either don’t care about such connections, or don’t have a clue about them, but you’d think your average doctor in the fof would start thinking, “Hmm, lots of people here with stress-related illnesses.”
For example, at least one young man in Burton’s “group of young men” actually had an ULCER in his 20s. Not your typical health issue for a young, strapping man in his 20s.
So, it again brings up the issue of complicity on the part of doctors and other health practitioners. They knew (and know) what’s going on.
The next question related to the above: What types of drugs are prescribed for fellow members?
——-
whalerider: Yes, there’s a LOT of the “framing” that you describe here on the blog, and I’m glad someone is pointing it out. You’re helping me to see it in my own thinking as well, by bringing up the topic. Some of us can leave the fof right away — end of story, I’m outta here. But for most of us, it probably takes a while to slowly peel away the indoctrination.
Whalerider, Yes and you also told me to get fucked.
197: Nigel
“As regards ’shrinks’ in the FOF, some of them are well trained, others are just taking advantage of the ‘power/dependency’ relationship that is built.”
That sounds very true.
Thinking about this topic, it just makes me wonder… Do they ever ask… “You seem very unhappy… Have you thought about leaving the ’school’? Did you know there’s help for people who leave cults?”
It’s highly doubtful they’d ever pose the question in that way. :) But as mental health practitioners, they’re remiss — or even irresponsible — if they don’t ask such a question.
Elena:
No girlfriend, you heard ‘get fucked’, which in my mind means drop dead, I never want talk to you again, I don’t care about you, etc….yet I apologized, and here I am reaching out to you…again, without referring to your body parts or gender.
I actually said fuck you for saying that Robert is still my teacher and I am his student. That’s a big difference. Saying that to me is even more offensive! I would never in a million years want my children to hear that I am a student of Robert. As a mother, can you understand why?
If we were closer friends, you wouldn’t take what I say so personally and understand where I am coming from. My closest friends would tell me if I had food stuck in my teeth as I was talking to them, and I wouldn’t take it personally either, I would thank them! Calling Robert’s followers students is like food still stuck in your teeth. So chill out. It is not a personal attack and it doesn’t reflect upon your level of being. Your reactions do. Even conscious beings make mistakes, don’t they?
I don’t oppose you, I thank you for your posts, and support you and all you are going through having recently left a high intensity, high control cult called, the Fellowship of Friends.
Let’s talk about what kind of frame does the “Fellowship of Friends” establish? What Fellowship? What Friends? Which Fellows? That’s the real issue.
It’s really the Follow-Ship of Fiends!
Nigel (198),
I am a pauper for many years. Thanks for the Whitman words.
Perhaps the mental health ‘professionals’ that are in the Fellowship of Friends are actually “psycho-the-rapists”?
I rarely go to the GF site. But, when I do it is mostly to see the beautiful photographs and check the new members list.
The other day, I checked and recognized a name that was neither friend nor acquaintance, but we did have a private and semi-private conversation. He probably doesnt remember those two times, but it will stay with me as long as I have a FOF memory. God bless all those whose memories are dark.
Anyway, I accidently (or maybe) not clicked on this person name and was shocked to be taken to his page. So, I tried other names and pictures. Talk about “party lines” or the feeling of eavesdropping. Very interesting what people share with each other.
Well, now I go to GF everyday and click names and pictures of members. I am doing the women first. And, I must say there are some very beautiful women. Including among these is my blog friend Laura.
Bruce, I had to stop at your name. I saw a better photograph of you and using FOF language, you reminded me of that planet that zooms around the sun, and the planet with rings.
I hope no one is offended.
195/Walt Whitman
“Who is reading this now?”
“Be simple and clear, be not occult.”
“I do not see that I am doing much good to these wounded and dying.”
“I am ashamed, but it is useless.”
Excerpts from Associated Press News:
Pope says he is ‘deeply ashamed’
of clergy abuse scandal
(AP) Apr 15, 2008
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON
Pope Benedict XVI on clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church:
‘It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission. . . ‘
‘It is a great suffering for the Church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen.’
The church has paid out more than $2 billion in abuse costs since 1950, the majority of it since 2002. Six U.S. dioceses have declared bankruptcy in recent years because of the financial toll of the scandal.
Abuse victims’ advocates said Benedict’s comments on the scandal did not go far enough.
‘Until the church creates a genuine system of justice to redress these wrongs the abuse crisis will continue,’ said Berry, who produced a new documentary called ‘Vows of Silence,’ which is critical of the Vatican’s justice system. Jason Berry, [is] a New Orleans writer who first drew national attention to clergy sex abuse in the 1980s.
Although a few bishops accused of molestation have stepped down, no bishop has been disciplined for failing to keep abusive clergy away from children. Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as archbishop of Boston in 2002 after church files were made public showing he and other church leaders had allowed accused clergy to continue in public ministry.
Again, the question is asked: Who is on this ladder?
Arthur, my dear man, did you add me as a friend on the GF or will I have to look you up?
It’s amazing how much I resonate with all sorts of silly pop songs lately. Actually, the exact same thing happened during my last few months in the Fellowship. In many ways I felt I was coming back alive, and a renewed appreciation of modern art and “popular” music was a very pleasant part of this rejuvenation. I know that many of you have been through a similar process.
Anyway sorry, all the badly connected people, IMO this song is a very nice find.
I’ve been walking in the same way as I did
Missing out the cracks in the pavement
And tutting my heel and strutting my feet
“Is there anything I can do for you dear? Is there anyone I can call?”
“No and thank you, please Madam. I ain’t lost, just wandering”
Round my hometown
Memories are fresh
Round my hometown
Ooh the people I’ve met
Are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of this world
Are the wonders of my world
I like it in the city when the air is so thick and opaque
I love to see everybody in short skirts, shorts and shades
I like it in the city when two worlds collide
You get the people and the government
Everybody taking different sides
Shows that we ain’t gonna stand shit
Shows that we are united
Shows that we ain’t gonna take it
Shows that we ain’t gonna stand shit
Shows that we are united
Round my hometown
Memories are fresh
Round my hometown
Ooh the people I’ve met
Are the wonders of my world
Adele – Hometown Glory
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nL49yZNE4yk&feature=related
Whalerider, Thanks for the words and the tone. Fine, why don’t you introduce your concept of “frames”. I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about and I’d rather not guess.
Laura no I havent but I will. I just hope it works for me like it’s suppose to. And, I hope you recognize it’s me.
Whalerider please explain “frames”, I havent a clue either.
I don’t really understand what is between Elena and Whalerider, other than things cannot be resolved when negativity is still there. I have come home after an evening class teaching at my Academy and wanted to feel that the impetus of discussion was going some direction. Maybe there are some experiences mutual to Elena and Whalerider that I do not really understand. Clue me in, why don’t you? Arthur would probably benefit too. I am going to cook myself something to eat after his long day, but will come back with something of (hopefully) substance. Be back with things…..Nigel,
There is Bruce and Bruce Levy on the blog site. Are they two different people? I know that anyone genuine can navigate around the confusion. Keep me ‘on the straight and narrow’. Nigel.
Fresh Magnetic Meat
There is a little-known condition, it is little-known in the hardheaded purely sensible world but it is common in the “esoteric” world, and that is the condition of the spiritual child. The actual age of the person is irrelevant, he or she has been reading exotic tales of spiritual phenomena and has been experimenting with methods that purport to “alter consciousness” and at the same time he or she is suffering a sense of isolation in the hard-as-nails everyday world where the general values seem to be to gain as much materialism and cynicism as is possible. The spiritual child is searching through the rubble of modern life often with a heavy heart longing for the companionship of his or her kind. The spiritual child has in most cases lost or never formed the capacity for responsible rational deliberation, his sense of right and wrong, his moral compass, is in many cases compromised by the many adopted spiritual theories that lend an unusual and extreme twist as an alternative to the typical good-or-bad reasoning of the average person. These spiritual children are actually living in a condition of diminished capacity in the sense that they have made themselves overly susceptible to spiritual lore and have become more naïve and innocent than those functioning from the usual toughened personality that is required to operate in the predatory world. They make the mistake of assuming that the spiritual realm is entirely altruistic and is seldom predatory.
To the Fellowship of Friends these kinds of people are its fresh magnetic meat and they go to lengths to lure them into the let-me-fuck-you-in-the-ass while we fuck up your mind “teaching” of the sociopathic and schizophrenic Robert Earl Burton. The first lie the spiritual children are told by Burton’s overconfident followers is that theirs is a conscious school and that their teacher is a fully realized man number seven. The truth is that Burton has an entirely murdered conscience, therefore making consciousness impossible for him. There can’t be consciousness without conscience. Burton is the opposite of a conscious man, in truth he is as mechanical as a human creature can become, a thing with purely selfish motivations in all things.
The second lie is that mystical powers have created the conditions in their school and are actively maintaining their privileged organization. The signs of this fact that they all believe in are precisely the same well-documented hallucinations that can be found in the case histories of the dysfunctional mentally ill. But these are by and large not overly intelligent people, these blessed members of the Fellowship, they are superstitiously fearful of making one the fateful mistakes Burton has threatened them all with so they listen with great interest while a mad man explains to them what it means to be in direct contact with the great spirits. Out of fear for their own non-existent souls they follow the mentally ill into increasing insanity believing all the while that they are being led into a higher condition of sanity. Naturally this atmosphere of mystical paranoid obsession seems highly intriguing to many of the spiritual children wandering loose in the world.
The spiritual children are easily manipulated by those with a sophisticated understanding of esoteric principles, normally the first esoteric principle is “do no harm,” meaning use directed attentiveness and the intuition of conscience to avoid confusing or misleading and certainly to avoid exploiting those that have an abnormal wish to trust anyone with higher knowledge. It is exactly this abnormal wish to trust those that seem to have higher knowledge that Burton uses to victimize the spiritual children of our world. This is why what he does to the spiritual children is rape. It is spiritual statutory rape to use the position of someone appearing to have advanced psychological knowledge in order to exploit spiritual children for sex. It is also a universal crime to exploit them for money or labor. To Burton and the Fellowship of Friends the spiritual children of our world are sheep, dumb animals raised on the farm and consumed not only as needed but to satisfy a gluttonous appetite. Of course the victims of this abuse believe they are being rewarded with attention from someone of unimaginable development, for a time they are perversely grateful to be sexually abused and exploited for money and labor.
There are plenty of us around that understand the truth of the situation in that refined hellhole of greedy deceit and we are aware of the fact that for evil actions there is eventually an ultimate price to pay. The long-term members of the Fellowship by and large do not understand the squalor of their situation because, one, they have a diminished conscience themselves due to their culpability in the crimes and, two, they are blinded by sheer self-righteousness. This is how they survive in the fumes of hell, when they hear “be present” or “remember yourself” they instantly heed Burton’s command to feel self-righteous. This is the condition of the majority of Burton’s followers, they mistake self-righteousness for self-consciousness and they mistake psychosis for higher consciousness. Unfortunately the spiritual children do not know what to think about this warped society or who to believe.
Hardtruth
This is good reading, but remember there is a difference between the severely mentally ill and those who are most of the time normal but occasionally the ‘cheese slips off their cracker’. Count me in on this last one…..Nigel
213 nigel harris price
same person.
My dear Elena, this is for you:
From Lakoff’s, “Don’t Think of an Elephant”:
“Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome or our actions. In politics our frames shape our social polices and the institutions we form to carry out those policies. To change our frames is to change all of this. Reframing is social change.
You can’t see or hear frames. They are part of what cognitive scientists call the ‘cognitive unconscious’- structures in our brains that we cannot consciously access, but know by their consequences: the way we reason and what counts as common sense. We also know frames through language. All words are defined relative to conceptual frames. When you hear a word, its frame (or collection of frames) is activated in your brain.
Reframing is changing the way the public sees the world. It is changing what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames.
>>>Thinking differently requires speaking differently.<<<<
When I teach the study of framing in Cognitive Science 101, the first thing I do is give my students an exercise. The exercise is this: Don’t think of an elephant! Whatever you do, do NOT think of an elephant. I’ve never found a student who is able to do this. Every word, like ‘elephant’, (or teacher in our case) evokes a frame, which can be an image or other kinds of knowledge: Elephants are large, have floppy ears and a trunk, are associated with circuses, and so on. The word is defined relative to that frame. Even when we negate a frame, we evoke it.
Richard Nixon found out the hard way. While under pressure to resign during the Watergate scandal, Nixon addressed the nation on TV. He stood before the nation and said, “I am not a crook.” And everybody thought about him as a crook.
This gives us the basic principle of framing. Do not use their language. Their language picks out a frame-and it won’t be the frame you want.
That is what framing is all about. Framing is about getting language that fits your worldview. It is not just language. The ideas are primary-and the language carries those ideas and evokes those ideas.
MYTH: The truth will set us free. If we just tell people the he facts, since people are basically rational beings, they’ll reach the right conclusions. But we know from cognitive science that people do not think like that. People think in frames. To be accepted, the truth must fit people’s frames. If the facts do not fit the frame, the frame stays and the facts bounce off. Why?
Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have-the long-term concepts that structure how we think-is instantiated in the synapses of our brains. Concepts are not things that can be changed by telling someone a fact. We may be presented with facts, but for us to make sense of them they have to fit what is already in the synapses of our brains. Otherwise facts go in and the go right back out.”
Lauralupa,
I just wrote to you on the blog, but I must have touched something because it disappeared.
I wrote to say that I went GF and found the Page I believe that belongs to you. I clicked the friend (icon?) and it responded, “request sent”. I hope it is your page.
Anyway, the GF site is too mechanically and intellectually advance for me.
I’m too simple minded even for this antique computer I’m using. No spellcheck, no grammer correction, no printer, no camera.
All I do is stand in the middle of dog fights and pray for the best. Speaking of dogs. I have a young dog that had to be taught to lick. Where young dogs like to lick, she snaps her teeth. Well, I have an adult cat who was pretty sick. So sick he attracted green flies (the flies of death). I said a prayer for him to the animal kingdom and wished him well.
Soon after the black tongued dog started licking the cat’s face which was overflowing with mucus. After days of licking the cat’s face, the green flies left, the cat began grooming himself, and he started eating better (he could smell his food).
In this instance Rodney Collin was right, the universe answers request.
Silly question, maybe, but what is GF?
Dear Whalerider
Thanks for the ‘frames’ explanation. Sounds a bit like the National Curriculum I could not come to grips with when studying for my PGCE in Secondary Education, teaching Craft, Design and Technology (actually, I was kicked off the course – experiencing my first ’sectionable’ fit of full-blown mania). That brings me to your mentioning synapses – most of the time we are so used to practical thought – sweep the floor, body: check the mail, intellect etc that we cannot deal with dopamine floods and non-lucid thoughts related to psychosis(?). I bet if you let me near Burton and Haven to check out their state)s), I could tell you what’s-what! Fight fire with fire and all that. Glad to see you’ve moved to being explanatory on the blog…………… Nigel.
Nigel, GF is the Greater Fellowship site, an online community that was born from the blog. At present there are over 700 members, mostly ex-Fellowship followers. Here is the address, but I am not sure if one still needs an invitation to join:
http://greaterfellowship.ning.com/
Hardtruth, thank you for the post about spiritual children. I was mulling over this idea of being in a “childlike disposition” since reading in a Jodorowski book of the powerful Mexican witch doctor Pachita. He mentions how the first thing she did with her patients, was talk and behave with them in such a way that in her presence they reverted to the state of children.
It hit me that Robert behaves in much the same way, with a fake fatherly persona he has mastered through years of practise. I was thinking of the soft way he talks, how he lowers his voice and calls you dear, and then I remembered that when I was at Renaissance the music that was played obsessively at the Academy was the soundtrack of “A room with a view”, containing the Puccini aria “O mio babbino caro” (oh my dear father). I was at a dinner where we listened in silence to this piece, and then he told us, in his usual inspired and lofty tone, that it was “the voice of the soul”.
Now this memory gives me the creeps, realizing how he played us like a violin. In his crafty hands, us spiritual children were truly “dead meat”.
BTW, arthur, it is me. :.)
I am going to be offline till the end of the week, ciao for now.
And children, Wake up!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DEKC5pyOKFU
Thanks Whalerider,
Point taken. Can I still breathe? And speak? and say that I have much learnt from the Fellowship of Friends and Robert Burton and that I am not suing him, if I ever come to that, because of what he did not teach me but because of what he made me suffer? For Cults do make people suffer no matter how much we buffer and think we are doing just fine, but suffer unnecessarily so there is hardly any real growth.
My point to you is: I’ve not been screaming here for a year to think that anyone, no matter how stupid they might be, will think I am in any way condoning the Fellowship of Friends if I call us students or ex-students. This, the fact that you are underestimating what I am doing here and have been doing to the Nth degree and for which people can confess how tired they can get of it, is what you seem to be thoroughly underestimating when you poke your litte question with a big fuck you for saying so.
I thank you for your apology and hope your last word is not a greater breach on our tremendous distance, no matter how dear or girlfriend you wish to put it.
I will admit to you one thing. I am not a healthy human being. I am hurt to the marrow of my being. I am extremely sensitive to any form of underestimation and trust no body and this may be happening here. Yours is a slight underestimation of what my role here has been and I don’t appreciate it. I think and feel I have run wildly out of your frame and you want to get me back into it and small enough that you can still fit in it. But it ain’t gonna happen love. So get used to it and walk side by side as equals. Then maybe we can talk. There is no need for the extremes of very cold or very warm, fuck you or girlfriend. We don’t need those games with each other. No body here does. I’ve tasted too much shit to put up with even a slight amount of it so yes, do your self a favor and talk to me about your self, not about the things you think I should be learning. I thought I was clear that I am not looking for teachers but peers. And I can spot anyone trying to stand over me even a milimeter, about five hundred thousand miles away. It is my seventeen year training at Robert Burton’s feet. You think I am damaged? Crazy? Good, keep your distance. My reasons may be blind to all others here but you will know them in your self if you look for them. No offense meant, allow me to simply be clear. Let us free our selves of each other’s frame and attempt a thoroughly new beginning. Keep rolling down this lane and time will come to meet again.
Hello Nigel,
GF is the Greater Fellowship, a relatively friendly and not anonymous meeting place/website for former and current ’students’
If you send me your email address I will send you an invitation and you can check it out.
All the best…
a.tudor@chello.nl
Post 221 Elena wrote:
“I will admit to you one thing. I am not a healthy human being. I am hurt to the marrow of my being. I am extremely sensitive to any form of underestimation and trust no body and this may be happening here.”
Very interesting point, and thanks for stating it in such an utterly naked fashion. I, too, still feel hurt and betrayed (and I left in 1999). Most days it is not such a big deal and I skate past it, but there are times when it spreads through my thoughts like some black, bitter river, carrying sadness, doubt, regret, anger. Some days it is hard to forgive myself for being so naive.
On the matter of trust: I wouldn’t mind hearing from people on how they rebuilt their sense of trust after the FoF experience. I know that my sense of trust was really damaged. I didn’t even realize how damaged for several years.
Would anyone care to offer their views on the following questions:
Do you fully trust yourself now?
Do you trust others as you once did?
What act and/or thought, or series of acts and/or thoughts allowed you to regain your trust in yourself and others.
For myself, it took me years before I felt I could fully trust the therapist I work with. I know directly where that mistrust comes from.
Maybe time is the only answer. Any thoughts?
Even though, intellectually I know better, I still have a visceral reaction when people want to tell me about their new guru or spiritual practice or
Oops, those last two lines in my previous post are not suppose to be there, so please disregard them. They were from a whole other tangent I was about to fly off on but thought better of. Freudian slip?
Hey Kids are you listening? Here’s a practical exercise:
The best way to think about leaving is to simply stop making payments.
It will be several months (I think I lasted 6 months) before you will be called on the carpet; at which time you can make a more informed decision as to your associations.
Elena:
How many times do I have to state that we are all equals here? I am not looking for any students nor do I make any claims about being a teacher or higher being or any of that crap. I am here sharing what I have learned 23 years later in an effort to spare others from making similar mistakes that I have made. I happen to have a lot to offer. Part of why I post here anonymously is because I do not want to take any personal credit or sell anything, or start a fourth way school or anything of that nature. The truth speaks for itself. I listen to the language that others use to talk about their experiences, reflective of the deeper held beliefs or frames they may have, and I call them on it.
If you want to continue framing Robert as a teacher and his followers as students, go right ahead, but it won’t help free their minds. To do that you have to switch ‘frames’. They are followers, Robert is a sexual predator, and the Fellowship is a pain factory.
I am clear on your stand against the Fellowship. But screaming about it on your part doesn’t alter the deeply ingrained indoctrinations that have been grafted into your being. It just releases energy, which is OK, too. It doesn’t change anything, however. This blog isn’t a contest on who can scream the loudest, nor is it popularity contest either. Nobody is in charge, and hopefully we can help each other as peers.
I didn’t invent the idea of frames, I gratefully pass it on because you had the maturity to finally drop your defenses and admit that you didn’t know what I was talking about. But first you attacked me personally, and I don’t appreciate that either, but I accept that as part of who you are right now. Followers in the Fellowship were lead to believe that the longer you stay in the school, the more evolved you become. Once you leave, there is a painful adjustment to the realization that the opposite may be true.
Look, it is obvious to me that you are deeply hurt. Seventeen years in a cult is a long time and it seems like your pain may even extend beyond that. If feels to me like your instinctive center is a wounded animal in the corner lashing out at any anyone who approaches, Elena. When I extend my hand to you, you bite it. You invite me to be closer to you and then at the slightest hesitation on my part or feedback I give you, you reject me venomously. I keep my distance from you out of my own self-protection.
But here in this public forum, what you or anyone else says matters to all of us.
I object your use of the royal “we” as in “we are all Robert’s students.” That’s bullshit, and I don’t mind telling you or anyone else so. He is a cult leader and we were his followers, some of us longer than others. Frankly, IMO, the sooner you and others accept that fact the further down the road to healing and happiness you will be.
Kid Shelleen,
On the matter of trust: I wouldn’t mind hearing from people on how they rebuilt their sense of trust after the FoF experience.
You don’t build it. It gets killed off, or not, and if it gets killed off, maybe it grows back. Maybe it gets killed off again by someone else. Some of us have to be taken in by multiple sociopaths before we get the message and hang up the phone.
One gets recruited into a cult by responding humanly. Having been burned, the answer is not to stop responding humanly, but to be aware that one can be burned. That’s a different matter than assuming one will be burned.
If there is a primary mistake, and I am not sure such a thing exists, it is the disinclination to trust oneself and one’s own judgment. I don’t know how that gets “re”built either. It just seems to have its own growth envelope. Ironically the experience of being naive and getting burned paves the way for developing the kind of seasoned judgment that reasonably warrants self-trust.
PS: If despite betrayal we find ourselves trusting others and ourselves, isn’t that an indication we should trust the healing process itself?
Folks,
Opened up Amazon and found this recommended for me. Downright spooky.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312359209/ref=s9k2af_r4_asinmore-rfc_p?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-4&pf_rd_r=03NAXW4QX2BJ0HFBR87G&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=362206901&pf_rd_i=507846
226 whalerider
Elena: How many times do I have to state that we are all equals here?
E: “Don’t state it, practice it”
I am not looking for any students nor do I make any claims about being a teacher or higher being or any of that crap.
“You think your frames are more worthy than mine, you neglect to address the myriad issues I’ve offered here and approach me with insignificancies.
I am here sharing what I have learned 23 years later in an effort to spare others from making similar mistakes that I have made. I happen to have a lot to offer. Part of why I post here anonymously is because I do not want to take any personal credit or sell anything, or start a fourth way school or anything of that nature.
“Acts speak for themselves, you do not need to hide behind a name for anyone not to follow you or follow you. “A rose by any other name…….”
The truth speaks for itself. I listen to the language that others use to talk about their experiences, reflective of the deeper held beliefs or frames they may have, and I call them on it.
If you want to continue framing Robert as a teacher and his followers as students, go right ahead, but it won’t help free their minds. To do that you have to switch ‘frames’. They are followers, Robert is a sexual predator, and the Fellowship is a pain factory.
“I have been stating that no less than you and many more things about Robert that you have never mentioned, which is fine, you were in for five years with your experience and I for seventeen with mine, you don’t want to look at mine, don’t, it’s a free country, but don’t reduce them to feel comfortable with your self.”
I am clear on your stand against the Fellowship. But screaming about it on your part doesn’t alter the deeply ingrained indoctrinations that have been grafted into your being.
“You are demeanoring me by reducing everything I have been saying with “screaming”. How far are you from telling me I am a hysteric woman? My dear macho?
It just releases energy, which is OK, too. It doesn’t change anything, however. This blog isn’t a contest on who can scream the loudest, nor is it popularity contest either. Nobody is in charge, and hopefully we can help each other as peers.
“NO, you think everybody here has to shout fuck you, depraved sick man, sick people, get out of your corrupted cult but I do not think or wish to act like you. I already screamed all those things out at the beginning of my participation, I’ve moved on in spite of you and now that my wounds hurt a little less I am happy to recover some sane humanity to look at our tragedy and not just judge and diminish people with fuck yous and sick followers, etc. You are doing that and many others here, there is no need for all of us to do so. Remember we stand in different positions. You were Robert’s baby, did you ever give a dam about anybody else? Or did you just walk with an air of superiority at your looks that was touched by Robert’s divinity like all the boys do? Did you think you were the chosen one above the rest of us because you were sucked daily by his majesty? And in 23 years have you not said anything about it to the many inside because you gave a dam about what happened to us? Why don’t you answer some of my questions if you really wish to speak to me, monologues are what Robert and Girard have been doing”
I didn’t invent the idea of frames, I gratefully pass it on because you had the maturity to finally drop your defenses and admit that you didn’t know what I was talking about. But first you attacked me personally, and I don’t appreciate that either, but I accept that as part of who you are right now.
“Common ……….. you and I did not meet yesterday, everything that is going on between us does not have the objective history you are pretending to expose, everything is now connected. Maturity to drop my defenses, “gratefully” ….your imaginary picture is so condescendent, no wonder you’d rather keep your eyes turning on Mowgli than face Bagheera.”
Followers in the Fellowship were lead to believe that the longer you stay in the school, the more evolved you become. Once you leave, there is a painful adjustment to the realization that the opposite may be true.
“What the hell are you talking about, what is this generalization supposed to mean, dear? That I might as well not believe I am evolved and adjust to the realization that you carry the truth at the tip of your tongue? That 23 year old ex-students are now going to be the evolved ones here and that I am supposed to stand under that hierarchy and let you fuck my ass?”
Look, it is obvious to me that you are deeply hurt. Seventeen years in a cult is a long time and it seems like your pain may even extend beyond that.
“What are you implying Mr. Rider, what Whale are you wishing to ride, get hold of your reigns son because we are in for a wild ride. You think you can suggest such things about my being damaged, hurt, to expand on this condescendence and superiority but it stinks from here to timbactu, get your band aids and put them on your self.”
If feels to me like your instinctive center is a wounded animal in the corner lashing out at any anyone who approaches, Elena. When I extend my hand to you, you bite it.
“Extend your hand out to me” You think all the “reductions” you are doing are extending your hand out to any one? Least of all me?”
You invite me to be closer to you and then at the slightest hesitation on my part or feedback I give you, you reject me venomously. I keep my distance from you out of my own self-protection.
“Please do that, you are one of those people who think is free from Robert Burton’s indoctrination and can still say to me, “look, I tend to help people mechanically so I am presently working on this and can’t help you”, convinced that friendship is something you cannot do. “Friendship” Mr. Rider, not whaling down your pants. You live at the tip of your clothes. That is probably why you cannot really hear me no matter how loud or soft, angry or serene I talk to you.
But you, like anyone who closes a door on somebody else and feels uneasy about it, have to continue finding excuses to have done so. You closed your door and I did not knock again. You come knocking at mine with these pitiful arguments and pretenses of giving me feedback, you think you are doing me a favor acknowledging me with these superficialities, how much did you really learn from Robert Burton, Ted? It is about being, being, not trifles”
But here in this public forum, what you or anyone else says matters to all of us.
I object your use of the royal “we” as in “we are all Robert’s students.” That’s bullshit, and I don’t mind telling you or anyone else so. He is a cult leader and we were his followers, some of us longer than others. Frankly, IMO, the sooner you and others accept that fact the further down the road to healing and happiness you will be.
“Keep riding your Whale, Ted, women are something else”
We can keep going down this road as far as you like, but when your pants are all the way out into the washer, don’t ask me why I pulled your pants down. We are wounded enough from our little encounter that each other’s proximity makes the wounds bleed. So keep away unless you wish to bleed a little more abundantly. You are obviously happy to expose our intimacies here, although you disguise them with objective angles totally devoid of our history; you are enjoying the strip tease of the soul, you come and expose it to the community so that they can judge who is right or wrong. Take it as far as you like, I am not afraid of my nakedness but I will get a little more blunt if you do not care for my delicacy. In fact, stop justifying yourself. Nothing is wrong. It is all right, we are nothing to each other and can each talk our word around here. This is the Public Square. But please, no more condescendence, fuck you or girlfriend, or friend. These words mean nothing to you, that was what you taught me. Your name of course is not Ted, nor Ned.
221 is newly moderated.
Kid, I really like the way you posed your questions. It’s overly simplistic, but I think we can learn to trust again by becoming reacquainted with our own “gut feelings” or “intuitions” about people and the world around us. Because, in some environments — a cult being one of them — our intuition is sort of switched off.
I recall a very strong voice inside of me that said, “WHOAAA! Something’s wrong here!” when I first visited fof headquarters — the lodge, the vineyard, the academy, etc.
But I worked hard to ignore it. And the rest is history. A lot of wasted time. A lot of wasted money. A lot of wasted relationships. A lot of waste, period. Opportunities lost.
But gradually I became reacquainted with that voice inside of me. I was taught to mistrust that voice. Because that voice that we all have inside of us — something healthy, strong, and spiritual — is what Robert Burton has often called the King of Clubs, or the Lower Self. He knows that if people come into contact with that voice, they’ll leave. So criticizing that voice is part of his “Stay in the FOF” marketing campaign.
But as time went on, I began to hear that voice more and more. And I’m still getting reacquainted with it long after leaving.
Elena,
It’s very clear to all readers that Whalerider has always supported and encouraged and supported you, often with kid gloves. Can you please drop your tirades about him. And stop divulging information given in trust… it’s ugly. You come across as very defensive and narcissistic; This blog is not all about You… others have suffered not only You and besides You are not the point… this is about bringing in others. You are putting readers off.
27 lauralupa
Rear View Mirror 231 wrote:
“I am glad that we share an interest in Robert’s choices of names and symbolisms. I explored some of my own thoughts about all the property name changes in a post a few pages ago. You mention the similarities between Apollo, Las Vegas and Versailles. IMO, they all seem to be different forms of isolated, self referential small societies whose hypnotic power is/was based on appearances and illusory dreams of luxury and grandeur for the few while sucking on the blood, sweat and tears of the common people. Please share what else you see in this connection.”
—————-
Hi lauralupa,
That summarizes it very succinctly — well said!
Ok, I do have one or two more thoughts to share on this topic, now that you ask.
During the past two years, I’ve visited Las Vegas (including the Venetian and the Bellagio), and later I visited Versailles for the first time.
What I’ve been taught in the fof about Las Vegas is that it’s shallow and filled with imitative art that doesn’t capture the depth and emotion that you find in the “true” art of Versailles (for example), or the supposedly “true” art that we appreciated in the fof. But my first impression of Versailles was that it was just another Las Vegas — very big, very ornate, very gaudy, and very ostentatious. Versailles evoked many of the same emotions that I experienced in Las Vegas.
And then I realized that “Apollo” (is it still Apollo? or is it back to “Isis” this month?) is much more of the same– very ornate, very gaudy, and very pretentious.
Of course, the history of Versailles trumps Las Vegas, and the history of Las Vegas trumps Apollo (understatement of the day). But when you just look at the inspiration behind the art, I see exactly what you wrote about it: The art of Apollo, Versailles, and Las Vegasare “different forms of isolated, self referential small societies whose hypnotic power is/was based on appearances and illusory dreams of luxury and grandeur for the few while sucking on the blood, sweat and tears of the common people.”
So, this also relates to the comments from whalerider about “framing” and how our thinking is shaped by the way the world is described to us, and the way we describe to ourselves. We were taught that the FOF is this very “refined,” and that is was a special experience that surpassed the shallow experiences of the world at large.
But what I saw from my visits to Las Vegas and Versailles was that “we” — the fof — have actually adopted some of the most shallow and pretentious aspects of the world around us.
I’m not here to put readers on, Sea, so get off if you want.
Kid Shelleen,
I don’t know what your exit was like, but if it involved an inexplicable going with your gut (as mine and that of several others did), you can remind yourself of that when your sense of self-trust feels shaky.
I came to the FoF not trusting my gut feelings. I had to create that trust after the FoF. It happened though, and going with that amazing moment that took me out was part of it. If you had such moments, let them be a big deal, fall back on them.
Rear View Mirror:
“I recall a very strong voice inside of me that said, “WHOAAA! Something’s wrong here!” when I first visited fof headquarters — the lodge, the vineyard, the academy, etc.”
————-
The first few times I spoke on the phone with people at the teaching house where I joined, I thought I was speaking to the same male person each time. He kept giving me different names, but it sounded like the same person. I thought it was very weird that one person would pretend to be several people. Then I learned that it WAS several people who all sounded the same. I wasn’t sure which was weirder, but I got used to it and let it go. I no doubt began to sound like the female version of that shortly after. I think that was one of those moments when my gut was talking because it’s so crystal clear in my memory after 32 years.
236 Elena:
“I’m not here to put readers on, Sea, so get off if you want.”
This is a word of support. Don’t let anyone tell you what words you can use to express yourself. Ignore the critics and convey your own thoughts using your own words and understanding rather than pandering to their understanding. Remember the old Fellowship word exercises? At a certain point it became virtually blasphemous to use the forbidden “work word,” the students would turn on you with near outrage that you had broken the sacred law and uttered the ‘mechanical word’ of the month.
People in the Fellowship of Friends are students, they are apprentices of a spiritual criminal that is gifted at turning higher ideas into a means of supporting his own greed, lust and ambition. A number of Fellowship students have gone on to found their own criminal enterprises in imitation of their teacher, just as Burton did in imitation of Alex Horn.
It is no real crime to make a scene and cause others that might be witnessing your irritation minor emotional discomfort. It may not always be the wise thing to do, depending on what your purpose is in relation to others. Rather than judging you others have the option of examining their own reactions and learning something about their own involuntary responses rather than judging yours. What many people never understand is that some people have virtually zero interest in making and maintaining a “good impression,” one of the reasons for that nonconformity is some of us want absolutely nothing from others. To many this is an insult taken into their expectation of how the world should work on an entirely subconscious level, “Look, that person behaves as if he or she doesn’t care what the rest of us think, how insulting! Doesn’t he or she realize how much we all need the approval of one another?”
It seems Elena is here to explain, exorcize and digest the pent up emotion that accumulated within her over the years and is not necessarily interested gaining the glad tidings of everyone else in the process. I don’t want to seem to know her mind having never discussed this with her, but she has the courage of an independent spirit and this is far more than many ever developed as students of Burton.
238 Hardtruth, great post.
Wow! – Fireworks! Trouble is what I wanted to do coming back from my class-teaching tonight was ‘back down’ from my own personal ‘walking-talking-lunatic-fringe’ which I actually transformed into wisecracking as a means of conveying my ‘transferrable skills’ (see previous blogs). See, the thing is, when you reach your ’serene state’, that ‘external considering’ becomes the art-form that Gurdjieff described as “Seeing how the other person would like to receive what you want to convey” I call it Clever Compassion. I don’t think Arthur is that ‘third-force-blind’ either. I’d like respectful communication through this Full Moon…..Nigel.
Some time ago there was a post with an excerpt from Ouspensky’s secretary’s diary detailing a conversation with him later in life, where he pretty much said it was all a sham.
I haven’t been able to find it again. If someone can repost, or give me a link to the source of the excerpt, that would be great. Thanks
Here’s doing!?
You study semiotics (the science of symbolism) – just don’t write your Degree Thesis on “A Study of Symbolism in Sacred Architecture” – you get downgraded from a 2.1to a lower second. Then you learn how to etymologize and dissect to understandwords. Thenyou watch TV just as I am doing at a WalterMatthau movie about a former spy who is cleverly ‘ratting’ on his former bosses. Actually I watched the movie last week on the true story of the Great
Train (read ‘entourage’) Robbery. Want to know the registration of the engine – IM44. Don’ t believe me? check it out! Do your own Work…..Nigel.
P.S. I think the Matthau movie is called “Hopscotch”
before I had ever met R or even laid eyes upon him I was doing some work in the Lincoln Lodge kitchen when the phone rang. Daniel H must have been busy so I picked it up. The caller did not identify himself, he simply asked to speak to someone or asked for something, I don’t remember which. I remember I made some indication asking who was calling, I did not recognize the caller’s voice. Instead of identifying himself, the caller simply repeated his initial request. I quickly realized that R was waiting for me to come to the realization that I was speaking to R. I did come to that realization and made the expected obsequious exclamation of pleased surprise but, at the time, I also remember thinking, how conceited.
THAT was a moment of genuine unmediated perception that provided me with an experience I I look back upon, understanding that I can trust my own perceptions.
243: veronicapoe. Thanks for that story. That’s classic RB. It also shows how his conceit far outweighs any supposed awareness that he had.
(Think about it, Robert. Not everyone knows who you are, or has heard the dulcet sounds of your voice.)
Speaking of “framing,” the usual explanation for such clumsiness was that the man was thinking on a higher plane, and had no time for such details, such as identifying himself on the telephone — which by the way, is a form of common sense (“a sense common to all centers,” which he was so often fond of saying), and a practical form of etiquette that stretches back to Alexander Graham Bell. And yet, there are numerous such stories about the man that show his utter disregard for people in very common, everyday situations.
Definitely not consciousness. I think better words might be awkward and completely out of touch with reality at times, similar to the rest of us humans. But not consciousness.
Child of Kali
___________
The sunlight really wanted to stay, though the devil had its plans and well, when daemons have minds that are made up under their finger tips, things have to happen as if there were more experts in the room than the space in the room which makes it such a place as to be called a room…
So, the sun continued to go down and the moon turned roundabout and full of itself, bringing rise the sea tides, killing no one, receiving no one and laying to rest or birth no one… Silence.
That night, a very difficult evening inside an evening, the kind that leaves big boulders their warmth long into the freezing night from the day prior and saving pregnant lizards from an early doom… There was brewing in the mood of a particular daemon something so outrageous that the seas themselves refused to fall upon the shore that just happened, haphazardly and accidentally, to be the one in possession of an ancient marker-stone, the object upon which the great father-devil itself sat watching the births of every holy man and woman to ever walk the planet Earth up to this very night…
It sat and sat and sat…
Waiting and being alert to the necessities of its procurement of Time’s unnatural forces by such odd patience is indeed a craft nearly beyond mortal practicalities, yet, some can do it; then again, some just ‘do it’ out of their natural form and function, for this one, it was just another night of weaving Armageddon dreams throughout moaning monk’s cells and the embryonic satchels of saints to be…
Oh yes, the mood… The fanfare and the hot ash being brought through the nostrils to light campfires and wedding-cave-light, the goldsmith’s torch and a lost lover’s lantern tumbling downwards to rest in the lap of a demi-god’s fourteenth thousandth daughter, lover of lovers and Priestess of Reflections who Have No Bodies Above Them… Possessor of sixteen thousand Jupiter’s eyes and fifteen thousand million sight seer’s ‘Oh’s!’
Yes, a game it would be and not just with anything; so the daemon sent its invitation out, engraved on the wrist watch of a mosquito’s heavy banded and burdened abdomen, filled with just enough blood to prove the insect’s master’s identity and cosmic tension and relaxation settlement having been approximated and duly figured out well enough to land once again on that damned and ancient stone by the sea shore where there’s no real agreement of its edge…
Kali was not as busy as most on Earth picture ‘her’ as being, in all actuality, she was simply standing inside an apple orchards fifty six thousand trees being picked, crated, shipped, ground up and canned as apple sauce for babies and institutional sized cans for retirement facilities and prisons for ‘her’ death row sons and daughters to consume and remember ‘those days’ when they were beside themselves and no one else…
So, well, there it landed, right on the tip of an orchard-pack mule’s glistening nose…
Needless to say, that particular harvest day was cut short by a freak of nature or the birth of a new volcano; either way allot of people got mildly tanned and hot apple fixings could be smelt for hundreds of miles…
Kali liked red and Red loved Kali, so apples and volcanoes just made enough sense that a birth could start taking place…
Now, for that mule… The mosquito was retrieved by a flying surgical flea unit, officially named ~
‘The Tiniest Minions of the Itchiest Sorts, Compliments of Kali, INC. and a Certain White Swan Quill’s Signature.’
The blood was regurgitated onto a tiny platter whereby The Most Holy and Ancient Cult of Dust Mite-Shamans wrote and wrote and wrote about it…
Three seconds later they finally handed to Kali all the proof ’she’ needed, that indeed some sort of cosmic whatchamacallit was underway…
From the volcano stepped a glowing white-hot skeleton… Taking nearly six million Earth years it was fundamentally, in the moment, outfitted with Nature’s most upgraded organs and muscles available, not excluding all the other ‘good stuff’ donated by the Waves, Aires, Soils and Flames…
This child would be Kali’s ‘knight’…
Now on the scene where the daemon leapt with near orgasmic joy, clapping its hands, sending what would later be termed ‘meteor belts’ out into space, it danced, giggled and was thrilled that its full proof plan was nearly proven just that, a plan full of proof that indeed the daemon ‘did’ in fact exist because it could plan and challenge and do things just like other things did to it and so on and on…
The daemon said to Kali’s child ~
“Here child are four buckets of Earth-humanity’s blood, a bundle of crow feathers, fifteen dead minotaurs and directions to the nests of all the birds of the world for you to gather their eggs and wear. So, do as you will with these, I will give you as much time as you need, but, when you are ready we will fight and if you cannot save any of the eggs, I win and that’s that… Get it?”
Kali’s knight-child agreed with a nod and went on its way gathering all the eggs of the Earth. Returning back to the site of the buckets and bulls, it knelt down, placed the eggs in the hands of a special group of Seamstress Fairies who meticulously sowed them to its epidermis with black widow silk and 5lb ultraviolet fishing line…
Next the child took the pails of blood and lined them up in order of size, weight and vivaciousness, so to speak…
It took nearly nearly three thousand years for the Fairies of Convincing and Transfigurations to talk the crow feathers into finally fusing with the knight’s hair roots, whereby, with just the right furious thought-pattern its scalp would catch the wind with the power and gathering passions of all the crows of the world and then some…
The child was nearly ready and called the daemon out; so, it stepped forth, tipped its tail and took its fighting stance…
The knight then gathered together all the dead minotaur-bones and leathery skins, formed a circle and said ~
“This shall be our fighting rink.”
The daemon imagined a secret thought ~ ‘That indeed, perfect!’…
After all, it was an expert at bone-leather-earth-surface-jousts and simply could barely contain itself with the utter astonishment at how easy it seemed it would be to destroy this little Kali thing…
So, the circle was finished, then dyed red with the first bucket, the least vivacious, so to speak…
The child drank half the second bucket and ordered the fairies to have the rest, who, dutifully did drink the stinking massage of soul blurring brew…
The third bucket the child bathed upon itself, covering all the beautiful eggs in its thick burgundy atmosphere…
The fourth bucket the daemon was obliged to pour on itself, after all, anything goes on a beach between Heaven and Hell…
So began the battle…
For the daemon’s qualifications, all the eggs had been broken and the trophy was its to own…
Howling like a synchronized pack of a trillion wolfs, the daemon let out such a laughing ministry sermon that the moon peed its pants, turning the night sky a pale yellow color…
The earth sent up legions of earthworms to check things out and jelly fish swarmed over the world looking to spread themselves out on anything made with bread…
Needless to say, things were indeed a mess… The planet could barely stand the daemon’s celebration, while its inhabitants kept to their dream time, for all the world’s heart beats had been slowed down and paused to an elevator-waiting-pace so to accommodate this duel…
After all the hoopla and dancing about, the daemon demanded the child give up the trophy, its very own beating heart; a certain something, once worn by a daemon upon a certain something kind of metallic chain empowers the showman or show-woman with the ability to be not themselves for exactly one year and reap all the after effects that such a possession-thingy would normally imply upon the common and healthy jurisdiction of a common soul’s conscience and evolutionary influential compass point’s spinning backwards, then forwards, then just popping out and onto the floorboards, to be swept away by some anonymous cosmic mop-boy on deck…
Under the daemon’s feet there rumbled something odd and the child let out a shout, a scream that torn off the daemon’s tail, just like that and there it lay, a new species of amazonian boa, possessed with an even more spear-like head…
Oh, and the comforts came, all the reliefs that daemons despise; the color of new born lamas, a good un-constipated shit, bird feeders that never need re-filling and the exactitude of that kind of definition that’s in a lover’s eye when it meets with another’s eye not necessarily looking for such a beloved-meeting, though goes ahead in a millisecond and agrees to all of it anyways… All this times one hundred thousand exhales…
The child levitated a bit and said ~
“Oh god! Oh, my god, blithering god, god, god, god! What you know of Hell’s hell, though nothing of Heaven’s Hell… Moved by our wrestling, mixed with buckets of blood, I see you and you’re in me!”
Bursting into fire, the igniter having been from the gushing lava from the daemon’s tail’s dismemberment’s wound-hole, the child burned and burned, whereby the only thing left was it’s black, crow-winged-skull and a glowing inside it…
The child’s voice said ~
“You challenge and challenge and challenge and forgot my birthplace, whereby no defeat can rightly be meditated upon without such remembering: that I have won, so place your heart in my teeth so I can return to my mother’s lap what we’ve built between ourselves tonight.”
The deamon, albeit a conscious celestial being, was a bit confounded and refuted this claim, saying ~
“The death you say! Waltwhitman! I am not down and it is you who are out, you’ve got no more eggs! I win.”
The child responded ~
“You, possessor of all contemplative games; I am the child of a volcano and Kali, I am a phoenix, unfertilized, yet, here’s my egg nonetheless, see it glowing between these dark orbed sockets. Gathering, I am also one who I gathered from and Am I.”
And sure enough, as the daemon stepped up and gently peered inside the blazing, crackling skull, it saw that indeed there was an egg in there and thusly torn out its heart, placed it in the winged skull’s teeth and simply let go…
____________________
L.t.y.a.
As Neil Diamond sang -
“Hello, my friend hello – just called to say hello,
I couldn’t sleep at all last night; I know it’s late,
But I couldn’t wait, hello………………………………..
First they say they want you, oh how they really need you,
Suddenly you’re out there, walking in a storm………………..
(Actually the storm is ‘all in the mind’ to coin a phrase!)
May beneficial influences fall upon you all……Nigel.
Elena:
Hysterical? No. Histrionic, yes. Like I said, it’s your defensive reactions that speak to your level of being, and granted, you are certainly entitled to them. There is plenty of room here for that. Behind your words, I can feel your pain. Hardtruth is right; there is no crime in making a scene. I don’t know of anyone who can effectively express deeply pent up anger, and when it happens it ain’t pretty. Women have been unjustly subjected to male domination for thousands of years, something of which I am not proud. And my pants probably need a good wash anyway. Thanks.
Sea:
Thanks for your support, it’s good to have you aboard, and please don’t make yourself an unnecessary target on my behalf. That’s why cops are very wary of arriving at the scene of domestic violence.
unoanimo:
It’s good to have you back. In your absence I’ve been thinking about you. You are younger in your picture than I thought you were. I now understand the method to your madness. Who can argue with your beautiful poetry? I need the eggs, too. L.T.Y.
Uno, echoing wr’s sentiment, thx for your poem. Or is it prose. Or neither. Maybe the fact that I can’t describe it describes what it gives us. Goes nicely with two glasses of wine tonight.
i.l.y.a.
kid shelleen:
Your question about reclaiming self-trust post-FOF brings me back to the shaman thread.
After I left the FOF in the mid-80’s, as was the fashion at the time, I went to see western man practicing shamanism for about 8 sessions. He facilitated my “journeys” into my inner world through the ritual of burning sage and drumming. I laid on a foam pad in his little office and wore eye patches to block out the daylight as he drummed for about an hour. I was amazed at the imagery that ‘came to me’. I didn’t have to try hard to imagine anything. At the session’s onset, he helped me formulate a question from what was at issue for me in my life and then off I went to find the answers. And images just appeared from my unconscious mind, like a lucid dream! I later reflected about what the images meant to me and incorporated them into my life.
The process enabled me to understand that we all have an inner helper or guides or innate wisdom deep within us that in the right circumstances we can tap into. But one must take the time to ponder on the symbolic images to make sense of them. The meaning is not always apparent, but grows on you.
One time he also gave me the task of finding a rock of about the size of my fist. When I brought one in, he asked me to stare at it from different angles and find about three animal images in the rock’s shape. Then we would talk about what those animal images meant to me, relative to the life issue I was having. It was helpful in feeling like I could draw strength and understanding from my inner world, instead of feeling full of fear or self-doubt.
That was the beginning of learning to trust myself post-FOF.
247
After a brief, intelligent episode (it actually has been an all-nighter and I will not take Tamazepam! – it’s addicive and gives a lousy hangover – I stick to Haloperidol and if it doesn’t work I just wait until I am so exhausted that eventually I achieve nourishing First State)…………………
Here we go again! Elena don’t rise to the bait. Like I advised before use the third force (from above) -the desire for peace – and move on – call a friend or even call me – 011 44 1392 462103 (O.K with you? Animamrecro). I don’t know it’s not my dogfight and I only know what other people have advised me to do and made it work for myself.
Al the best to both of you really………………………Nigel.
Nigel, you are very funny, I can’t even see see the bait as clearly as you but have a hint and no, it is with great pleasure that I receive Whalerider’s response. Thank you for finally ending this play WR.
Nigel, you are terrible! Stop baiting me! But I promise to call you one of these days when I get to England and you least expect it! Then we can play with third force!
I am backgrounded by my favourite feel-good DVD ‘Field of Dreams’ – I recommend it. But the purpose of this blog is at the root of anyone on the teaching field. To solve problems – not be them (anyone in the RB machine listening?) Whalerider and Elena – I can tell you both hurt.
So, the form of this trouble-shooting needs relating my own fragility/depression for 3 1/2 years after ‘being released’ from FOF. I tried and failed at many types of employment for brief intervals and resigned myself to study – my warrior/nobility past and at a particular course as a Pre-School Playgroup Leader (which I passed but never took up in practice) led by a lovely Mars-Jovial lady named Sue Mendham (get it? – Mend him/I am) I was the only male among 13 women and appreciated the energy which was one of the forms of healing. The other one was the booklist and the recommendation of ‘Dibs – in search of Self’ by Virginia A. Axline, an American paediatric play-therapist.
Here are the healing passages from the epilogue:-
“Dibs had had his dark moments and had lived for a while in the shadows of life. But he had had the opportunity to move out of those dark moments and discover for himself that he could cope with the shadows and sunshine in his life.
Perhaps there is more understanding and beauty in life when the glaring sunlight is softened by the patterns of shadows. Perhaps there is more depth in a relationship that has weathered some storms. Experience that never disappoints or saddens or stirs up feelings is a bland experience with little challenge or variation in colour. Perhaps when we experience confidence and faith and hope that we see materialize before our eyes this builds up within us a feeling of inner strength, courage, and security.
We are all personalities that grow and develop as a result of all our experiences, relationships, thoughts and emotions. We are the sum total of all the parts that go into the making of a life.”
‘He is a brilliant boy. Full of ideas. concerned about everybody and everything. Very sensitive. A real leader.
…………………………brave new words for justice and equality for all.’
‘Thank you’, I said. ‘ “With sincerity and will to act, (I am, yours sincerely, Dibs”) I believe that (VAA).
I’m off to check in with ‘Midge’ now. Be back later. Love with sincerity…..Nigel.
I was married once for about six years. I’v been divorced about 36 years never remarried. When I was going through it, the failed unhappy pre-separation time, the actual separation and final divorce the first thought I had was, “I would’nt wish that on my worse enemy”.
When I read Whalerider’s agony over his recent divorce and what Elena’s is going through now, I remember.
When I left the FOF in “disgrace” which pain lasted for at least 10 years before being dulled over, I remember.
So, Elena and Whalerider, when I was going through my “troubles”, I read a quote which sounded true at the time.
“Separation is the death of a marriage and divorce is the burial”. I believe the grave is a shallow one which deepens over time. The same as one’s separation from the Fellowship of friends.
This blog is like a train station made for people like Elena, Whalerider and a lot of others. We are all looking for signs and wonders.
Right now, I’m looking for a book that Lauralupa mentioned about Jodorowski and the powerful Witch Doctor-Pachita.
Aren’t we all walking around this train station holding hands with an invisible child, who keeps asking, “where are we going now mommy”?
We are pleased to announce that Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker are now working with our school. Students are asked to review episodes of “F Troop” to identify keys which reference the sequence. The assistance of Storch and Tucker brings the total number of conscious beings to 46, which is the number of chromosomes in a human cell, except in the case of Klinefelter’s syndrome, where the number is 47. 46, 47, exquisite, isn’t it, these details. They are central to our teaching. Paul Lynde occupied the center square on the Hollywood Squares. There were nine squares in all. Paul Lynde was on his ninth lifetime but is not working with our school, he is working with Tayu Center. The Islamic sage said, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If one substitutes an “a” for a “y” in the word “enemy,” it creates the word “enema.” Cleanliness is next to godliness. Our time together is precious.
Actually as the popular song goes, “It’s a clear blue (ninja in training as blue shades symbolise), NATURAL, Forty-five”. Your blog was as bad as RB putting wine44 on that Renaissance 4×4 or that the recession (slight one) happened 44 months after when he had predicted. I have had enough of twiddley-dee, third-state imitating contrivances and announce it Directive/creative Agression on My Part day. Engage brain before issuing forth on to the breeze and scan back and forth between GF and Sheik on everyone’s blogs. And as a parting shot, did any one over the pond realise that Man. Utd. is the most supported team in World Soccer. Oh dear, Foffers, “and on the ‘morrow, bid them march away” (Henry V) And GH, Shakespeare is not ‘interesting’; his OPERA are NOURISHING AND IMPELLING. Off the sincerity site you Inner Circle (all laugh, please!) twits. With sincerity and intent to act I am yours sincerely ………………………..
OH, and the Moody Blues albums are Days of Future Passed and For our Childrens Children’s Children. Don’t imitate the misogony and father-figure religious or political figures. It’s ‘come-clean’ time and handover to the female Age of Aquarius. The thymus is the ruling gland for those pursuing the erasing of the apoctic gene and Saturn governs Old Age (and subsequent Death) Holst (er) Gunfor a 45!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
nigel:
Funny you should mention pre-school.
As a matter of fact both my kids were part of a co-op, parent participation pre-school, which means that for four days a week enrollment, a parent had to work four days a month. I was the parent who worked and did so for five years. And I loved every minute of it!
The director was a mother whose kids had been through the program 35 years ago and was very wise. At the time I was there she was in her late 60’s. I learned a great deal from her. Something she would say to new families was that at this pre-school, instead of driving up in your SUV and dropping off your kids, parents get to expand their hearts and love other children as much as their own. It was so true! She also said that the walls of her home were covered with children’s art from the school. She claimed that the bright colors and designs were her form of antidepressant. It made her happy to look at them. I also learned to wash my hands, have a snack at 10am or I get cranky, and that naps were really nice when you are tired. Most of all I learned to be very patient.
Ever have a boil? Those pesky subcutaneous staph infections that get so painful and inflamed that every time you rub against them it really hurts? You get them on your butt or back where your skin is pressed against something like a chair or dirty sheets. If you attempt to express the pus like an acne pimple before the boil has come to a head, it makes it worse. Eventually you have to lance it and get the core out; otherwise the infection becomes systemic and they pop up in other areas of the body.
I encourage you to get some strenuous exercise; it can help you rest at night. The drama of the blog can be addictive, so are meds that end with a ‘pam’.
arthur:
At this train station, thanks to you, I don’t have to look very far for a wonder. You made me laugh out loud! It does feel like Elena and I are going through a painful separation from each other. I wish my wife was as outspoken. We didn’t argue enough! She just held it all in and although she was ‘there’, before I knew it elvis had already left the building. But you know what? I take it as the universe telling me that although I thought I was happy, I could be happier. And sure enough, I feel it is starting to happen, thanks to you guys and match.com.
I don’t know about the rest of you here, but as far as I’m concerned, whatever Paul Lynde says, goes…
Q: Paul, can you swim faster naked?
P: No, but you can steer better.
I hear he studied with a student of a student of a friend of a guy whose cousin once delivered yak meat to G.’s apartment. Direct lineage? Legitimate heir? I’ll let you be the judge.
And as Larry Storch once said, “It is better to rule in World 96 then it is to serve in World 48.”
Hey, Arthur, Nigel, Whalerider, you’re all in imagination and enjoying the comedy but it ain’t nearly as good as that. We were never together, it was just words, so only words are lost. Reality never happened! Just crumbles of it. We can’t get reality if we can’t move out of the closet’s clothes no matter how much we enjoy making the blog our favorite drawer.
Hardtruth, Veramente, Much obliged.
Sorry I didn’t get this one into the last post.
Dear friends,
Congratulation, with the help and truth of your posts that I
have read and the suddenly appearing of myself nor I have to say the integration of myself, I have left The Fof a few month ago.
I have not really realized myself, but I have learned to trust myself, and so it was clear to me to leave the private R.B. Cosmos.
For the people who are still in the Fof, please ask you this question.
Is the new knowledge what is teached in the Fof in the last years and R.B. behaviour against students and the everyday sexual rape, that, what you want to pass to your children or people you like or love?!?
whalerider
Enya is an Irish songwriter/singer. One of her tracks on ‘The Celts’ is ‘To Go Beyond’ – as you say by exercise – but I’m a red card jokin’ wiv’ me mates at the pub today and rabbiting (chin-wagging) in esotera fashion. No jogging or lap-swimming for me. No basic joy – that’s why. Process of elimination and allowing my mentality to go on ‘holiday’ (wake up to reality). Elena I will be direct – you have been elegant in your pain descriptions but have not reached Serenity nor know how to hang on to it despite outward circumstances. I am not IN imagination. My thoughts (monologues) and visualisations run like clouds across my personal organism VDU but I (“Work, work your thoughts) pick out the useful and do let myself be knocked ‘off centre’. Sorry to let you down but you are entrenched in imagination about me. I wish to help.
Yours sincerely………….. Whitman’s “Answerer”/Isiah 42.
“Aspire to a role and you will become it and it will become you”……………….Nigel.
(Maybe I’m talking to myself – at least someone’s listening!)
Money as the main mystical motivator
Everyone knows what I’m referring to, each of us can go eight hours suppressing the “real me” in the face of a supervisor or a challenging level of work in order to get through a day of employment motivated by the need to get paid every two weeks. We can suppress visibly expressing our frustrations and our need to exercise our willful independence every day for years on end. The motivation is that you pay the mortgage, you buy food, you pay the car payment, you save up for a private airplane you send your kids to college and so forth. Now imagine this, all you have to do is be a good enough salesman and actor to get through all public appearances at which events you pronounce the mystical sayings of the ancients that have been researched by your assistants without showing anything other than a calm exterior and you end up controlling a multimillion dollar organization. You own whatever you like and travel wherever you want to travel. All you have to do is keep smiling in a serene and knowing sort of fashion and never be seen by the crowd expressing negative emotions. I bet there are plenty of greedy people that can control themselves for that kind of payoff. Here is the real perk, you can express all your frustrations later by forcing your sexual lust on any of the good looking innocent women of the organization that you happen to find yourself alone with, there is a far better than 50% chance that they will not actively reject your advances.
I attended one of Burton’s teaching dinners, the show was moving along nicely until the toasting ceremony at the beginning of the dinner. When Burton went to toast me, I was near the end of the table, he noticed that I had a different wine glass than everyone else and became visible annoyed. It was astonishing. He pulled his glass back and demanded, clearly asleep under the influence of a power feature with voice raised, “what glass did you end up with!?” Oddly I didn’t inner consider but serenely continued to hold my glass out until after a few seconds of getting a hold of himself he faked a smile and clicked glasses saying, “he must have one from the twenty-four setting.” He claimed to be a man number six at the time.
Yea – six, six, sick, sick, sex. He is beasty
“What we have here is a failure to communicate”. Who said that?
“What we have here is a failure to communicate”. Who said that?
Strother Martin (‘Captain’) in “Cool Hand Luke”… I could not resist.
241 and 262 are newly moderated.
264.
I remember the first time I washed pots in the Academy kitchen. At the time there were a set of copper pots that hung on hooks from the the ceiling in order of size and one of them was out of order. Robert came into the kitchen and looked very irritated and told the maitre d’ in quite an unpleasant tone to put them in the right order. The first time I picked up the phone at the Lodge when Robert was on the other end, he asked to speak to someone and then said quite impatiently “It’s Robert dear” and I panicked and passed the phone to someone else. It’s amazing how we explained these things away isn’t it. I think I said to myself, “Well, he must be under so much pressure…”
I remember a long story from W–ne M-tt at a meeting about traveling with Robert which mostly consisted of RB twisting W–ne’s nipple continually.
Hi ,
I came across this site which might interest you.
http://www.headlessway.org Thought it was simple and refreshing
http://www.headless.org/english-new/experiments.htm
sorry wrong address
266 arthur
The warden in Cool Hand Luke.
267 Opus111
You’re too quick for me.
Thanks Bruce, thanks Opus111.
Hello Arthur ~
For your search ~
“Pachita was born on December 3, 1899 in Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico out of wedlock. A black man, a former slave, legally adopted her. The man, according to Pachita, was a saintly man, and she adored him. Life, however, was difficult since he drifted across the U.S. from New York to Los Angeles living off a succession of odd jobs, until he finally got work as a roustabout in a travelling circus in Mexico.
Pachita then aged eight, settled down happily with the circus. According to her own account, she related more easily to animals than to people, and she first exercised her healing powers on circus animals. After performing as a high-wire acrobat for several years, she left the circus and, at the age of 18, joined the revolutionary general Pancho Villa, serving in the Mexican Revolution as a soldier and a nurse. It seems that she did not use any special healing powers at this time; she extracted bullets with a hunting knife, and cauterized bleeding or infected wounds with a red-hot poker.
After her days as a revolutionary, Pachita entered a convent, but left after one year. She married, had children, and lived as a housewife until the age of 30. It was then that she suddenly recovered her childhood ability to heal, and began to practice psychic, or instant surgery.
For the next 47 years Pachita practiced surgery in obscurity and anonymity. She steadfastly insisted on secrecy and refused every offer of publicity.
Her surprise announcement of wanting to be scientifically studied, after all those years of secrecy, was couched in the following terms on November 23, 1977:
“I believe that I still have about 13 to 15 years of service in life.
I believe that the earth is to undergo catastrophic metamorphosis within the next 21 years. People will be able to get healed only by the kind of practice that I use. Therefore I want to pass on my knowledge to others and teach them how to heal as I do. I want this to be done in a scientific and humanistic spirit.”
She then asked Andrija to undertake the task of leading a group of scientists in an attempt to learn her methods.
Andrija accepted the challenge immediately and went back to the U.S. to prepare a scientific expedition.
On January 15, 1978 he returned with a group of nine people to start the study of Pachita.
Like Arigo, Pachita used a crude surgical tool – a steel hunting knife with a seven inch long blade – in all of her operations, whether it was eye surgery, brain surgery, chest surgery, bone surgery, or abdominal surgery.
And again, as with Arigo, Andrija underwent surgery himself, this time on his ears. He had for the previous two years been suffering the gradual onset of otosclerosis (spongy bone growth) in both ears, causing progressive loss of hearing. The operation was to correct this.
No sterile procedure, no pre-operative medication or hypnosis was used as Pachita inserted the knife blade into Andrija’s right car canal. He lay down on the table, and some cotton pads were placed around his ears to absorb possible bleeding. He experienced pain right up to his tolerance level without screaming or an avoidance reaction. It seemed to him that the tip of the knife had penetrated into his eardrum. After holding the knife in the ear canal for about 40 seconds, Pachita withdrew it, and the pain in Andrija’s ear ceased immediately. There was only minimal bleeding from the ear canal.
The left ear was operated on in a similar fashion. The instant surgery had lasted only three minutes, but now a new complication appeared.
“My head was ringing with loud noises,” Andrija writes. “I estimated them to be at the level of a New York subway train, or about 90 decibels above hearing threshold. The noise was so loud that I could not discern speech of those around me, but I had no fear that I might be going deaf as a result of the procedure. Pachita gave me a tincture (contents unknown) and told me to put one drop in each ear daily. The head noises decreased about 10 decibels each day, and by the eighth day, post operative, the noises had ceased. My hearing, however, had become so keen that telephone conversations were painful, and I had to hold the earpiece away from my head to a comfortable distance. This hyperacusia lasted for about two weeks. One month post-operative I had normal pure tone hearing in both ears.”
Andrija witnessed many operations, including the transplants of human organs. He reports on one case of a kidney transplant in a 34-year-old female patient that he brought from the U.S. to Pachita.
“The patient’s history is that of repeated infections of glomerulonephritis since the age of 13, and atrophy of the adrenal glands. These conditions resulted in markedly diminished urinary function, and severe arthritic deformities due to diminished adrenal function.
Pachita diagnosed the problem correctly, and opined that the patient needed new kidneys. She decided on a two-stage operation.
In the first operation Pachita inserted the knife in the lumbar region of the back. In doing so, she laid open the pelvis of each deformed kidney, and – as she said, “cleaned them out.” The patient was ambulatory within two hours after the operation. She showed some blood in the urine twelve hours post-operative, but the urine was clear thereafter.
Twelve days after the aforementioned operation, Pachita was ready to perform the second operation. She had been able to obtain a human kidney from a post mortem examination. It was brought to her placed in an unsterile jar, suspended in ordinary water, and was stored in a kitchen refrigerator.
On the day of the operation, Pachita lifted the kidney out of the jar with her bloody hands. She then sliced it in two longitudinally, stating that she was going to transplant each half separately. Next she plunged the knife deeply into one side of the back, twisted the knife around, and asked me to drop one kidney half into the hole. I was utterly surprised to find that the kidney in my hand was literally “sucked” into the body of the patient. When I palpated the spot where the kidney had been “sucked” in, I found that the tissue had closed immediately, there was no hole in the skin. It was awesome! In this manner both halves of the kidney were transplanted. The entire operation lasted 92 seconds. One hour afterwards the patient was able to stand. She slept well, and was urinating normally some 14 hours later. After three days she boarded a plane and flew home to the United States.”
Andrija was convinced that Pachita’s “instant surgery” was completely genuine, and that no fraud of any kind was possible under his and his colleagues scientific observation and documentation.
Dr. Andrés Mateo, a Mexican doctor of philosophy, and a student of parapsychology, particularly of psychic healing, substantiated Andrija’s conviction that Pachita was “a marvelous gift that humanity cannot lose, and had to be spread all over the world.” This Dr. Mateo too had witnessed Pachita’s “breathtaking transplantations,” as he wrote to Andrija. “I have been not only a close witness, but actually an actor – or co-actor – to her surgical operations which were devoid of any kind of anesthesia or asepsia, or even basic cleanness, with no electric light – only a gloomy wax candle, with a dirty rusty knife (more so than Arigo’s), opening with her bare, dirty, bloody hands skin, flesh, tissues, bones, extracting tumors, exchanging whole femurs, or stomachs … and transplanting whole brains (!), both kidneys, or a whole uterus. I personally, with my own hands, have helped to keep open both sides of a woman’s skull while Pachita extirpated the woman’s whole brain, and put in its place a whole new one, with bulb hanging and all … Something Frankesteinian indeed.”
When Arigo died, Andrija had sworn never to fail mankind again. He believed that humanity was witnessing the birth of a new science of medicine. It was his duty, he felt, to find out Pachita’s “modus operandi”, and see if her methods of psychic surgery could be taught to others.”
___________________________________________
The descriptions of her methods, etc. are pretty much identical to what ‘John of God’ has been doing for 25+ years to about the head count of 5 – 6 million people.
___________________________________________
:.)
Unoanimo (276),
That was utterly amazing and I am left speechless. John of God? Who is that?
I heard of a story not quite as amazing but from Mexico. An American Dentist while visiting became curious of a line of people in an alleyway.
He went to look and found an old indian pulling teeth with no painkiller. The old indian wouldnt tell how he did this. The Dentist investigated and found out a little of the indian method.
Snakes dont chew. It seems that the digestion starts in the snakes mouth. The Indian found out how to use snake venom to soften the gums and the teeth were easily pulled.
Thousand of years of living with the plants and animals you’re bound to learn a trick or two.
But, Pachita that is something else.
another scene from one of the ‘classics’
279 ton
Reminds me of the early days on salary at “the ranch”.
Of course we had to wear shirts. No skin allowed. Those evil sex thoughts.
Hello Arthur ~
There are many mini-links to articles concerning John of God; here’s a lengthy one done by the Discovery Channel ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyA-mkOrye8
He’s still alive and doing his thing in Brazil: he also travels from time to time doing healing-tours in various countries; yet, he’s no really himself… If you know what I mean.
:.)
281 brucelevy
Of course we had to wear shirts. No skin allowed. Those evil sex thoughts
————————————-
except for the”teacher”, I mean: Robert Earl Burton’s thoughts..
(could not resist)
266 arthur
“‘What we have here is a failure to communicate.’ Who said that?”
Who is the ‘Who’ in the ‘Who said that?’ appearing above?
Of course, Who could have said that. On the other hand, do you want to know who said: ‘What we have here is a failure to communicate.’?
Who’s On First?:
http://www.youtube.com/v=J_gSWTQKE-0
Costello: Look Abbott, if you’re the coach, you must know all the players.
Abbott: I certainly do.
Costello: Well you know I’ve never met the guys. So you’ll have to tell me their names, and then I’ll know who’s playing on the team.
Abbott: Oh, I’ll tell you their names, but you know it seems to me they give these ball players now-a-days very peculiar names.
Costello: You mean funny names?
Abbott: Strange names, pet names…like Dizzy Dean…
Costello: His brother Daffy.
Abbott: Daffy Dean…
Costello: And their French cousin.
Abbott: French?
Costello: Goofè.
Abbott: Goofé Dean. Well, let’s see, we have on the bags, Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know is on third…
Costello: That’s what I want to find out.
Abbott: I say Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know’s on third.
Costello: Are you the manager?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: You gonna be the coach too?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: And you don’t know the fellows’ names?
Abbott: Well I should.
Costello: Well then who’s on first?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: I mean the fellow’s name.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The guy on first.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The first baseman.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The guy playing…
Abbott: Who is on first!
Costello: I’m asking YOU who’s on first.
Abbott: That’s the man’s name.
Costello: That’s who’s name?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: Well go ahead and tell me.
Abbott: That’s it.
Costello: That’s who?
Abbott: Yes.
PAUSE
Costello: Look, you gotta first baseman?
Abbott: Certainly.
Costello: Who’s playing first?
Abbott: That’s right.
Costello: When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money?
Abbott: Every dollar of it.
Costello: All I’m trying to find out is the fellow’s name on first base.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The guy that gets…
Abbott: That’s it.
Costello: Who gets the money…
Abbott: He does, every dollar. Sometimes his wife comes down and collects it.
Costello: Whose wife?
Abbott: Yes.
PAUSE
Abbott: What’s wrong with that?
Costello: Look, all I wanna know is when you sign up the first baseman, how does he sign his name?
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The guy.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: How does he sign…
Abbott: That’s how he signs it.
Costello: Who?
Abbott: Yes.
PAUSE
Costello: All I’m trying to find out is what’s the guy’s name on first base.
Abbott: No. What is on second base.
Costello: I’m not asking you who’s on second.
Abbott: Who’s on first.
Costello: One base at a time!
Abbott: Well, don’t change the players around.
Costello: I’m not changing nobody!
Abbott: Take it easy, buddy.
Costello: I’m only asking you, who’s the guy on first base?
Abbott: That’s right.
Costello: Ok.
Abbott: All right.
PAUSE
Costello: What’s the guy’s name on first base?
Abbott: No. What is on second.
Costello: I’m not asking you who’s on second.
Abbott: Who’s on first.
Costello: I don’t know.
Abbott: He’s on third, we’re not talking about him.
Costello: Now how did I get on third base?
Abbott: Why you mentioned his name.
Costello: If I mentioned the third baseman’s name, who did I say is playing third?
Abbott: No. Who’s playing first.
Costello: What’s on first?
Abbott: What’s on second.
Costello: I don’t know.
Abbott: He’s on third.
Costello: There I go, back on third again!
PAUSE
Costello: Would you just stay on third base and don’t go off it.
Abbott: All right, what do you want to know?
Costello: Now who’s playing third base?
Abbott: Why do you insist on putting Who on third base?
Costello: What am I putting on third.
Abbott: No. What is on second.
Costello: You don’t want who on second?
Abbott: Who is on first.
Costello: I don’t know.
Abbott & Costello Together:Third base!
PAUSE
Costello: Look, you gotta outfield?
Abbott: Sure.
Costello: The left fielder’s name?
Abbott: Why.
Costello: I just thought I’d ask you.
Abbott: Well, I just thought I’d tell ya.
Costello: Then tell me who’s playing left field.
Abbott: Who’s playing first.
Costello: I’m not… stay out of the infield! I want to know what’s the guy’s name in left field?
Abbott: No, What is on second.
Costello: I’m not asking you who’s on second.
Abbott: Who’s on first!
Costello: I don’t know.
Abbott & Costello Together: Third base!
PAUSE
Costello: The left fielder’s name?
Abbott: Why.
Costello: Because!
Abbott: Oh, he’s centerfield.
PAUSE
Costello: Look, You gotta pitcher on this team?
Abbott: Sure.
Costello: The pitcher’s name?
Abbott: Tomorrow.
Costello: You don’t want to tell me today?
Abbott: I’m telling you now.
Costello: Then go ahead.
Abbott: Tomorrow!
Costello: What time?
Abbott: What time what?
Costello: What time tomorrow are you gonna tell me who’s pitching?
Abbott: Now listen. Who is not pitching.
Costello: I’ll break your arm, you say who’s on first! I want to know what’s the pitcher’s name?
Abbott: What’s on second.
Costello: I don’t know.
Abbott & Costello Together: Third base!
PAUSE
Costello: Gotta a catcher?
Abbott: Certainly.
Costello: The catcher’s name?
Abbott: Today.
Costello: Today, and tomorrow’s pitching.
Abbott: Now you’ve got it.
Costello: All we got is a couple of days on the team.
PAUSE
Costello: You know I’m a catcher too.
Abbott: So they tell me.
Costello: I get behind the plate to do some fancy catching, Tomorrow’s pitching on my team and a heavy hitter gets up. Now the heavy hitter bunts the ball. When he bunts the ball, me, being a good catcher, I’m gonna throw the guy out at first base. So I pick up the ball and throw it to who?
Abbott: Now that’s the first thing you’ve said right.
Costello: I don’t even know what I’m talking about!
PAUSE
Abbott: That’s all you have to do.
Costello: Is to throw the ball to first base.
Abbott: Yes!
Costello: Now who’s got it?
Abbott: Naturally.
PAUSE
Costello: Look, if I throw the ball to first base, somebody’s gotta get it. Now who has it?
Abbott: Naturally.
Costello: Who?
Abbott: Naturally.
Costello: Naturally?
Abbott: Naturally.
Costello: So I pick up the ball and I throw it to Naturally.
Abbott: No you don’t, you throw the ball to Who.
Costello: Naturally.
Abbott: That’s different.
Costello: That’s what I said.
Abbott: You’re not saying it…
Costello: I throw the ball to Naturally.
Abbott: You throw it to Who.
Costello: Naturally.
Abbott: That’s it.
Costello: That’s what I said!
Abbott: You ask me.
Costello: I throw the ball to who?
Abbott: Naturally.
Costello: Now you ask me.
Abbott: You throw the ball to Who?
Costello: Naturally.
Abbott: That’s it.
Costello: Same as you! Same as YOU! I throw the ball to who. Whoever it is drops the ball and the guy runs to second. Who picks up the ball and throws it to What. What throws it to I Don’t Know. I Don’t Know throws it back to Tomorrow, Triple play. Another guy gets up and hits a long fly ball to Because. Why? I don’t know! He’s on third and I don’t give a darn!
Abbott: What?
Costello: I said I don’t give a darn!
Abbott: Oh, that’s our shortstop.
277 arthur:
“That was utterly amazing and I am left speechless. John of God? Who is that?”
No, Who is not That; Who is on first.
- – - – - -
Hu’s in China:
George Bush version:
http://www.youtube.com/v/3hnY2f8lIjc
Sorry about the bad link in 284. 284 should have read:
266 arthur
“‘What we have here is a failure to communicate.’ Who said that?”
Who is the ‘Who’ in the ‘Who said that?’ appearing above?
Of course, Who could have said that.
On the other hand, do you want to know
who said: ‘What we have here is a failure to communicate.’
Who’s On First?:
http://www.youtube.com/v/J_gSWTQKE-0
John of God:
Unoanimo, thanks for the diversion from all the histrionics.
Look, there no question that faith healing exists. The body has miraculous healing powers that lie untapped by modern science. It has only been the last 200 years that science has neglected the power of the mind in the healing process. All it takes is the suspension of disbelief.
As Ben Franklin has said, “God heals, the doctor takes the fee.” Most people do not have the self-esteem to accept this or are ignorant of the fact that they contain their own inner doctor and inner therapist. That’s why they have to externalize or outsource them. Modern society makes us feel disempowered and compliant sheep ripe for exploitation and consumerism.
John of God has the same conviction that he is on a mission from God that Robert Burton has, and for many that’s all it takes. (Look at how much money Robert has made from the power of his convictions!) Their strength is based upon the power of belief. You have to really believe it can happen, and it can happen. You see the videos, hear the testimonials, step outside your rational mind, and it can happen. Both men operate from the power of conviction. I have to confess, I do too. I believe people can heal themselves, convey that to my clients on many levels and more often that not, in my practice, they do. That’s what it takes to be a successful shaman.
For those who wish to be enlightened: I have studied this and I can guarantee you that “psychic surgery” is just that, psychic, not physical, done with chicken fat, chicken blood or animal organs as convincing props. A simple experiment will illustrate this point. Go to John of God and desire NOT to be ‘healed’. Guess what? Despite all the theatrics, you cannot be made to heal against your will. People like John of God are good facilitators for something we all have within us. He is no more or less human or divine than the rest of us. But feel free to verify this for yourself. I have.
That’s my understanding also.
Dear Whalerider
Coming back after having been blessed with a good night’s first state I liked and appreciated this blog. Actually the desire to be healed is the first force and one’s dross or personality the second. Higher or conscious influences are there for everyone on earth as third force. Pesrsonally I aggressed/regressed my first force ‘make a lightning rod’ to ‘pray’ for God-states. “Patience, Highlander – you are many tears dying and being born”……………………….. Nigel.
Sorry not tears -YEARS – actually quite a good Freudian spelling mistake?!
This is my favourite ‘grounding’ poem:-
W B Yeats – ‘The People’
“What have I earned for all that work, I said,
For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defamed,
The reputation of his lifetime lost lost
Between the night and morning. I might haved lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where everyday my footfall should have lit
In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;
Or climbed among the images of the past -
The unperturbed and courtly images -
Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino
To where the duchess and her people talked
The stately midnight through until they stood
In their great window looking at the dawn;
I might have had no friend that could not mix
Courtesy and passion into one like those
That saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn;
I might have used the one substantial right
My trade allows; chosen my company,
And chosen what scenery had pleased me best.
Thereon my phoenix answered in reproof,
“The drunkards, pilferers of public funds,
All the dishonest crowd I had driven away,
When my luck changed and they dared meet my face,
Crawled from obscurity, and set upon me
Those I had served and some that I had fed;
Yet never have I, now nor any time,
Complained of the people”.
All I could reply was “You, that have not lived in
Thought but deed
Can have the purity of a natural force,
But I, whose virtues are the definitions
Of the analytical mind, can neither close
The EYE OF THE MIND nor keep my tongue from speech”
And yet, because my heart leaped at her words,
I was abashed, and now they come to mind
After (nine) years, I sink my head abashed.”
Hello Whalerider ~
Tonight (this morning), it occurred to me to read the blog differently than I have ever before; to follow along a person’s response or new post as if it has arrived from inside me, in other words, a reflection… If there’s any miscommunication on my part or perceived aggression on another’s, it is really only my aggression resonating with another’s and my ignorance of ignorance in another that deems them something apart from myself…
If I do not like something someone has wrote, it’s because ‘I do not like’ and so on… So, if there’s a need for another to clarify themselves then I ought to be doing the same thing as I write back (for myself) and them simultaneously.
With all this in front of me I believe I can say some simple things without breaking the mirror:
I have a funny feeling that you have never visited John of God, nor have I… So, truly my postings to Arthur were only in association with the article I found concerning the female shaman: I was not putting out a belief in either people and feel that the ‘framing’ of John of God is unfair to both of us, since we’ve not actually visited him.
I did find it surprising that you compared him (inside my mind) to Robert Burton… It’s interesting; it is a long stretch to compare such a person to the phenomenon I somewhat understand is happening here in Oregon House for the past 15 years; yet, I must admit to the mirror, that since I have returned things look very different, although they are still made up of the same ingredients.
My wife wanted to go to John of God (and take me with her), so I dug into his story pretty deep and was somewhat confounded that he had made it through so many of life’s red-tape-hoops; he’s been visited by many health officials, put in jail due to superstitions, interviewed and filmed by medical surgeons from around the globe and yet, he’s still doing what he is doing and for free. The only money that his facility takes is ‘if’ he prescribes herbal medicines.
I must admit that I’ve never been an advocate for going to ‘people’; there was something in me that did not trust healer’s in the shape of a human being; I am over that now, because I’ve found the trauma around ‘World-Dad’ and I am working on it… Daily finding ‘right’ ways to heal and trust myself by working with others…
For me, the John of God and Robert Burton comparison is unfair really: I trust that you know through your personal experience and those of others Robert Burton and what is occurring in the Fellowship of Friends. Can either of us (as one) be so bold as to let ourselves out of our heart chamber and speak up concerning someone belonging to such a wide open, sometimes real, sometimes farcical field as psychic surgery, that we have not met?
Gosh, I told my wife that I’d go just to scan-screen the dude and see if I could find the buried edge of his spaceship, like in Stephen King’s novel ‘The Tommyknockers’. ‘We’ never went due to timing, etc.
I was a bit intrigued with him because I know that ‘chicken liver’ trick (it’s actually done with cotton balls and a certain chemical substance that turns a brown color once in contact with the cotton)… I watched a guy do this and was keeping my eye on John of God as I viewed him cut people open on the videos and pull out various dangled things… I did not see anyone handing him cotton balls or any rolling up his sleeveless wrists; yet, I still want to meet him some day, regardless as to what my thoughts are on someone I’ve never met or talked to.
I have always felt good though about people who can take all visitors from all sides and be themselves consistently; this does not happen (yet) in Oregon House or the world, though I feel that John of God has paid the price, whatever he’s doing, he does it tirelessly and for nearly all his life since age 8 and has served the Earth and its beings with transparency, IMO… He has no guardhouse and is a simple man, similar to Edgar Cayce, he remembers nothing of what he has done once he ‘comes down’ or back, which I find curious… In his interviews I see no sign of ego or a soul’s heart possessed by its story-mind: for what its worth, he just looks tired and a bit in awe…
I feel inside myself that even the idea of framing is ‘framing’… So, I hope that we can get outside the picture’s desire for a womb and sink into one another and trust that sometimes people are simply living and breathing god’s exhales and no more.
A postscript on John of God: ‘he’ does work with modern medical and medicine institutions… Some people come to him and are sent to the hospital and others not: in this world of supernatural crossovers there are some exceptions and I hope all of us are them.
One of the things that is helping me these days is to not doubt entirely and leave some room for yourself, your own light to trust in your Achilles heel, that your mother really did not mean it when she forgot to dip you twice… Any mother can make this mistake, particularly in the throes of panicking concerning her baby going out to war and needing ‘armoring’. Her panic becomes her son’s armor and he will kill anyone who comes near her pain that he’s inherited… All this armoring and panic, distrust and wrathful loathing and self pity, up and up she and he’s a mess, save that one place where she trusted herself to hold him: now, if he’d just massage that spot on his heel and let it spread and not take it to War, that living and breathing field of distrust, fear and rebirth.
________________________________
L.t.y.a.
I’ll Never Tell,
I enjoyed that “who’s on first” routine. I’ve never read it before, and it’s still funny. A true classic like Lynyard Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”.
I dont remember whether it was Ouspensky or Rodney Collin but one said that the streets of the ancient cities of Europe are filled with human voices of the past. I could’nt verify this, but it seems to me you would have to highly evolved to hear anything other than traffic noise.
The point I think is that the Human Mind can somehow energize objects over time. For instance, Catholics are good at praying in front of statues, Jews in front of the Wailing Wall, Externalized Healing Sites coupled with Human Faith. I think that’s what I am getting at. I don’t know?
280/Early Daze
That’s pronounced “The Raunch” (said with a slightly snooty voice).
Edgar Cayce that’s the first name that came to me while reading about John of God.
Just a memory of an Indian teaching book I read;-
“The killer of humanity is an entity from a planet within the solar system with no conscience nor sense of morality. He will be seen to ensnare many sincere followers until such time as………..”
Maybe we who come from stars and maybe return, in Death and Birth/Rebirth to regroup our entitiy/individuality sense of worthiness with the Universal Chi are to work at this time in the knowledge of this being’s actions…… Nigel.
We have a team of salaried scholars finding references to the sequence throughout history. We call them “The Fantastic Fours.” They have found references to the sequence and our school in situation comedies of the 1960s and 70s. Youtube is amazing, isn’t it? The Native American shouting “EEET EES BALLOON!” in the opening credits of “F Troop” refers to the bubble of our winery during its construction. We were working with C influence’s exercise not to watch television during that time so that the material would be fresh for us later on. The “F Troop” programming is but one example. “My Mother The Car” is concious art. One’s mother is a machine. She is not only mechanical, she will suffer eternal recurrence as a machine. The show is about one man’s struggle with mechanical feminine dominance. Jan Cox was not a conscious being. But he had a great name. That reminds me. Excuse me, I have to go do something. Nikolai! Vladimir! An alpaca or one of the llamas? I make five hundred decisions a week. Ulysses S. Grant appears on the fifty dollar bill. There are five fingers on each hand. Some of the old order Amish have six. They occupy a different position in the ray of creation. Five hundred, fifty, five, six, exquisite, isn’t it, these details.
Ouspensky letter (long):
It is twenty years now since the things I am going to write about happened. They have not been written before and seldom discussed. There was no reason and I felt no desire to expose a person while alive for an inward failure. Who was I to set myself up as a revealing judge? But I did learn a lesson as to what could overcome a guru.
This is written now because the case of P. D. Ouspensky is not an isolated one. It is a situation that may be typical of a man whose fate is to become a successful guru and, then through the force of outside circumstances, find himself unable to cope with his own reactions and hence, for a time at least, lose his way. I have been told, though I do not know it first hand, that during the last year of Ouspensky’s life, he found his way back to control of himself. I hope this is true because by nature Ouspensky was essentially a good man and not a dishonest one.
The case of Ouspensky has, perhaps, a special meaning for India since India has swamis and gurus of every kind, male and female. For many people—Indian and foreign—India is the fountain of ancient or Eastern Wisdom. It is a paradise for those who seek to be gurus, and those who want to find a guru to direct and lead them. The point is, perhaps, that here and there exist true gurus. But as the Tantras recognize, true adepts in spiritual understanding are very rare.
To a lesser degree the West is also prone to what can only be called ‘guruism.’ By no means is all of this search on the level of the Billy Graham kind of evangelism—a popular appeal to the sentimental religiosity of the under educated, or unhappy individuals whose empty lives cry out to be called back to the fold of God whom they ignored while they were reasonably happy. A sense of having strayed, or a feeling of emptiness envelopes such people and they imagine they are being granted a revelation. In such a state any God-image will do. Only God give me something to hold onto! But Gods rarely make their appearance by themselves. Usually they require to be introduced by a guru, one that is within the frame of a particular orthodoxy, or one of those non-conformist fellows, or ladies, who puts in a dramatic magnetic appearance.
The need to find a guru is not restricted to the ill-informed, the romantic, or those with a secretly bubbling well of potential hysteria or delusion. The need is also often lurking in people who in intellect are far above the average. At least three distinguished writers in the English language—T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and the clever, if acid, Evelyn Waugh,—found the answer to their spiritual search in orthodox Christian religious faith. And the faith—the act of faith—is identical whether it is devotion to Brahma, Jehovah or Allah.
Then there are intellectuals like Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, Gerald Heard and, the most famous of this group—Aldous Huxley—all four once ardent rationalists with two of them having once shown a left-wing bent. Suddenly they tipped over to one or another form of mysticism as a way out for some sense of frustration. Huxley now writes articles about the marvelous visions he enjoys as a result of experimenting with certain drugs. One wonders whether this is a very morally responsible thing to be advertising to the world as a way to find ecstasy.
Huxley commenced his search for ‘The Perennial Philosophy’ in the mid-1930’s by trying to find the answer for himself in the Know Thyself philosophy and method of Peter D. Ouspensky. Huxley soon went on elsewhere; but that was not Ouspensky’s fault.
At that time in London, Ouspensky was the most likely guru—though he never called himself that—to make an appeal to the educated, reasonably intelligent person who had no place within orthodox religion, nor any special inclination to be. The sort of people who were interested in Ouspensky’s ideas were those who had some interest in the idea of self-knowledge and were seeking a philosophy to live by which was not orthodox materialism. Ouspensky mainly appealed to the rational person who questioned whether it might not be true, as said by Hamlet, that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in our philosophy.’
Ouspensky, a Russian émigré, who looked infinitely more like a doctor, or science p