Part 19, the Fellowship of Friends Discussion.
For previous parts click on home and browse away.
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
August 20, 2007 by Pavel
Part 19, the Fellowship of Friends Discussion.
For previous parts click on home and browse away.
the Fellowship of Friends Discussion 
557 glad2Bgone My response to previous page:
Good points and good questions. In answer you might want to check back to some of my posts from somewhere around page 3 or 4 on. Some might fit into the categories you deem worthwhile. As time goes on I’m less inclined to re-recite my more empathetic thoughts and personal stories, as they become repetitious, nor am I inclined to bring newer people up to speed . They’re there if you care to find them. If you check above on this page I think you’ll see I’m pretty much trying to avoid even entering many of the conversations because of their futility.
Occasionally I’ll have something to say about the bull shit and hypocrisies of the few posters who say the same shit over and over yet obfuscate the salient points that are being made. I have no patience for these 6 year old mind and word games, thus the brusque comments. I let a lot go by I think should be commented on. Between responding to Fat Boys idiocy and the choice of a root canal, I’ll choose the root canal. But sometimes he needs to be smacked in the head, not too hard, because he’ll try to slide the bullshit by, while avoiding really looking at the whole picture, outside “Fat Boy’s world”.
On the other hand, I’m not that concerned with people who are offended by “words”. That’s not my problem. Anyone who’s been here for several pages has learned to skip my posts if they choose to hear only sweet, sugary responses. You might try seeing some of my comments as meant to fall on a different part of ones being. As not being meant for one’s self-soothing image of themselves.
I might apologize for my emphatic approach, but I’m not sorry, and I won’t.
Hey there Bruce, thanks for the response. I don’t want to skip your posts – that would be my loss. But, you know… I am a Nice Girl :) and the manner of expression matters…
You WRITE what I THINK! but there is a difference between thinking and publishing…And you think in dichotomies: if it is not fucking pissing pathetic smacked-in-the-head hypocritical bullshit, then it MUST be sweet, sugary & self-soothing. Mostly, stuff is neither: only adrenaline makes it so!
HC Fatboy Just Me, et al. are studies in cult personality: they expose the buffers, obfuscation, faulty logic, self serving contradictions, lying by omission, intentional ignorance, self-centredness, etc — to which most of us were also once subject — some, not so long ago.
Your brutal tones find their target not just in the Fat Boys of the blog, but – if we are honest – in many who only recently left. Only now we realize the extent of the deception & illusion In Fat Boy we see ourselves (which is what Fat Boy fails to realize): we are him.
I have a mental image that corresponds to your most extreme tones: an enraged gnome with red cheeks, bulging eyes, steam coming out of his ears, jumping up and down stamping. I am sure that is not what you intend.
519 Fat Boy
“I am not blind to Robert’s strong influence but the only thing I was afraid of is if I did not have a relationship with him then that I would not be able to be close to him; which is what I wanted. It was my choice and I thought about it even before hand. Maybe others got more cornered.”
I joined the Fellowship of Friends in 1973. I was told that Robert Burton was a celibrete using the transformation of his sexual energy for higher centers. He requested I and my wife move to the farm after we were students for one year. My wife left me and the school shortly after we moved there.
I trusted Robert and tried to follow his example and maintained celebricy for almost a year. He seduced me in the Arizona Biltmore Hotel after buying me a drink. I was taken completely by surprise. One I had only had spirits a few times in my life, two I was cxonditioned to give up my will to the teacher.
He coerced me and bribed me and the sex was not consensual. It was degrading and shameful. He never acknowledged this sexual relationship with me or any of the other young men. some of whom had ongoing relationships. Rather than making me want to be closer to my divine teacher it made me feel repulsed by a fat lying faggot. I never agreed to be alone with him again. After I returned to Renaissance I would refuse any suggestion that I go to the Blake cottage. It was around this time that he instituted the “no sex out of marriage” exercise. When I found a young woman I was interested in he sent me away. After I married I never spent anytime alone with him again.
From my perspective It was the lying that was so negative, not just individually but in relation to other young men, in relation to the whole system of the Fellowship and in relation to Robert’s ongoing predations.
It is not the question of whether sex with ones students is good or bad. Like any other situation this is wrong thinking. Right thinking is about process and triads. The process at the core of Robert’s sexual relationships is criminal. The process of crime is when a part damages the whole. In this case it is the lies and misrepresentations at the core of what is the Fellowship of Friends, how decisions are made , and how the real priorities and relationships in the Fellowship function that fit the definition of the process of crime.
Robert does not have lovers he has victims. He does not cultivate those qualities that produce a positive use of sex energy but rather produces a system of institutionalized dysfunction.
IN 1992 he apparently admitted his sexual orientation. This was 15 years ago this means for 21 years he lied to all his followers. He is a lier this is a proved fact. His being a conscious man may be a questionable claim, his being a lier is not. We probably don’t know the extent of how many times the Fellowship has had to pay the cost of his sexual abuse.
His apparent honesty is still bullshit. He has not produced an enviorement for the development of a healthy sexuality in the Fellowship. Without a healthy sexuality there is no possibility of the development of higher consciousness. This is an objective law. Robert’s own actions prove the Fellowship of Friends is not a “conscious school” and is incapable of producing a healthy being.
Yes there are those who seek out Robert’s attentions. I shared a small air stream in 1978 with an attractive, young blond man who was ever so eager to spend any time with Robert . He probably would have been willing to exchange sex for attention. I was not. Robert is not interested in Relationships he is interested in prey.
The Fellowship has evolved into a systematic operation to find and feed young men to Robert. They are conditioned from the beginning about the importance of following the “will of the teacher”, they are told of his divine nature, this is “coercion” Robert claims to be the greatest psychologist on the planet earth. A man with higher mind, capable of seeing and understanding the mechanics of all other humans. The very thought that there is any question that such a man a self described conscious man does not exert force on his followers is denial on a major scale.
You cannot separate the two. If we accept the Fellowship position that Robert Burton is a higher man it follows that he be held to a higher standard. That is the premise of his authority that he sees and knows more than other humans. That one can trust him and turn their will over to him to gain access to a higher level of being. You cannot claim he is a conscious man and then in good conscience claim his dysfunctional sexuality is just a “normal “human thing. Something that is just a minor fact easily dismissed as of mo major consequence.
Like many other of Robert Burton’s lies a little thought reveals how shallow his claims are.
Perhaps if he fasted one week a month, went into seclusion and did not spend any money, avoided sexual contact, if he did this one week a month then it might indicate some element of will. He will not, has not, and cannot do this because he is not conscious he is what he is most critical of a “sleeping machine”. I would hazard the opinion that he has lost the potential for development. That he is “moon food” as are his devoted lunatic followers
If his loyal students really loved their teacher and not just the comfortable world of imagination they share they would take away all his material possessions, his access to money, status and power buy him some Salvation Army Clothes and toss his lazy ass out on the streets of San Fransisco with the homeless and let him gain some real humility.
The fact that this is just imagination indicates that there is no one in the Fellowship who has any ability to control him. He is a mad man and he is taking his whole group down his own dead end path.
Fatboy 532 ~
You wrote ~
“with children then my view would side with you, but we are adults.”
________________________________________________
Well Fatboy, there you have it, that’s the gist (and the mist that’s in your eyes)… the body ages without your permission, yet your inner self does not, it needs your conscious permission to grow, to mature (if ‘mature’ can be even said without assigning a mood of some ending, so, I am not referring to endings, simply a connection being made deep down in oneself with big ‘I’)…
If you cannot SEE that you are a ‘child’ (within), and have the BELIEF that being an automatic epidermis-adult qualifies you as an ‘adult’ through and through, then I cannot assist you (not that this is my whole aim in posting to you; for the most part we are attempting to help you help yourself)… It’s is weird, yet, when BELIEF trumps being, there’s only time and 1st line… no second line is possible, none… It’s a hypnotic state only accessible (IMO) by forces outside the third dimensional framework that supports BELIEF in the first place.
There is no “we are adults”; Robert Burton’s essence is about 13 or 14 years of age; well below the legal drinking age, so, where were you before meeting the Fellowship of Friends, do you not have any esoteric knowledge of inner-self-age, the difference between mind-habit-age and spontaneous-reactionary-age?
Do you really (feel) that you are an adult in your moods, in your abilities to handle denying force, in your abilities to be yourself while others are asking you to be them, in your ability to say ‘Yes’ to circumstances that only put pressure on your inner evil god, who usually feeds on saying ‘no’, the sort of yes that strengthens essence, adds to your being able to go beyond mind as a gauge as to how essential you can be in the face of indifferent, oftentimes brutal circumstances?
I sense that your ‘idea’ of “adult” is wishful thinking, something that (in your mind) counterbalances your truer center of gravity in essence, which is churning around needing role models and playing a part in the rolling of those models.
I do not doubt that your process is genuine (for you) and of course since I have found you in my sphere floating around in your bubble too, I have to play my song; yet, somewhere deep within me I sense that you are too comfortable, that somehow this blog is a sort of convenience for you, a sort of ‘toy’, you partition people’s posts as if you can talk to a hand, but not the arm, the knee, but not the thigh and calf…
This is very common in the Fellowship of Friends, it is called Relative Awakening, it is a habit of the mind to see in others (and their posts) only those portions that it can relate to or easily say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to; how would one’s life be different if one was to approach the entire post with the same fervor, both heart and head communicating, saying THIS, THIS, THIS… not, THIS, NOT THAT, THIS, NOT THAT (?)
Yes, the Fellowship of Friends will take you to a place, yet, (IMO) it can only take you as far as it’s center already is able to reach, to deliver you, the rest will be up to you…
Your ‘will be’, is always skating on your shadow and I can only wish you well in your journey… BTW, your “Let’s say the story is true” is a continuation of your living on the edge of a two inch cliff, jump off and sense your life’s mood, not it’s meaning (my bit of advice for the deeper YOU)… The story is true…
____________________________________________
l.t.ya.
2 glad2Bgone
“I have a mental image that corresponds to your most extreme tones: an enraged gnome with red cheeks, bulging eyes, steam coming out of his ears, jumping up and down stamping. I am sure that is not what you intend”
Actually it is. Are you anti-“steaming Gnome” by any chance?
Hi Glad2Bgone,
In a sense Bruce is not really talking to Fatboy, Who Knows, Howard Carter, etc. — he’s talking to us. That’s you, me, “prospective” members of the FOF who happen to be reading the blog, and current members of the FOF who might think somewhere in the backs of their minds that Fatboy, Who Knows, etc., are actually speaking some sense. Bruce doesn’t believe they are speaking anything that resembles truth or honesty, and he’s helping us to recognize the bs. In my mind, any time that occurs, it makes this blog a worthwhile read.
When Fatboy genuinely becomes receptive to what you say, Bruce says, Laura says, Opus 111 says, Ames says, Uno says, Rhino says, Graduates, etc., etc., etc., THEN I would say that “we are him”.
But until he/she opens up, listens, stops obfuscating, etc., I don’t know who FatBoy is, and I certainly wouldn’t agree that “we are him.”
Bruce and others who shoot their words out of a cannon are giving us what we need, which is often not very pleasant. If we’re offended by Bruce’s comments, there must be something in us that is still hooked by the group-think in the Fellowship. And one aspect of the group-think, by the way, is “don’t express negativity.”
Even now… See how challenging it is to let go of that mindset?
-2B
p.s. also “glad 2b gone” in my own way — maybe we’re related.
Unoanimo, 4: I will give credit where I think it is due; and you make some good points in the beginning that I will reflect more on.
Overall, I liked some of Laura posts in the past but I think she has become to judgemental in 558 and in some previous posts lost her patience. I do have buffers and you all do too – I entered this thread of the blog only because I did not like the way the term “rape” is being thrown around but I can respect peoples feeling and stories as long as it does not exaggerate things. I too think there is a alot of bullshit.
Glad2begone posts about members, “they expose the buffers, obfuscation, faulty logic, self serving contradictions, lying by omission, intentional ignorance, self-centredness, etc”. Sincerely I understand why you see things this way but I could just as easily turn that statement around torward you and others.
Praising and supporting Bruce does not serve this blog in the least. His offensiveness only pushes members who want to express themselves away. He is the judge and jury and is not interested in the other sides point of view. It is fine to bring bullshit to light but that is not what he is doing; he drives bloggers away with his profanities not by DISAGREEING but by eliminating them with his insults. This is selfish. If he does not like something he insults it. Maybe what should be on the top of this blog is, “Only Harmful Posts about FOF are welcome”. If a few of you beside Bruce feel this way, then I will not post again.
Concerning Bruce
If Fellowship of Friends ‘members’ are offended by offense, then where is the fundamental change within? The answer (IMO) would be that if one is offended by offense (just like that) this is ‘like identifying with like, i.e., mirrors looking at each other’ and no fundamental change in level of consciousness is being ‘made’, while walking on a frozen lake is not fishing in it, the Fellowship of Friends loves to ‘walk’, but when it comes to cutting into the ice so to fish, nothing doing, who knows how thick it is, whether there are any fish down there and order out for Chinese instead.
Bruce is Bruce, I can roll with that because I say ‘fuck’ once in a while and more than once it arises from within for pretty much the same responsive reasons Bruce posts here oftentimes little snapshots of something askew… to deny that the big WTF! does not automatically arise in all of us, particularly being from the Eddie Murphy generation, would be lying and I would rather recognize the totality than support that the earth is flat due to some honoring of the first religious BELIEFS.
What the Fellowship of Friends BELIEVES does not necessarily work; nearly every glass of wine beyond #2 could be a ‘fuck’, whether it’s a soft or loud one, it still performs its ‘leak’, yet to me this does not determine level of being or consciousness, ‘fuck!’ happens, and one’s response to it does too.
If the Fellowship of Friends cannot get beyond Bruce, they’ll never get out of the Fellowship of Friends, nor will they graduate out in the real (worlds)… Avoiding Bruce is avoiding one’s own automatic processes, this is not to say that Bruce cannot be intentional with his ‘bullshits’ and ‘fucks’, I believe he can, and to me in going deeper, beyond what it looks like, rather, into its intent, I always make a profit, if you run from someone who looks like your mother-in-law you’re liable to trip over the real one…
____________________________
l.t.y.a.
“If a few of you beside Bruce feel this way, then I will not post again.”
Bye Bye Fatboy!
Ryan.
Note on Post 8 ~
No, Bruce, that ‘mother-in-law’ thingy is not associative to you and should be bracketed as a stand alone line… Actually I saw your picture on the Greater Fellowship site; you, along with Whalerider would be one of my first picks for some camo stealth missions, ninja palm tree climbing like.
:/)
Fat Boy
“If a few of you beside Bruce feel this way, then I will not post again.”
Fat Boy, I for one couldn’t care less whether you post again. Having left the “Fellowship of Friends,” I already have a life, and I don’t run to my computer to see if Fat Boy is (yet again) dithering about whether or not he agrees with something some blogger said, or whether or not he’s (yet again) threatening to never post again. Were you under the impression that people posting on this site are so desperate to “save” you that they’ll cater to your wishes about the emotional tone of the posts? Forget it, Fat Boy. Go back to your potagers. Maybe Robert cares about your opinions of how he acts. We survived the Fellowship, and so will you.
As for the “rape” versus “not rape” stuff, the very fact that a person wants to debate whether the particular word is appropriate or not, instead of just saying “Jesus F. Christ, this is revolting” proves to my satisfaction that the person has a major problem with being able to recognize the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behavior in a human being. Once upon a time it was commonplace to mock people who went to a particular coffee shop in Marysville as “dead machines.” (Don’t ask me what was supposed to be so special about this coffee shop.) That a Fellowship student can at the same time judge “life” and be unable to appreciate that whatever you want to call what Burton does is, by any measure, fucked up is the height of absurdity. I’d be embarassed to shake hands with someone who treats people the way Burton does, let alone call him my “teacher.”
Fatboy (548)
I can’t let your comment that Robert “was very accessible” go by without responding. In my experience, it was usually quite difficult to gain access to Robert in any meaningful way. And it was precisely this inaccessability that made it difficult to make an informed judgement as to his claim to be a geniune teacher of the Fourth Way.
Most of my 15 or so years in the FOF were spent in centers far away from Robert. I did have two dinners with him in New York during that time. That was it. Of course, even during such occasions one’s “access” is somewhat limited, since there are many other students at such events and one doesn’t want to monopolize the questioning. Furthermore, one is reluctant to probe too deeply or be impolite, etc. Anyway, Robert is/was very adept at wriggling out of answering any really penetrating questions. I’m sure he knows when his fraudulence is in danger of being exposed. If really pressed, he would probably just ignore you.
After I moved to Apollo, as it was then called, opportunities to at least see him or say hello in a reception line became more common. But that is not the kind of access that offers any substantial interaction which would enable one to get a real glimpse into the man himself. I went to several teaching dinners during that time (in spite of the outrageous expense and the fact that I was on salary) always hoping to verify something about his being, to address my doubts about him, etc. Inevitably I had to settle for listening to him prattle on about the imminent fall of California, offer some self-aggrandizing platitudes, or maybe, if I was “lucky”, some quotes from the 44.
After I began to discover the facts about Robert’s predatory nature, I was less and less inclined to want “access” to him. I stayed on in the Fellowship for a couple more years just because of friendships I had made there.
The fact is that Robert is very restrictive about granting access to most students. He has numerous secretaries and go-betweens to screen out the unwanted. He charges ridiculous sums to hear him “teach”. And if anyone persists into probing into the numerous accusations against him they are immediately expelled from the school.
Many of the great men and women of history have left memoirs or autobiographies about their early lives, recounting their experiences and how they acheived their success. Or at least their disciples wrote accounts of their lives. Even Gurdjieff, who generally shunned publicity, wrote ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’, a book in which he paid tribute to those who helped him along the way.
I often wondered why Robert was so reluctant to reveal any significant details about his life before he became a god-like, concious being, man-number-whatever. I would have liked the opportunity to sit down and interview him and ask certain questions. Maybe questions about his formative years. Maybe questions that might make him squirm a little – just to see what he would do. Of course he would never grant such an interview. He has to control everything around him to insure that the illusion of his ‘concious being’ status is maintained.
If Robert ever did offer unfettered access to himself, I think many students would soon be able to perceive the truth about him and then they would probably leave the Fellowship. As to why some of “his boys”, who actually have had quite a bit of access to him, in one way or another, continue to stay — my feeling is that they simply can’t admit to themselves that they have let some disgusting old man sexually abuse them. In order to preserve their pride, dignity, or whatever, they must convince themselves that the “goddess in a man’s body” line is true.
Regards to everyone,
David B.
10 Uno
Didn’t even cross my mind, no prob.
Further to David’s comments (12) –
I lived at Apollo/Isis for 15 yrs, was on the Council and a travelling “teacher” all over the world, etc. Burton was emphatically not accessible to me, and became less so as time went by. Even Linda T complained to me about his inaccessibility.
But it’s a different world for the young men around him. For them, he is accessible. That’s because he’s interested in them. My impression was that he has pretty much zero interest in students other than the boys, even those others who actually run the Fellowship on a day to day basis. All attempts at communication are filtered through Dorian and others in his immediate entourage. From what I could gather it seemed that most replies were given by members of his entourage too. Burton himself seemed to have created a bubble through which nothing he didn’t want to hear could penetrate. His entourage had ben trained to deflect communications other than those of the “I love REB” or “here’s a new moneyraising idea” kind.
RN
Brain Police,
Thanks for letting me you know that you do not care about my posts; like I care that you do not care!
You said, “As for the “rape” versus “not rape” stuff, the very fact that a person wants to debate whether the particular word is appropriate or not….” Good point Brain Police so shall we go on….
And Unoanimo, right when I thought you were sharp you started speaking out your ass again in Post 8.
15 Fat Boy
So, you start by telling us what everyone knows about me.
Then you tell us what the purpose of the blog is, and how it should be.
Then your six year old feelings are hurt, and you do exactly what you denigrate (15).
You just don’t get it.
You just don’t get it.
You live in a universe that revolves around you. Unfortunately you are the only inhabitant in that universe. You’re a spoiled, self-entitled child. I had hoped that there was more, but I simply don’t see it.
I don’t hate you, I have no advice for your path, I wish you well, but you have been stunted, maybe by RB, but more probably you brought to the FOF a whole “sequence” of baggage. Unfortunately the FOF only increased your burden, mostly by the fact that you don’t see what you’re carrying.
I really hope something changes for you.
Incidentally, aren’t you the least bit embarrassed about your repeated threats to stop posting. This should be, for you, a major indication of your maturity level. You have an opportunity here to break out of this ridiculousness and your acting like a waah-waah (onomatopoeia).
Really, your threats only shows you’re a childish, vain narcissist who JUST DOESN’T SEE. I remember being told by two different psychotherapists that of all the disorders, narcissism is the hardest to deal with, because they JUST DON’T SEE. They’ve lost significant capacity to tap into a moral compass. And you can’t correct that easily.
I’m sorry for you Fat Boy.
To Bruce,
At this point your posts are kind of funny, we keep repeating the same diologue, and you keep repeating with other members.
I think you need to go back to your psychotherapist to see that your PROJECTING.
#546 Kid Shelleen
So true. It is we who we are looking for. We project that search all over in the world and throughout time.
It is so simple, so profound and so wonderful it is wrong to put words to it.
It is so sad to see those trapped in the cult of personality and the pretty little stuff but then we were there once.
It is posts like yours that help me be less cynical.
Fat Boy
I am tired of your milk toast justifying of that creepy fucker.
OK Bruce, I just took a shower to cool down.
Truce?
In my experience, there is very little of Burton to “access.” From what I read on this blog, things have gotten far more extreme and bureaucratic and conveyor-belt-like in recent decades, but I doubt Burton’s become a lot more intelligent and articulate.
I lived for a while at the Blake cottage. When Burton was interested in me, he was pretty attentive, and we drove around in the back seat of his Rolls. If I wanted to see him, there were no major barriers; we lived in the same little house, and I could just walk up to him and ask him a question. He would usually try to respond. I wasn’t under the illusion that I saw all sides of his personality, but I did get the impression that I saw what there was to see of his teaching style. He was definitely observant. But there wasn’t much substance. Believe me, I wanted to find profundity, but it was very difficult. He offered canned angles to one and all, over and over again. His seduction routine, which Uno described so well, sounds essentially the same as decades ago. It’s all tapes, and his “teaching” was similar. He would sit at the dinner table and say something like “The universe is unimaginably enormous” (he had a certain phrasing for it, which he would repeat every so often, that I can’t remember exactly–I’m sure someone out there will remember it, since he said it every couple of weeks, for the benefit of those who weren’t aware that the universe is really big). Much of what he said was unverifiable, along the lines of “We are embarking upon blah, blah, blah,” or “The gods have asked that we blah, blah, blah.”
He once told me how long I would live. That was pretty cool. I felt special! A month or two later he gave me a different number. When I pointed that out to him, he seemed surprised and amused, as if to say “Well, what did you expect?”
He told me whose ladder I was on. I later realized that the ladder concept meant that if he thought you physically resembled a person who joined before you, you might be on that person’s ladder, but you weren’t supposed to believe it, because it was a “teacher’s tool,” which I gather meant it was a head trip designed to establish that he knew something you couldn’t possibly know.
He told me which lifetime I was in, and since it wasn’t ninth, I was in stunned and mopey silence for days–after all, it was the first time it had occurred to me that, as far as this lifetime was concerned, there was absolutely nothing I could do to “become conscious.” It took me a while to get rid of that bit of meaningless propaganda.
When I got into a relationship with a woman, he took me off salary, but I would stay at the Blake cottage on weekends when I visited. It was only after months of this that I was summoned into his bedroom. Although I had been living in a harem with several other young men, no one talked about it (at least to me), except in the most vague, inscrutable, smirking way, to suggest that they knew something but weren’t going to say exactly what it was. Why would I suppose my teacher was a sexual predator unless I had seen it with my own eyes, or at least heard it described plainly by someone I trusted? Without that, things that in hindsight seem obvious clues could be explained away. One young man I knew had been asked to move into the Blake cottage before me and within a day or two left Renaissance, freaked out. I later understood what had happened, but at the time, even he couldn’t bring himself to say straightforwardly what the problem was, I believe because he was frightened of revealing Burton’s secret. Strange as it may seem to some, I really didn’t know what Burton was up to until I was standing there, being asked if he could “receive me,” along with the routine about being a goddess, Walt Whitman being gay, etc. When I said no, he began masturbating me, uninvited. I pulled away. No, he didn’t wrestle me to the floor. He just gave me the silent treatment for the remainder of my time in the Fellowship. From which I learned at least as much as from all of the things he told me.
Fatboy ~
As for your not so uncanny ability to play flippy-coins with a two headed nickel so far as what side of the judgmental your voice supports, i.e., first you allow yourself to assume that I wish to be seen as SHARP, then promote anus-linguistics 101 as my major contribution to Part 19:
I checked my toaster list and lo and behold you are on it and I simply must obey the fact that my hand writing then is the same as my hand writing now, so, if you wish to understand more about my toaster list, a list (unless you and Whalerider have secret correspondence) I am sure you do not yet have, please read further back in the blog, actually, you might even start with Part 1 and gain a bit of scale & relativity with what sort of beings you’re dealing with…
Yep, you’re pretty pissed off, it seems, cause there’s nowhere to go but into the silent mirror, (in here that is)
Robert Burton (and Asaf) talk too much about the same things to have time to look into the solo-ness of their actions and reactions and BTW, never get around to YOU…
So, what is Robert Burton’s (teaching), or shall we term it ‘The Gospels of Robert Burton (preaching), unavailable for editing or additional commentary’… They will teach you nothing about the ‘Silent Mirror’ because they’re too busy leaking themselves out upon the prison floor, so be it;
Remember my friend, there’s two sorts of what people mistakingly term ‘Astral Bodies’, the ‘astral’ and the ‘magnetic’, you’re leaning towards becoming a Professional Ghost (magnetic), alright;
if conscious free will to love and discriminate while setting up camp on the edge of God’s fingernail is not your business, then, well, be sucked away by Robert Burton’s magnetic appetite, your personal lifestyle is a record and you are the needle…
Krishnamurti did not achieve his ability to show his face by un-restricting his lower centers (unlike Robert Burton; do you know of any video showing a ‘life person’, an ‘uninitiated by Burton-type’ interviewing your one and only teacher and receptacle of C-Influence outlet and inlet, with a spontaneous stew of questions?)
How is it that we are fighting for you in cyber space (IMO)? Because cyberspace is the closest to the now that we have access to ‘practically speaking’ YOU; and yet, if we are truly ‘freed’, what is it that keeps us writing to you?
I will suggest; it is called The Fourth Way and yet, having graduated from such forms, some might even call it Love…
No one who has been put within it’s (The Way) laws will or can ever go backwards and be uninfluenced by it’s particular ‘pull’ or ‘hue’; yet, although we are a sort of ‘family’ of sorts, if Fatboy wants to go off in the middle of the night and join the Freedom for Prison Rights Fighters, whose stopping him? No one, not even the family; because the moment allows SPACE, room to be you and not be you…
It is a process, your vulgarities simply don’t leave yourself, although you type them out here to me… Perhaps you seemed ‘smug’ in judging Bruce by some obvious, formatory ‘mother finger’ pointing to fowl language, yet, the work is deeper than the obvious and we simply do not believe it, nor do we feel it to be the whole conscious picture of Bruce, Bruce has given us something, a sort of confessional, yet, not the sort that makes him smaller by blaming his ‘play’ on the devil, rather, by taking a sort of responsibility for his ‘role’ (in) the play; I guess you missed his story about “the tooth”
and since Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends can speak only of affirmations and promises, next lifetimes and gods who clarify their wishes only through one very subjective, criminal being who practices smiling and putting on a show, then where are you left, where indeed?
It is no coincidence that often in movies the only thing left in the attic of any mystical significance is a large vertical mirror covered by a large white sheet; so the next time you find yourself covering Robert Burton’s breakfast table in the Garden of Abundance at 5AM in the morning with a large white, paisley decor table cloth, think twice, what are you covering, your mirror or his, or both, possibly a newer student’s as well; Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends company is fleeting, it is a form, it will last for a time, ultimately you are your own, yet, being from your own is another matter. Take care Fatboy…
_____________________________________________
Love to you all
Dear Life Person, #21
“He would sit at the dinner table and say something like “The universe is unimaginably enormous” (he had a certain phrasing for it, which he would repeat every so often, that I can’t remember exactly–I’m sure someone out there will remember it, since he said it every couple of weeks, for the benefit of those who weren’t aware that the universe is really big). ”
Ha Ha Hoooooo!
RB twitching slightly to the left as he deciphers another cosmic download via the 1 watt receiver; “Beautiful, is it not dear ?”
Thanks,
Ryan
3 A former Student,
Thank you for your post. After reading it, I feel terribly naive saying that Robert and Girard have done all this without clear intention to manipulate and exploit people together with all the set up in the inner circle. It has been going on for so long it cannot be just naivite. And yet………. There are so many people involved…… how can they all be involved and not have stopped this so very long ago? Girard?, Guinevere? Steven, Meredith, Collin, Robert, John C?, John G.? Rosemary? Frances? Rowena? Guernot, Carol?, Elizabeth B?, Charles? Janet? Nicholas S? Karen? Karen, Gideon and all your family? Linda? What have you all been doing all this time? I’ve only been in the school for half your time and at some point it was impossible not to see it, what is it that makes you people not want to look? How much money are you getting? What prestige? or is it that you’re all just a bunch of sadists looking at this play and enjoying it? How many more whaleriders and former students and Bruces do you want to have in fifteen years?
Guinevere I have seen you talk your mind and doubt while Girard and Guernot talked you out of it. For how much longer are you going to let these men talk you out of what seems to have become their curse?
How long do you people think these conscious Barbie show is going to last?
And as for the many of us outside, for how long are we going to continue crying without taking some serious action against the Fellowship? I perfectly understand Joseph when he says he does not feel strong enough on his own. Who does? But I cannot believe thirty or fifty amongst us are not serious enough to find a decent lawyer willing to take this as far as it can possibly go. It is not about the money that might come back it is about the fact that enough dissonance will allow the majority of students who are not in the inner circle to actually consider the issues. Whatever they do with them after does not matter, good for them or too bad for them, it is the opportunity to get out what is worth taking and nothing will ever be as easy for anyone inside, after that.
Another side of it is that it is not about harming people, it is about getting something straight while there´s still time to get it straight.
Elena 24
And as for the many of us outside, for how long are we going to continue crying without taking some serious action against the Fellowship?
************
No legal action will even get off the ground, I’m not an attorney by any means but all involved were of legal age and sexual harassment doesn’t apply outside of the work place. Prove sexual harassment in the work place against Burton and you have a case.
The thing that would end the Fellowship of Friends and Burton’s run as a “conscious being” is to provide an alternative community, a rival “school,” a competing non-profit organization where all the past and present members of the FoF could gather, remember themselves and celebrate real life outside the oppressive regime of an authoritarian psychotic fag.
Infra-sex. The use of sex energy for purposes that are not connected with procreation or regeneration; for example, its use FOR PERSONAL GRATIFICATION or to INFLUENCE OTHERS.
From the book “Self Remembering” by Robert Earl Burton.
Illegitimate sex: Rodney Collin’s The Theory of Celestial Influence, page 311.
“Never let anything negative come near sex”. Peter Ouspensky
Oh, there are two Bruce(s). One you laugh with the other you listen to.
I remember that marriage rule. It was to stamp out TRAMP. Boy howdy, the silver was scratch off his mirror.
Graduates (25) ~
Hummmm…. that’s funny, mine is lifting off the ground just fine.
As for “a rival “school,” ~ No thanks Graduates, how do you think the Fellowship of Friends started? Robert Burton was kicked out of Alex Horn’s (horn) for chasing the boys, not able to contain the pressure of the intentional suffering, gotta chase those guys and self-calm from the willy nilly process of Horn-Awakening, then he (RB) creates the exact contradiction-school to Alex Horns (?) Where Robert Burton simply cannot be rejected, where every corner has been stained by his liquid, yellow ‘sunlight’ (?)
If a school is formed it will form out of love, i.e., via spontaneously, not rivalry or the need to get from Robert Burton those who actually wish to stay… the desire for birth through the first force of rivalry is simply (and surprisingly) a bit naive of you to assume we’d bite that bait… are you rooming with Siddiq still? Maybe Fatboy is just down the hall whispering subliminal sweet nothings through the air duct at night (?)
I am all for anything, yet, too, I am for nothing if it calls for the construction of a war machine similar to Robert Burton’s Tower of Babble.
____________________________________________
l.t.y.a.
“Only hard work-God’s Law can save us, but if we teach only our clan? We’re all hated then! So, we must teach friend & enemy, the whole Human race, the full-truth, hard-work, freespeech, press & profitsharing Moral ABC’s All-One-God-Faith, lightning-like, 6-billion strong, for we’re All-One or none!”
~Dr. Bronner, on setting up rival schools
30 Brain Police
I love Dr. Bronner’s castile soap.
You can use it for toothpaste.
That’s a joke, for anyone who ever owned a health food store.
unoanimo,
I am not pissed off, but we are all, myself included judging one another; it becomes tiring after awhile. You have a steady stamina for this blogging and if I thought you were fighting for me I would want you on my team. I understand how you believe your fight comes from noble principles.
I think there is alot of things we would agree on but as we spew our thoughts to each other it only creates the opposite responses in one another. After this thread of the blog, I do see more contradictions with RB sexuality but also I see the “group blog think” more too. It is not the rudness or vulgarness of Bruce of the cleverness with words from you, but just the experiences posted in a neutral way that influences me and may help to break down buffers. Unfortunateley it is almost impossibe to have a conversation on this blog and I feel it lacks any relativity and only plays to logical mind. So be it.
The teacher is under different laws than the rest of us. He is not subject to morality or the formatory ‘law’ of the land. Robert is a man number 7 and is free from the pettyness that you seek to tie him down with.
How can you seek to bind him to your lower world with these banal obligations to meet your expectations. Robert really is a consious being – how can you judge him.
He is far greater than we can imagine. Ours is the highest school on earth and we are part of the miracle of the ray of creation. Not the downhill slope you lot are on, but the sunlit, sparkiling salmon tightrope that leads to paradise that we are on. This is just friction. We will look back on it after C influence has shaken you off as a time of extra effort.
All you have to do is attend more events if you are in doubt. Keep out of the influence of anyone who will not support your aim, strengthen it by spending time with strong students. Keep up all lines of work. Study the new knowledge that has been handed down to us by sacred influence C, share it and its divine meaning with your fellow students and support the form of the school, especially in these trying times.
Remember your verifications. Know that you are different from the rest of mankind. You are special. You have understood. This understanding can be taken from you. It has been said that this is the worst thing that can happen, that influence C take away your understanding.
Look at these posters. What are they? What do they want? Theirs is a destructive octave in a criminal process. They are part of the mechanical crime that is a natural outcome of the strong consciouos influence of our teacher. This is the universe balancing itself out. You do not have to believe them. They are quite literaly the devils voice seducing you.
Turn again to the sequence and find peace in the present. Drop. Use the tools that have been given to you. It is not an accident that our teacher has given us the sequence now. It is our best defence against the forces of evil. The lower centers and particularly the queen of hearts and king of clubs are trying to deviate you from your purpose.
Be strong. Be vigillant. Do not allow doubt ‘I’s to take space they are the language of the lower self. Remember your verifications.
Guys let’s have a little laugh.
Our Beloved Teacher has found deep esoteric meaning in… pubic hair divisions. It is absolutely marvelous that he took the time to count pubic hair and revealed a hidden meaning to us. Remember: counting everything is crucial for one’s evolution. Pay attention to numbers, pyramids, breasts, penises, poops and pubic hair.
Please read and enjoy:
PUBIC HAIR DIVISIONS
A reclining woman, dating from 6,000-5,000 BP, was found in Turkmenistan. The figure, which is shaped somewhat like a vase, and is decorated with four circles, represents the nine of hearts engaging the four wordless breaths. The pyramid-shaped pattern with eighteen divisions on the pubic region represents the passions under control.
Scholars very rarely pay attention to the number of divisions in an object.
Dear 2B. We may be related! I like that idea…or perhaps at least we had dinner together. On with the show: here are my thoughts:
2B says, “Bruce and others who shoot their words out of a cannon are giving us what we need, which is often not very pleasant. If we’re offended by Bruce’s comments, there must be something in us that is still hooked by the group-think in the Fellowship. And one aspect of the group-think, by the way, is “don’t express negativity.” ”
2B, Methinks you are too self-effacing; you do not need to be so grateful. Try not to over-value the aggressive manner of another. Statements are not MORE true because they are expressed brutally or unkindly. Do not believe that insult and degradation has any therapeutic or spiritual value. See it for what is it: See RB for what he is.
I sense some enculturation – a little strain – in that constatation of yours, that “they are giving us what we need”. Do you need anything? For what purpose? Examine where that logical tangent takes you… Be very careful. Rudeness can rarely teach anything directly.
The ordinary values of courtesy, politeness, considerateness, restraint existed before the FOF superimposed its peculiar meanings. The occasional call for a better tone on the blog is unrelated to – not equivalent to – the FOF injunctions re: non-expression of negativity. Relating every idea you read to the FOF experience and interpreting all as either con or contra is symptomatic of the FOF programming – even when expressed antagonistically.
The exercise of empathy, kindness, sensitivity to others etc. transcends FOF culture and teaching, is uncomplicated & universal, and need no apology or justification. I paid for this understanding; now it seems to me that only naive cloud-dwelling idealists distort or eschew such commonplace values – or has the FOF rendered us so unfit for ordinary life?
Are we so ‘through the looking glass’ that a comment re: tone on the blog arouses suspicion, defense of rudeness, disavowal of the need for empathy, kind expression etc.?
________________________________________
Unoanimo:
The usually perspicacious Unoanimo is overcomplicating, over-analyzing a call for moderation of tone on the blog.
You sound a little in awe of Bruce’s force and apparent indifference to criticism. I sense you waving white flags and offering olive branches. I am too old to elevate and mystify rudeness & insensitivity. Call a spade a spade; it feels good. I dare you.
I see the blog as an organically evolving perfect whole. Challenge & criticism of both content AND tone on the blog is an aspect of free expression NOT a repression of it.
Part of this self-evolving whole is Me asking Bruce to consider consequences and motivations, without expectation.
Cheers all
Wow, Preview. Their going to have field day with you. (maybe 35 is a joke). Unfortuanately, I see former members are going to generalize all students now with your post.
But let me be the first to say your a lunatic, goodluck and goodbye and hope I never meet you in the halls.
Preview, thanks for the inspiration – it was needed here. Now we’ll certainly have a field day or even a field week!
Please continue, your post is priceless.
THE DEVIL. (seducing you) =:-(
preview 35 is a marvelous example of how difficult it can be to distinguish an actual belief system from a parody of that belief system when the belief system itself is so absurd as to defy…belief. I’d imagine many FoF members would disavow having such a dogmatic, self-aggrandizing point of view, yet how to justify membership if you don’t actually ascribe to exactly what the post says, which does not deviate in any way from what Burton tells members is the absolute truth?
#35
Hi Howard.
FatBoy (38): “Unfortunately, I see former members are going to generalize all students now with your post.”
If ‘all students’ have Preview’s sense of humor, I’d like to hang out with them more often. (Actually, I am hanging out with current members more often these days — go figure).
BTW, I thought Preview’s name sounded familiar. He/she posted #91 on the previous page. Another example of what Brain Police is describing above, although a bit more over the edge.
1(8) 552 Fat Boy
I’m glad you still there.Get more fucked until you become a man.
1(8) 559 glad2Bgone
Wrong observation.Bruce was attacked by the 552 Bat Boy and his response was adequate.
Bruce,
Thank you!
MIND CONTROL CULTS
HOMESTEAD HERITAGE
Leaving the church
Jeremy Crow says he was repeatedly told that going to other churches would constitute leaving God because other churches had “less light” than Homestead Heritage. When he and his wife decided to leave four years ago, a leader told him the action might trigger a vision the leader had of Crow’s newborn son being run over and killed by a truck.
Settling the matter
The matter never went to court. When Elder and his attorney met with Homestead Heritage members, a monetary settlement was reached. Because of the terms of that settlement, both Elder and church members say they can’t disclose the amount.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/homestead.html
Hello everybody,
I would like to know how many members are now in the FOF.
Once I heard around 1600 but recently someone said still 1900.
Do you have any accurate information?
Thanks, XXX
43 and 45 are newly moderated.
To 43:
Hi Bruce or disiple of Bruce. Not that is matters but for the record it started with you (Bruce) in 550.
Unoanimo and Sheik,
I took Unoanimo advise and went back to the first part of the blog, I could not find what he wanted me too. I did notice the tone was more civil.
It seems Sheik has changed, just an observation.
Sheik wrote in part one: X-Man Low Self: Two things. First, there is no need to use that language, calm down. ….., but there are limits to how much rubbish I’ll let you post here.
47 Fat Boy
Not me schmuck head.
48 Fat Boy
“It seems Sheik has changed, just an observation.”
Fat Boy, the only one who hasn’t changed is you.
RE: 49
43 is not me.
If it’s not obvious to you by now Fat Boy, anything I have to say to you is signed by me. I don’t need a sock puppet.
I remembered something today about my first trip to Europe with Robert Earl Burton. We arrived at our destination city, booked rooms, and were all having lunch, the five or six of us. Robert seated me next to him….subtle, no? What a control freak, always deciding where to ‘put’ you and when you eat. We never had snacks or anything while we were with him, so I can remember being hungry most of the time. We always ate with him, when he ate (and drank). Actually, I welcomed the few glasses of wine we had a lunch to break some of the tension between many of us traveling as a group.
At the end of the meal, Robert began toying with a toothpick. He wasn’t particularly chatty most of the time, and we were supposed to be attentive and take notes with our trusty notebooks and fancy pens should he actually say something noteworthy. I did manage to take down of few of his wiseacres, and now that I think of it, I was requested to turn my notebook in when I returned to Renaissance to be…. reviewed…? There were no new angles (or reflections of a personal nature in my notebook), so I guess it passed censorship and was returned to me.
Anyway, his royalness was toyingly dipping the very tip of his toothpick in some mayonnaise left on his plate, putting into his mouth and grinning. I was impressed at how he could scoop out such a tiny speck. I intently watched him do this a few times. I had the thought that maybe in a supreme act of consciousness, he was displaying his great will over food, his power over his passions, since at one time he was very overweight and was no longer so. (I guess the high protein diet really does work.)
I’m thinking, maybe mayonnaise was one of his downfalls and he had to be very careful with it, but now and then he allowed himself to taste it, to test himself, like a long recovered alcoholic might to prove something to themselves. I ‘projected’ all that ‘consciousness’ onto him. I was, as Sponge Bob would say, in “i-ma-gi-naaaaa-tion!”
At one moment, as all my attention was concentrated on the little speck of mayonnaise (with a little bit of attention directed back at myself, otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered this); he leaned in, smiled, and asked me, “(my name), could I have some of YOUR mayonnaise?” I don’t remember my exact response, I probably nodded slightly, but I do remember thinking, “Sure Robert, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
I was focused on the speck.
He reached over, took a speck of some mayonnaise from my plate, put it into his mouth and smiled.
Not more than 15 minutes later, I am in his hotel room; he pushes me onto the bed, aggressively unzips my pants, and performs fellatio on me. There are no words exchanged, only actions. The phone rings. He stops as I am mid-stream. I stain my pants.
Numbers matter 45 – the numbers are 1634 from Propylaia. This number is most likely not accurate. (It reflects July).
For comparison: the number was around 2100 in December-January.
Much more students are going to leave in months to come.
By the way the page “Current overview of school” with total numbers of students is recently removed from Propylaia – guess why.
It ain’t pretty to show a steady decline in membership.
Brain Police (40) makes a very significant point. Post 35, serious or not, is a very clear and accurate statement of the Fellowship’s core beliefs. Fat Boy (38), our current FoF defender, calls the poster of 35 a lunatic. And there you have it! The current teaching is so ridiculous even current members don’t believe it. And yet they continue to make their payments. From the outside this seems completely insane.
In recent conversations with students, the reason for remaining in the FoF is usually prefaced by something like “A lot of what is being said is very strange” and continues with, eg, “but I love Robert”, “but the School helps me with being present”, “but all my friends are here”.
Sad, isn’t it?
54 Purchasing awakening- thank you!
I like your name, it should be the name for the FOF…much more appropriate and Honest.
Dear dear Whalerider. Thank you.
Personal accounts of Robert’s actions on the blog are very affecting.
Many studies of human responses show that the data expressed in personal stories is much more impactful than the same data expressed statistically or generally, EVEN where such summary data may reveal magnitudes more injury, destruction –worse consequences than the single personalized instance.
Talking in a general way about Robert’s sexual conduct does not have the same power to move and arouse the appropriate revulsion and indignation as graphic personal testimonies.
Current members that continue to adulate and support Robert might be more affected by stories that expose Robert’s actual conduct.
The blog’s power to touch people emotionally lies in such accounts, which can never seem repetitious or redundant.
To anyone that can, please consider leaving your stories here as a permanent testament to the capacity for injury, deception, and exploitation of types like Robert, and the capacity of the needy earnest seeker to ignore or condone.
Incidentally, in most cases of all types of abuse, victims believe they are responsible, feel guilt and shame, believe they were complicit in a way that exonerates the abuser. Such relationships are always a complex dance between participants, but this does NOT mitigate the ‘crime’, justify the abuse, excuse the abuser, or change the Definition of ABUSE.
19-57 Glad 2Bgone
I agree that personal stories have the most impact, at least on me. I suspect they are what makes the blog so compelling for many, and impossible to look at for others in the FOF. This cumulative trail of shaming, suffering and twisting is what it takes to open eyes.
________________
Unoanimo 19-29
…similar to Robert Burton’s Tower of Babble.
Good one! On the hand, better be careful: He, who lives in a glass tower should not throw stones at others’ porcelain. ;-)
25 Graduates
No “school” for me, thanks.
However, any school that would have you, or me, I wouldn’t join.
Bruce 59: You don’t have to deprecate yourself, remember what G said, that schools need students to produce friction for the other students!
Bruce 59
25 Graduates
No “school” for me, thanks.
However, any school that would have you, or me, I wouldn’t join.
***********
The actual quote is:
I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.
-Groucho Marx
Anyway someone make a note, the new school will have to get along without Unoanimo, Bruce or Graduates.
60 Fat Boy
It’s called humor.
61
But they can bring us in occasionally, line us up in the front of the room and throw spitballs.
Preview: Thanks – a wonderful spoof of the FOF.
Repellant Comical Ludicrous.
Exposure of the logic and teaching of the FOF is a brilliant effortless form of denunciation.
Enough to make ex-members wonder why they ever joined. Enough to embarrass current members and make it harder to justify staying.
(Remember when leaving had no justification! Now the tables are turned and the staying demands justification.)
Brain Police: LOL Beeooteefool!! Yep, when you cannot distinguish a factual depiction from a caricature of the same…
63 (Bruce) ~
Or the other way around.
:.)
2006: I am sitting with a friend who is visiting from Isis. I wonder how Z is, a young male student who is currently visiting there.
Me: I wonder how Z is doing? Is he with Robert?
Friend: I don’t think he’s Robert’s type
Me: Why?
Friend: He’s too independent, too together…
Me: Does that make a difference?
Friend: He seems to prefer vulnerable people; he likes Russians because they are poor, they have no where to go.
Me: (Feel disgusted but use this as an opportunity to divide more attention; feel admiration for friend who can talk about these things so coolly and yet remain Inner Circle)
Friend: He once got all his Russian friends together and asked them “Were you hungry in Russia… Did you have food?” “No” they answered
“Did you have enough clothes?” “No”
“Were you cold? “Yes”
Friend: Robert is brutal…
We look at each other and agree: Awakening is brutal…
Friend: Robert had 60 boys on his 60th birthday
Me: (stunned… make use of this opportunity to divide attention even more)
Friend and Me: Life would think this was mad wouldn’t it? Absolutely insane…
Dear Shelley and Laura ~
Shelley, yes, I did see ‘Infamous’ (both of the movies) and liked them; yet, …. well, hummmm: moments of the SPACE between the author and the subject, to me, were the strongest aspects, not the content of what flowed through that space, a sort of ‘resurrection’ of the criminal’s essence took place in between the actual ‘crime’ and his body’s ‘execution’, this to me is progressive and not simply instinct dismissing (or sympathizing) instinct, which (IMO) does not fundamentally change the criminal’s ‘spirit’…
To me, prisons are the si-do and the ‘show all’ of the earth’s deeds, a sort of collective level of being so far as where so many beginnings ‘end’ and it shows certain system’s objective successes on a certain spirit level; they and their contents hold one of the greatest ‘keys’ to unlocking the next level of conscious understanding as to the motives and condition/construction of what it is that gets these bodies (and their corresponding essences) into prison and it’s application for a sort of compassion that supersedes the altruistic mushy stuff we’re so used to hearing about concerning ‘feeling bad’ or ‘feeling good’ concerning the plight of these ‘prisoners’, who, are the ones caught; statistically speaking, those in ‘our’ prison systems are standing as only 8% of those actually still out there, un-celled…
So far as “exploiting” goes; truly my friend, I did not wish my suggestion to make his ‘station’ into a stage play to be seen as an exploitative operation, I felt that what he had to say to you was indeed a kind of ‘birth’ of an idea, a twist
(not a personal twist, a sort of revelation) on the deeper reality of his being there than the obvious;
I still like the idea, it (his reasons or one-liner-reason he gave you) can be seen as a universal undercurrent and has potential… I suppose that “exploitation” and “plot” are close cousins, yet, they don’t have to ‘kiss’.
___________________________________
Hello Laura,
Perhaps you could post their stories as ‘A Story’; change the names and go for it… As an old porch dog, I’ve seen and heard it all so far as the Fellowship of Friends goes and I am sure that if you neutralize certain specific events and simply stick to the gist of the story, that those stories you (could) post (could) be owned by hundreds of men/boys… After all, Robert Burton does have a roof to his exploits; anything that uses form to create more form has a limited pallet… you can’t paint an oil painting on the canvas of an unfrozen ocean. Go for it!
____________________________________
l.t.y.a.
Whalerider ~
Thanks for the Spongebob quote ~
Let’s for a moment imagine (if you know what I mean) Robert Burton dressed in a giant Spongebob costume, wearing some faux Egyptian amulet posing for family pictures…
What this imagery would imply could send the Fellowship of Friends to the next level… any takers? I mean, where and who could create such a sponge?
___________
:.]
Bruce 62: I know Bruce, my post was also comming from the humor side. Have a good day.
From the compilation/ book they left the best books out of.
“For there shall arise false Christs,
and false prophets, and shall show
great signs and wonders; insomuch
that, if it were possible, they shall
decieve the very elect.”
ltya jack
Dear Fat Boy,
Why do you always write to Bruce? You are constantly focussing on the bad language, and knit picking with people who might have been ‘mean’ to or ‘misunderstood’ you. Why don’t you address some of the personal testimony here?
Such as Whalerider’s wet trouser story?
Or with the (spriritual/psycological) implications of Unoanimo’s boy who said ‘No’ (quote):
“The ‘role’ the boy had for nearly two years abruptly ended in a very ’subtle’ way; certain people simply stopped calling him for ‘regular third line duty’ and he was ostracized, not exiled by just the TEACHER, ostracized with the fullest meaning and depth of the word from the Fellowship of Friends, nothing would ever be the same, for on this day BELIEF was annihilated by love and LOVE replaced ‘mind-games’.”
?
Dear Anna,
Why do you want me to comment, so you can have a punching bag this afternoon? You don’t have to answer!
Bruce and I like each so much probably because we have similiar body type and features?
I did mention yesterday, as well as a few other bloggers (in their own words), that it is the unexagerated stories that bring out the contradictions of the FOF, not the negative posts. Maybe I will see that the FOF is hoax, or maybe I will see that the FOF is a real School? Calling each other deluded gets either one of us nowhere fast.
Best to you Anna.
72 Anna
Yeah Fat Boy, stop picking on me or I won’t post anymore.
73 Fat Boy
“Bruce and I like each so much probably because we have similar body type and features?”
Right. As the people who know me might think, you hit the nail right on the foot.
73
“Maybe I will see that the FOF is hoax…”
an “ah ha!” moment?…not so much.
Wife of Robert’s boy: (approaching husband managing to hold in tears) could we… talk?
Husband: (looks up from Art book, a flicker of anxiety is quickly contained) hmm yes, talk… are you alright?
Wife: (struggling to control more tears… is hesitant)
Husband (quickly) Perhaps we’d better not if you are… like this…
Wife (inhales…)
Husband: By the way, I’ve noticed that Robert never speaks about the King of hearts in connection with human beings… No, we develop the King of Hearts through studying Art and Self Remembering, not people (smiles, relieved)
72 Anna
As I mentioned before, Fat Boy has an uncanny talent for avoiding the salient points made here, except for an occasional throw-out of “I can understand, but…” which I don’t believe.
The strong defenders, in light of the stories and facts here, have displayed a dismaying ability to buffer what’s right in front of them. I would guess something has to happen for those buffers to be shaken or loosened. Like really getting pissed off. That’s part of what did it for me.
And RB gives ample material to be pissed off at.
From the defenders here it amazes me how different the RB-boy dynamic has changed since the 1 boy at a time days when we wouldn’t acknowledge it to each other out of shame.
This is insanity gone amok.
76 Anna
Boy, that knocked me back.
76
Anna ~
Be careful quoting Fatboy, you might get a libel/slander suit in the mail.
:'{
Male Student 1 is a friend of Robert’s. He has severe addiction. He’s on strict orders from RB not to touch his substance of choice. Breaks down weeping on lap of friend (Male Student 2) he explains that Robert keeps a stock of his favourite substance in his bedroom… and that this is the only occasion in which he is permitted have it.
Male student 2 (who has just lost custody of his children and is known to be in despair… receives phone call from student 1)
Student 1: Robert wants to know how long your penis is… could you measure it?
He’s not joking.
Apropos of nothing in particular:
Nisargadatta: “Awareness does not require anything. Therefore it is immaterial whether or not there is consciousness.”
So no need for efforts to increase consciousness, eg trying to be present, doing sequences or mantras, meditating.
Consciousness comes and goes, but it doesn’t matter. States are irrelevent. Consciousness appears in awareness, which is always here, and we are awareness.
Thanks Rhino, I think I’ll go jump off a 3 inch cliff now.
Dear Rhino,
I quite like being present though. It’s fun: I mean hearing more seeing more, feeling more, avoiding less…
x
Do you think that “Our Beloved Teacher” would agree to close the School and all the spiritual bazar for let’s say a big amount of money?? (millions of dollar)?
Dear Rhino,
How long was his penis?
Love,
Ryan.
7 Fat Boy
“Praising and supporting Bruce does not serve this blog in the least. His offensiveness only pushes members who want to express themselves away. He is the judge and jury and is not interested in the other sides point of view. It is fine to bring bullshit to light but that is not what he is doing; he drives bloggers away with his profanities not by DISAGREEING but by eliminating them with his insults. This is selfish. If he does not like something he insults it. Maybe what should be on the top of this blog is, “Only Harmful Posts about FOF are welcome”.
You really are a stupid shit. Bruce’s is an honest voice you are a pimple on a camel’s ass. Bruce is consistent a quality that you lack. Your “I’s” say this or that but have no core value. You claim you liked having sex with that dysfunctional old perfumed silk covered fat fag that is was a positive relationship. This follows your description of “hunting” and tricking females for sex as a normal activity.
Your idea of sex is dysfunctional. This is a reflection of your inner world. Our attitude and relationship to our sexuality reflects who we are, it is a core value. You are rotten to the core and need to accept and work on healing that just to become a normal human being.
I suppose I am not a truly compassionate being because despite the fact that your are a sick puppy and in need of help I don’t care that much. Suffer in your ignorance, it is not incurable once you stop believing your own bullshit.
You earned it it is yours.
You claim you are motivated by your concern for others sensibilities, bullshit, you just don’t like being in a position where any one can and may well go ahead and call you on your shit.
Do the math. if Bruce had not and did not continue to post the blog would lose quite a bit, if you actually followed up on your whiny ass ” I’m leaving now and won’t be back crap” I doubt you would be noticed. So do everyone a favor, shut the fuck up. Use your hands for something useful say beat off.
Sometimes there is something that will stir me to post. Like Bruce I have written much more in depth sharing of personal experiences. If you are to lazy to do the reading and find out who and what you are speaking too your just not worth much effort of mine.
You remind me of the story of the co operative mule. In brief a farmer advertised for the sale of one “co operative” Missiouri mule. Another farmer having seen that add and both having a need for a mule and being drawn by the absolutely amazing and contradictory idea of their being such a thing as a co operative mule decided to seek out this mule. Upon arrive at the stable that was advertised he approached a man there and inquired about the mule. The man lead him to the back, to a corral, in which sat a large, shiny coated, healthy alert looking mule. The man took a hold of a rope around the mules neck and pulled while saying “come hear mule”, the mule stared blankly and failed to respond, the man repeated the process to no avail, he then picked up a length of 2 by 4 and slapped the mule soundly on the side of the head. Wham!! He then repeated his command with the rope and the mule stood and followed meekly. “You see”, said the man,” he is a cooperative mule, you just need to get his attention”.
Ryan O’ Poo ~
I would fancy it’s length is near your age & IQ combined.
Uno.
So it’s huge then?
Ryan
Some time ago I noticed that I seemed to be suffering. I no longer knew what I was thinking or what I was feeling. Perhaps I’d never known, I could not remember. I was not I, my thoughts were not my thoughts, my feelings were not my feelings. I had become a radio receiver for guidance from above. Someone else’s thoughts and feelings had been canned for my consumption and convenient regurgitation. All this convenience was a slow-acting poison, and all the while someone else’s thoughts were duly unable to even conceive such a thing. Someone else’s intuition was to turn to someone else again for the nth time.
By some stroke of luck the understanding came that I had to start telling the truth. Yes, my truth, the despised and ridiculed, un-conscious, un-magnificent, refutable, subjective truth. Not predisposing it, not knowing already what truth should look like adorned with a complex mesh of prerequisite operands. This was not easy, because I had been inculcated to respond acceptably. And yet it was easy, because I did not have to refer to any system, only to observe. It is an active process of investigation, of peeling away layers of correct behavior. Authenticity was uncharted territory.
Yes of course that’s dangerous. There is no spiritual guarantee clause that you will be right, that you will be safe. It’s quite likely that you will “lose the school” if you start being brutally honest with yourself. It may happen, if you give up control. We probably agree on that – we only disagree on whether it is something to be avoided. You may be left with nothing to hold on to – just your naked experience of not knowing.
It saddens me sometimes to think what is perpetrated on the idea that “the I’s are not real”. It is being made to mean that someone else’s I’s are more real than your own I’s. Think about it. If you really understood that “I’s are not real”, would you put your trust in someone who essentially says, “I’s are not real, except my I’s which are objectively real – and if your I’s tell you otherwise, it’s only because they are not real”? Can you not see the mind-fuck? Pushed against a wall like this, the devotee is eventually forced to ask himself – well but then who can I believe? Ah, now, there’s the rub, isn’t it? You would believe.
And what of truth? Are we truth-seekers? Is it going to come to us one day from someone supplying us with more information? Will it be bought as a prize from the right vendor? Will it rub off on us if we maintain physical proximity to someone who thinks of himself as a special higher being? How about just enduring our own conscience, if we can be bothered to listen?
I do still see a deep tendency in myself to want to acknowledge the experiences of others as more authentic, more reliable than my own. That doesn’t just go away. And from a perspective of acceptance, it’s actually okay. It’s simply recognized as another search for a tangible self-definition. But there is no relying on others. Sure, you remain open and they serve as a reality check, but you don’t pick some to favor their ideas as a priori more true without falling back on your own experience.
If things are accepted the way they are, it means that whatever is called for, whatever arises, is allowed to happen, and is not controlled: whether it is action or inaction. Acceptance of the world does not mean that you should freeze and not interfere with the way things are going. As if you were not just as much a part of the world, as if you could be surgically removed from it! Instead, you accept even your own impulse to do differently, to change something, without fearing the consequences. Not trying to realize an imaginary idea of what “conscious” behavior should be, but rather being more aware and simply experiencing and allowing what is already going on. Not calculating with the future, not trying to make the present different. It is a non-resistance rather than non-activity. A radical trust.
86 87
You should do stand up.
88
Thank you.
12 David B.
Dear David
I was a student from 1973 to 1980 and at that time Robert was much more accessible. I spent a good deal of time at larger meetings, with him in small groups. I was head server in the Meissen room from many months and often dined there by virtue of the fact that I was “correctly” dressed to fill a slot. I spent some time with him one on one. In Phoenix, L.A. , At the Nut Tree, driving to San Francisco, shopping in the city and have “Tea”.
He always had the same act. Was always consistent in his dress and behavior. Be9ing around him Always created a third force for self remembering. So I believe I felt and thought about him much as anyone else. Even after I knew better.
Something that impressed me about him was the time he spent with his students. I am very solitary and avoid being around people. Robert’s spending most of his day from rising to retiring with students I thought indicated his deep love .
I now have a different opinion. Most of my “hero’s” as potential conscious beings were solitary. What I find for myself is that it is out of my solitude that my own sense of self, my ideas, and feelings come into focus. It is this process rather than my reactions to others that is my core value. I am a different being in public and private yet I try and be consistent and remain the same person.
My time in the Fellowship was almost 30 years ago. The experience of the blog has been invaluable in reshaping my understanding, reviewing my memories and developing different attitudes.
When I was in contact with Stella a number of years ago I was in denial about Robert Burton. She seemed overly strident and I dismissed her denunciations of Robert and the Fellowship as negativity after being forced out for smoking. ( Now I would reevaluate that and think it was to protect Robert from a potential rival teacher, some one who was really compassionate and caring towards other students , someone who gave freely and openly)
I am amazed that at this point in my life what I had considered a closed book has come back and needed to be re experienced. This is no different than my surprise in my 40’s that what I needed to do as part of “recovery” was deal with “issues”. This meant I had to re-experience my childhood and adolescence and re parent myself. Cultivate my own “inner child”.
Reality has never turned out as I imagined.
When I joined the Fellowship I believed I was fated to awaken.
The paths that I have taken have been surprising.
No matter how many times I have apparently shed one level of being.
I have arrived yet again at just being myself as I have been all along.
I remain my own greatest mystery.
(88)
“you put your trust in someone who essentially says, “I’s are not real, except my I’s which are objectively real – and if your I’s tell you otherwise, it’s only because they are not real”
FoF members become caught in the trap of believing this is OK because they read Ouspensky saying that Gurdjieff said that a disciple must give over his or her will to the master. Who knows–maybe it’s OK for some period of time, if the teacher is benevolent, wise, and truly interested in helping the student get as quickly as possible to a place where the teacher then says, “OK, you’ve learned enough, go walk on your own two feet now–good luck!”
I allow that as a possibility, but wouldn’t know, since I wasn’t in that situation. I was in the Fellowship, in which the master has no interest in ever turning the disciple free, giving her full responsibility for her further development, but is completely fixated on keeping the disciple in a perpetual state of dependence on the master for the rest of her life–literally, as expressed by official church doctrine, which proclaims the disciple (except for one or two) cannot awaken in this lifetime, and that if she ever tries to substitute her own judgment for that of her master, she is damned. Of course, that doesn’t even get to the matter of whether the fellow is otherwise benevolent or wise, and exactly why he has created a business model dependent upon perpetual devotion. (Or at least perpetual financial payment–the devotion he can probably live without.)
An excerpt from a wikipedia article:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
True-believer syndrome is a term coined by M. Lamar Keene in his 1976 book The Psychic Mafia. Keene used the term to refer to people who continued to believe in a paranormal event or phenomenon even after it had been proven to have been staged. It has since been applied, more loosely, to refer to any belief without empirical or logical foundations. Keene himself considered it to be a cognitive disorder, and regarded it as being a key factor in the success of many mediums. The term “true believer syndrome” is not used professionally by mainstream psychologists, psychiatrists or medical professionals and it is not recognised as a form of psychopathology or psychological impairment.
In his book The Psychic Mafia, Keene tells of a psychic medium named Raoul. Some people still believed that Raoul was genuine even after he openly admitted that he was a fake. Keene wrote “I knew how easy it was to make people believe a lie, but I didn’t expect the same people, confronted with the lie, would choose it over the truth. … No amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie.”
According to the Skeptic’s Dictionary, an example of this syndrome is evidenced by an event in 1988, when James Randi, at the request of an Australian news program, coached stage performer José Alvarez to pretend he was channelling a 2000 year old spirit named “Carlos”. Even after it was revealed to be a fictional character created by himself and Jose Alvarez people continued to believe that “Carlos” was real. Randi commented: “no amount of evidence, no matter how good it is or how much there is of it, is ever going to convince the true believer to the contrary.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
91 a former student
“When I was in contact with Stella a number of years ago I was in denial about Robert Burton. She seemed overly strident and I dismissed her denunciations of Robert and the Fellowship as negativity after being forced out for smoking.”
The same way Stella dismissed other’s denunciations of RB before she got religion. I think for awhile she thought I was the anti-Christ.
Most of us have played both roles at some time.
93
In a similar vein, check out Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer, which I read after I left the Fellowship and found to be a devastating and humiliating description of my former mindset. Here’s a short description of it:
http://www.philosophynow.org/archive/articles/34madigan1.htm
“A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrines and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence.”
Further to Brain Police 92: “if the teacher is benevolent, wise, and truly interested in helping the student get as quickly as possible to a place where the teacher then says, “OK, you’ve learned enough, go walk on your own two feet now–good luck!”
Sorry to keep harping on about Nisargadatta, but he does make an interesting contrast with Burton. In this context he frequently told visitors to his room in Bombay that if they didn’t “get it” in a week they should leave. He also encouraged those who did “get it” to leave asap.
Uno and friends, I await your sarcastic responses with great anticipation!
Rhino,
“he frequently told visitors to his room in Bombay that if they didn’t “get it” in a week they should leave. He also encouraged those who did “get it” to leave asap.”
Probably wanted to go to bed?
Love,
Rhino.
#91 A Former Student
Strange, isn’t it?
#53
THIS WAS A RAPE
Why don’t you go ahead and sue him?
Hi Anna (83)
Might be interesting to look at the “I” that likes to be present. Is it real? Is it you?
x RN
Ryan O’Poo 97: “Probably wanted to go to bed?”
Or maybe it was time for a cig.
A psychoanalytic approach to understanding why some cult leaders abuse their followers, from an excellent essay that examines the psychology of followers as well as leaders:
“[T]he cult leader profoundly depends on the fanatic devotion of the follower. This dependency is deeply shameful to the cult leader, because, based on traumatic aspects of her own developmental history, any dependency has come to mean despicable weakness and humiliation to her. Developmental trauma in those who in later life can be termed pathological narcissists typically consists of being raised, by parents or other caregivers, under extreme domination and control, accompanied by repeated experiences of being shamed and humiliated. The pathological narcissist identifies with this aggression and comes to despise his own normative dependency, to be contemptuous of dependence, which is equated to weakness. Manically defending against deprivation and humiliation, he comes to believe that he needs no one, that he can trust only himself, that those who depend on others are weak and contemptible. Thus the cult leader, largely unconsciously, compensates for his inability to trust and depend on others, and defends against the intense shame he feels connected to need and dependency, by attaining control over his followers, first through seductive promises of unconditional love and acceptance, and then through intimidation, shaming, and belittling. This serves to induce the loathsome dependency in the follower, and the cult leader thus contrives to disavow his own dependency, felt as loathsome and shameful. By psychologically seducing, and then battering the follower into being the shameful dependent one, the cult leader maintains his superior position and can boast delusionally of being totally liberated from all petty, mundane attachments. These processes of subjugating others, and inducing in others what one loathes and seeks to deny in oneself are extreme forms of manic defense against the shame of dependency.”
from Traumatic Abuse in Cults: A Psychoanalytic Perspective
by Daniel Shaw
http://www.danielshawlcsw.com/traumatic_abuse.htm
Hi Traveler,
You wrote (approx. 88): “Acceptance of the world does not mean that you should freeze and not interfere with the way things are going. As if you were not just as much a part of the world, as if you could be surgically removed from it! Instead, you accept even your own impulse to do differently, to change something, without fearing the consequences.”
This is beautifully articulated. Acceptance as we described it in the fof was usually considered a passivity and not an activity. But there’s such a thing as “acceptance without weakness,” which could be described as a balance of the two. We’re open to what the world has to offer us, but we’re also “positively appearing” and offering something to the world around us.
Active acceptance doesn’t fit with the program in the FOF. It would mean self-expression. Hmm. For those of you who still relate to the ideas of the Fourth Way, it might even mean… self-remembering.
“By psychologically seducing, and then battering the follower into being the shameful dependent one, the cult leader maintains his superior position and can boast delusionally of being totally liberated from all petty, mundane attachments. These processes of subjugating others, and inducing in others what one loathes and seeks to deny in oneself are extreme forms of manic defense against the shame of dependency.”
Good one. Thanks.
103 2b
Thus I accept being active.
Hi everyone,
I discovered the following motion pictures of Gurdjieff online about two weeks ago. I was thinking at the time that most of you had probably already seen them. But who knows, so here you are…
Gurdjieff and Friends in France (approx. 9 minutes).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8201688621269097590&q=Gurdjieff
Tribute to Gurdjieff: about 6 minutes
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3195263185098982024
I really liked one of the comments in the tribute to G.:
“The work is entirely inner, invisible, and individual.”
My best wishes and love to all of you,
2B
A Former Student (91) ~ Beautiful post… thank you.
:.)
Rhino ~ (96) ~ …
MIND CONTROL CULTS
ADI DA
born Franklin Jones
aka Da Free John
In the course of a lengthy investigation, many former members of the church told The Record that part of the experimentation included humiliating sexual activities they were asked to perform in front of Da Free John and some of his “inner circle.”
Church officials have said they withheld information about the sexual activities because lowerlevel members and the general public would misunderstand the relationship between the activities and the church’s teaching.
Members of the religious sect call the sexual experimentation “spiritual theater.” The purpose of the program, church officials said, is to shock people out of everyday complacency and into a higher spiritual state.
But some former members allege that the “spiritual theater” was and continues to be a form of sexual coercion for the benefit of some individual church members.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/adida.html
Anna,
I like your little stories…
Keep them coming, you have a gift with writing.
I loved your long post you wrote a while back and I can see how a sincere being you are.
BTW I remember you from a long time ago, you were almost too beautiful for another woman to even look at.
I wondered if that was kind of difficult for you sometimes meeting with someone else’s eyes shying away from your splendor.
It’s nice to know you have as much beauty in your being as well, certainly more enduring.
I am probably sort of off topic but wanted to tell you this.
Good luck on your Journey!
Robert Burtons abuses are so extreme and numerous that it is hard to see the wood for the trees. I mean it is so baffling that a man who is controlled by rampant carnal appetites should have held authority over so many apparently intelligent people looking for spiritual enlightenment, that one has to step back an think how it occured. One aspect of his abuse that interests me is the way he has branded the present and assumed an unassailable position as a living god.
I do not think that Robert Burton is intelligent or capable enough to have really ‘done’ this. It happened, as it happened that Imelda Marcos found herself in possession of 1,600 pairs of shoes. Over the years we all helped build the monstrosity with each little brick we laid. Some have helped more than others. Those who in a well intentioned and naive way sought to serve a higher cause are due a rude awakening. A lot of us were just gullible and dumb and it takes time from when you discover that something is wrong it, to when you can get out, there are lots of attitudes to deconstruct and illusions to relinquish.
So to get to the point, over years a belief system and hierarchy formed that gave Burton every means to abuse his position. Burton’s sexual coercion of hundreds of young men was part of his dominance of the school. It was said that he had stepped back from the former micro-managing style, but actually he instituted a middle management to do his bidding. The system that grew out of his patronage fed on what are called magnetic centers. One could also say that the folks who joined were at a vulnerable stage in their lives where they were open to the flattery of a cult. I think many of us were pretty sincere and willing to go to great lengths to be different from ‘life’ and find a higher purpose than that of the empty lives that we saw around us. If Robert is a fraud, this impacts everything we have been doing and everything that we thought we had to gain or think we have gained.
It is hard to unravel how the lies started, again, Robert could not have fabricated all of this without our complicity and our actually filling in the spaces for him so that it all made sense. For example, we have the whole idea of imagination. Imagination has been made to include anything that threatens Robert Burtons power over his flock. Imagination includes thinking and reasoning and remembering things. We go to such lengths to create memories and don’t have the leisure in which to remember our memories, of who we are, where we came from and where we are going. The present has been cleaned of reason and as such it becomes a mockery of our higher faculties. In fact being present has come to mean a state of separation from negative ‘I’s. Robert has dumbed down and branded the present as his secret that he, and only he, can reveal to us.
He uses classic techniques of group control, again not because he read a book on it or is a genius, but because these techniques develop if you are controlling a group and the resultant form is the one that is most effective. You could call it the evolution of the Fellowship of Friends. With 20,000 members passing through of course it changes and mutates. The organization becomes a self-perpetuating entity both serving Burton and also relying on Burton to play his part so it can grow and mutate – a true symbiotic relationship between mutually advantaged interests. For the last 2 years, I have found meetings very difficult to attend. For me it is not enriching to only experience the present through separating from negative ‘I’s. Sure, negative reactions to exterior and interior circumstances can be used to divide attention, but that is pretty much all I got. The thing is we have all become rather good at it, and that is a major part of the problem. Our judgment muscles have atrophied and we no longer discriminate. Anything unpleasant can be dealt with by not dealing with it.
Who is still in the school? We are the students who C influence couldn’t shake off. We have been through the predictions, previous exoduses of disgruntled former students, the sex allegations, the favoritism, the money scandals, the whole gay bad taste alchemy thing. What have we learnt? How to use negative ‘I’s to separate and be in the present. The present has shrunk. We are the survivors, the people who have been able to separate the most. Does that mean that we are more advanced than those whose faculty of reason clicked in before they went in so deep? Probably not.
In order to go deeper into the Burton branded experience of the present you need more negative ‘I’s, Robert’s actions are understood as stimulating these ‘I’s in us and as such are justified as he stimulates these ‘I’s in us consciously and for the benefit of our souls. We become his grateful addicts. In fact we believe that Burton only does these things for the express purpose of giving us ‘I’s to separate from. It has become a habit to suspend our natural inclination to doubt and instead affirm things until they become part of our psychology. We have become so good – here Girard has unwittingly served the wrong master – at developing attitudes that we could quite literally develop almost any attitude given the right circumstances. Is this consciousness manifesting? Probably not. We are so good at rising above the many ‘I’s that we have lost our conscience. We sacrifice it to our teacher’s greater aim and become spiritually disfunctional.
So when we think of Burton, it is more than his sexual predation. It is how it happened that the Fellowship under Burton developed into what it is and seeing how we played our parts.
Doesn’t the fact that Robert is a fraud raise lots of issues about what we believe.
Just for relativity – the world is a huge place and stranger and more interesting things happen every ten minutes.
108 ~
…little stories?
Beyond words, beyond…………………………….
Anna wrote ~
_____________________________________________
2006: I am sitting with a friend who is visiting from Isis. I wonder how Z is, a young male student who is currently visiting there.
Me: I wonder how Z is doing? Is he with Robert?
Friend: I don’t think he’s Robert’s type
Me: Why?
Friend: He’s too independent, too together…
Me: Does that make a difference?
Friend: He seems to prefer vulnerable people; he likes Russians because they are poor, they have no where to go.
Me: (Feel disgusted but use this as an opportunity to divide more attention; feel admiration for friend who can talk about these things so coolly and yet remain Inner Circle)
Friend: He once got all his Russian friends together and asked them “Were you hungry in Russia… Did you have food?” “No” they answered
“Did you have enough clothes?” “No”
“Were you cold? “Yes”
Friend: Robert is brutal…
We look at each other and agree: Awakening is brutal…
Friend: Robert had 60 boys on his 60th birthday
Me: (stunned… make use of this opportunity to divide attention even more)
Friend and Me: Life would think this was mad wouldn’t it? Absolutely insane…
_____________________________________________
Wife of Robert’s boy: (approaching husband managing to hold in tears) could we… talk?
Husband: (looks up from Art book, a flicker of anxiety is quickly contained) hmm yes, talk… are you alright?
Wife: (struggling to control more tears… is hesitant)
Husband (quickly) Perhaps we’d better not if you are… like this…
Wife (inhales…)
Husband: By the way, I’ve noticed that Robert never speaks about the King of hearts in connection with human beings… No, we develop the King of Hearts through studying Art and Self Remembering, not people (smiles, relieved)
_____________________________________________
Male Student 1 is a friend of Robert’s. He has severe addiction. He’s on strict orders from RB not to touch his substance of choice. Breaks down weeping on lap of friend (Male Student 2) he explains that Robert keeps a stock of his favourite substance in his bedroom… and that this is the only occasion in which he is permitted have it.
Male student 2 (who has just lost custody of his children and is known to be in despair… receives phone call from student 1)
Student 1: Robert wants to know how long your penis is… could you measure it?
He’s not joking.
______________________________________________
Dear Vera.mente ~
I am on fire with one question to you my sister or brother; how is it possible for you to speak of Anna’s physical beauty (something very mortal) and bypass her incredible bravery and precision of heart in posting these accounts (something very immortal); “little” as you personally term these “stories” ?
(IMO) It is this sort of spiritual indifference that keeps the Fellowship of Friends alive and well in the hearts of both those in and out.
______________________________________________
l.t.y.a.
BTW ~ The words found me.
To me these stories are the consummate creations of Robert Earl Burton and the Fellowship of Friends spiritual and inhuman crimes… the last straw on this camel’s back… I am in awe, complete awe that these accounts can be simply skimmed over and termed “little stories”; what is this blog, really? Is it convenience, like the X-Files or reruns of Johnny Carson? What are you readers doing with this information?
110 # Very Dear Uno,
What I said about Anna’s physical beauty is a memory of the past, more than 15 years ago, off topic and it was meant for her.
This does not diminish even the more important attributes of her you mentioned. I did not bypass her incredible bravery and precision of heart in posting the accounts (your beautiful and precise words and I agree).
When I said “little ” stories I should have perhaps used the term “short”. Forgive me, I have not mastered the English language that well.
BTW in this blog I find often very difficult to espress myself in a spontaneous way and I guess I am right.
A blog for Intellectuals or Masters of English?
Robert’s facial muscles are well toned as he uses them a lot.
love Malcolm
A mumbo jumbo merchant named Arbee
Ducked into the alley to pee
He pissed in the eye
Of this blind homeless guy
Who screamed “Holy shit! I can see!
Over the last months, I have been exposed to many horrible accounts of Robert’s conduct. I wish I could recount them all here. But they are not mine to tell.
In some cases, the only difference between a student and an ex-student is information. Many current students simply are unaware of the reality. Many practice intentional ignorance so that their beliefs can remain undisturbed.
I encourage anyone with stories that help to illustrate the self-centered, vengeful, spiteful character of Robert Burton to record them on the blog.
For the record – I have heard the following information from reliable students and ex-students:
A lady at Isis, who began a relationship with one of Robert’s favorites, was prohibited from attending any events for a long duration. This lady was one of Roberts most dedicated supporters for many years.
Robert would ask his married sexual partners not to tell their spouses. IMO Pressuring students to break faith with their marriage partner and then lie about it is @#$%^&*()_+*&^%$#@!~!!
International recruitment of boys for Robert was/is widely practiced, knowingly, willingly, by many students.
One student had 3 abortions on Robert’s advice.
Robert would call his assistant at all hours of the night to make calls to boys to visit.
113 vera.mente
For me, I didn’t feel you bypassed anything. I thought you were revealing another layer that’s part of Anna.
Thank you, and Anna.
I meant the first part to refer to Anna’s post if it wasn’t clear.
113 ~
vera.mente ~ It is for your conscience to plumb; yet, to me, I see no difference in the use of “short” or “little”… Skirting the issue I proposed to you and to every blogger with the use/excuse of ‘wrong semantics’ does not feel to me to be sincere; particularly when I see how much you dedicated to a 15 year old memory and the current “short stories”, i.e., 5 words for the present and 74 for the past; to me, this is a very personal letter to you from me and too, I am going through something too, having received the shock in a very weird and ultra awesome way…
No, Bruce, physical beauty that turns another woman away in envy is not part of Anna, it’s part of that person being turned away through psychic comparison and self pity; good grief.
#110-112 unoanimo
Zealot. Who could argue with you? Who dares reveal a simple well-intentioned sentiment in your fiery presence.
Scary really. The wrath of God.
Of course “we readers” are far from worthy!
Hey, just tell us what we should say, asshole. Just like your alter ego, RB.
Uno–whoa, dude. Time for a reality check. Stop arguing this one, just cop to it and move on.
117
“No, Bruce, physical beauty that turns another woman away in envy is not part of Anna, it’s part of that person being turned away through psychic comparison and self pity; good grief.”
That’s not at all what I was referring to. Do you have a wild hair up your ass today?
Unoanimo, the intention in Vera’s post is so clearly loving, why are you loosing it? Joseph, why are you loosing it when your posts are beautiful, each one of them? Have we not told you enough? Is that why I am loosing it? Unoanimo, why are you breaking down? I love you who ever you are for being here even pretending to see what is wrong about what the rest of us say. You’re like those students that worked for twenty years then left without my knowing. I would miss you as much if you left. My soul is full of graveyards. Where can I place myself?
Recent comment from Robert about True Believer:
“The believer reaches the point where he becomes completely oblivious to this world.”
Robert’s Comment: The steward is completely oblivious to this unconscious world. He is totally disinterested in ‘I’s unrelated to prolonging presence.
Who knows what lurks in the hearts of men?
Da shadow do.
84, 107, 111, 117, 118 are newly moderated.
FatBoy: I took Unoanimo advise and went back to the first part of the blog, I could not find what he wanted me too. I did notice the tone was more civil.
It seems Sheik has changed, just an observation.
Sheik wrote in part one: X-Man Low Self: Two things. First, there is no need to use that language, calm down. ….., but there are limits to how much rubbish I’ll let you post here.
I am not the discussion. I have decided to take a less restrictive approach to moderation because it brings out more from people. The less you restrict, the more you reveal. It’s been fascinating listening to your ramblings.
~ Hamlet’s wondering about it all ~
How is it ARE BE, (tall, stark, depth of conscience, a wallet’s thickness, one dollar away from being a wordy worthy piece of stained silk, a torn plastic pelican feather tumbling down a new boardwalk) that all you can do is nod, nod, nod, where is your god, did you not notice the warning, that ‘ROB’ is at the forefront of your birth name, the same, in the first row watching the filming of your infant conscience, not tame, stuck to the window pane, blowing smoke, not like most, heretic mist, infatuation fog, stoking the young man’s liver’s fires of yesterday’s hazy dizzy, unzipped slacks, spilling out your bottomless pockets, little replicas of your ‘Every day is a 4th of July’ rockets and gold plated tacks for your followers infants to learn how to walk upon the Lie,
you never sob, never had a selfless job, how is it they’re keeping the red liquid equipped, from simply evaporating revealed out here upon this stage, throbbing through your smooth, unproved to have ever been celibate wrists?
Killing, blinking, flicker-teasing in and out the lights belonging to 44th street, because you hold, YOU TOLD YOU that it’s the only extension cord to heaven, thirty stars and never the real world’s lucky number seven, though you do capitalize on those numbered days, staying as they are, unmarred by (as of yet) an ARE BE CALENDAR for newly weds beds one night stands par,
in this quest to blessed-mess up these men’s hearts, for a start, to huff and puff no finish line in this, your quintessential menace list and no gist, you’ve become professionals at THE MISS,
for the sweeter meetings we did not greet, could not treat, one another like real calm men, rather you chose an unreal reflection of an 8mm projected twin, till the end, to the wind, drinking, drugging yourself down under the rug of an arctic feeling prouder, than the louder voice under your heart, stomped out, barely tasting the last spoon of baby food its memory could, owner of the whirling pounding fists, thumping, bumping, knocking over Sincerity for fund raiser number crunching, Hafiz and Rumi are dead, chopped up, supporting your bed,
zero-in, to the insides of that other un-filmed twin, the magical one called DOUBT, you crouch, rubber grenades and knives bouncing by you, our checks, written for hypnotic fountain amounts, unfortunately are not the same whether with or without you,
written to a man called BLANK, somewhere out there, in your secret shaven forest,
no real test, just word pests passing their own tests; how can you blame her for being YOUR exterminator, she had hers too or did you miss the fact that it took two to create you?
you scored them and continue to do so with your number systems, those real ex-family and ex/in fellowship alike, like marks on a cell wall, a whole world large, an unplayable kite, though only a time-table’s garage closet, in the bigger picture of your real estate prediction, you’ve all lost it;
yet, love is, to no practiced frown, a smiling clown, so blessed be, it will find, regardless of whose playing ‘I am through with you’,
this invisible man your ‘students’ were paying, is he kin to sin?
You did not leak the facts in the moment, while the one and only now keeps twice ticking within it’s ‘Once upon a time’, deeper than a nursery rhyme, though you were always the first to condone and bemoan it, humble you, you got screwed, through and through, by the gods, not god, more than one to your “ONLY I AM ONE, yours? Not this lifetime!”;
you did not dive from truth to truth, hell’s kitchen roof to hoof, you hop scotched across wives hearts, left them to crisscross blind corners and alleyways, depths of beer can thoroughfares and abandoned lice infested kitten colonies; the fourth way?
Branded, landed, implanted into your youth’s tooth’s cavity, a mirror of silver, so to reflect a portrait of whatever rose up in there, worthy of sable, pain, shame and self-worth-rains drain, from your pant-ripping escapades,
I have caught your endless limping, your scorned, your trauma worn, your throw away belt less waists, wheedle wobbling, they did fall down, me attached to their necks they did not drown,
upon them was thrown you, unwarranted attacker, slacker, hacker of souls, faux gold plated wax money handler, deadly foe to all doers and deer does,
your bucks, confused in a fake forest fire, orange and yellow sheets hired, by you to dance insane in the grape fields desert view, thinking it’s the Revelation come true, aspire, transpire, rehire what crew to stew-tame this zoo?
They, un confessed, boiling, toiling to get the darkness inherited by you out of themselves, planting your innate now-doubt of them away from this moment, into something for ‘next time’,
trying to mend, yet you peel the scab off midway through it’s healing, saying that bleeding is being and too much time for healing is feelings and feelings are for the disbelieving,
while stretching what’s called ‘mine’ around ‘yours’, to close the doors and lock them shut, carrying no spirit-lantern, you un-gut them outside themselves with exercises that only make one of your muscles build, to mow the fields, belonging to the feminine innocence in both man and woman’s purest of guilds, their conscience, the one voice god cannot blame, before your masturbation, infatuation, insatiable procrastination of a person’s feelings and self worth voice, you’ve pouched it all, boiling it in your lobster kettle to the point of LAME,
swearing to any who meddle ‘WITH THIS, MY SCHOOL of dish water fish, will feel the wrath of the gods, their bringing of the twice dead peddle to the metal, with your ass grinding against a celestial rocks runway, someday, some way, you’ll get yours because I did not get my willy’s way!’
Those deer bucks, theirs and your real feelings dealings are the grouts that are holding your pain-amphitheater’s crumbling to a truer vision, for all to watch tumble over itself, a real prison mission, to be rebuilt to be rebuilt to be rebuilt, just like your teaching, an open locomotive window pissing, never holding still for a moment’s truth serum;
right here, decay, descent, is transforming, while your real motives show no immortal seal against the truth this scene is performing,
it will fall in this century, due to breaking the simplest rule~
To be true to those who don’t know you, as, you don’t know them and since you THINK you know them way past their own wisdom arriving, bringing more linguistic conniving, striving,
comparing a lemon to a lime rind so twice delivered to the wrong address fruit can be called MINE,
thriving on efforts which hide your lazy mess, the limestone grows moldy, silently explodes in the November’s freezing rain’s ‘god bless’, it’s all returning to your private, unanchored misery, the truer summit of your treasury and be smoother smothering;
beautiful mules, like a Shakespeare midsummer night’s dream gone crazy, stubbornly tugging themselves into something more beautiful than that you did to their TRUE BLUE, including their BABY BLUES HUE,
and as you sit on the shore, big toe hovering over the too cold test, like a heavy laden fly doing its best not to land on the playing dead bullfrog, you get a call, turn, lift chin heavenwards, pose for a snapshot, looking as though you’re a duel halogen in lifting a dense fog, though deep down could not ‘die’ for them, since you’ve gotta live larger than all poorer men.
Your spiritual-beginning-omen, drown by ‘Cash and Carry’ ‘no women, ONLY MY MEN’, though you had (and have) the chances to be wise and not jive, jismming to imprison, into those walking pond-reflections called ‘students’, they’re your bullets embedded in your guru, graduate-proof-vest, weighing you numbly humbler, though nimble and simple enough that your opinion is THE ONLY, their words too, crumbling under the thunder of your one-thumbed-wonderer.
In heart for you, they stride, journeying forth by day, shoved aside while you’re in private, as self contingent lifestyle contemplations, relations, twilight spinning of connived assisted opiate quotations, spawning a million dawning yawns at your breakfast table, unable, to create, any movement, backwards, towards your first false words, no children, no girls, thousands of soft upraised boy-swords, wheelbarrow loads of pain, withered stalks of grain, beached, beseeched, breached and fermenting furthermore to drunkenness’s conceit;
and it was not you who said it first, no matter how much you cringe, it was a short old woman who first said it, that was “Where’s the Beef?”; pass the syringe.
Over and over those Rolex and Gucci watches swirled in your unattended sink drain, with self effaced hours as no gain,
out of time to be quaint enough to strut your stuff alone, no bone for the dog’s to howl over in the dead of night’s wine cellar warless platoon,
like a tabloid saint, without a complaint, you sign the autographs with a smile, the only gesture ever from you that resembles anything resembling an ARK and what’s between your legs the END SAW; heart hunger gnaws upon
your practiced slouch, that’s without a doubt, your greatest forecast as to your encrusted study’s couch, it’s sponging tomb of bleeding ouch.
Touch them not, on that spot;
can’t you leave their inner child to greater dreaming?
Rather, you have them inside screaming, like you, with you and without you,
tearing the walls down as your hand presses their souls to your hallway walls like stapled silk worms, warnings to marriage on earth, to birth, to ‘without you’ high noon, doom, cartoon moon, to any who dare give birth to a child louder than your swoon,
‘Abort it’, you say, all the way to the number 3 fetus, assigned orders to one young woman, belonging to hundreds that you’re not through with their groves;
she’s bleeding for the love of god and your mouth in wide open for piss and feces,
restroom wall to leave your last will and testament scripted tall,
this rhyme summons thousands upon thousands to this world small, they, never born to this planet, barely ever heard of the word ‘Earth’ or your cuff-link “dammit!?”
Yet, love is love and this is one of its beacons, a lighthouse magnet, slowly liquefying your kingdom of mushrooms and ‘droughts by the teacher’ leaflets.
Nothing did you ever solely give to ‘the girls’ without some anchored promise to turn their other cheek, to absorb, unquestionably, your boy’s slaps and theirs of yours, forcibly doing their homework (and men) for them, getting them an F,
by some ulterior motive ultra swirl you lifted woman to girl, girl to child, child to silent womb-‘earl’, your middle name, as deaf as an acorn sprouting graveyard and one dead squirrel;
so while in the school pool, they’re all your splashy fools, digging, uprooting the fiftieth pentacle of somewhere, nowhere, downstairs, milkshake hair, inner work not upstairs,
drinking, blinking out, your daylight-vampires settled, all the better at peddling away your history’s repentance, demented soothsayers, frothing, crossing themselves at the Mercedes trunk being swung open, depositing therein smells of leather for the next day-trip,
your Boss-loads, the tailored suits serving as your cross hairs, lost souls bound in your shaving cream and KY jellies,
bagged terror insertions for the newly schooled, the newly groomed ‘bobby boy’ toy ploys, just one less for the ‘normal’ garden of Eden joys, ‘Who’ll miss him? you wonder, as you scratch someone else’s before they’re even aware that it itched’, under their breath you run cold, a surgeons demeanor when you hear ‘NO, you bitch!’, one degree before freezing, all is nearly silent, as the motor is running,
married and unmarried glide by your side profile, as to not disturb your heavenly communications, you see them, I know you do, from your peripheral the whole world is bending over for you;
something from Leonardo slips through the bliss and for one ecstatic section, in the one and only moment, you wonder, ‘Does anyone truly know anything about punctuations?’
Underneath the celestial city sewers you clamor, initials into toilet seat foam you hammer, will not go home, no matter the prenuptial agreement or the unsecured loans,
you just keep sucking and pulling these people’s lives out, spitting from within, in and out, upchuck, downchuck, witty, then, with a grin, under your chin, behind your throat, riding upon a kidnapped goat, you call one up and ask “How long is it?” his manhood, wondering if you’ll choke,
‘How long is it?’ without its girlfriend or wife, without its conscience, without its lunar-food family’s worthless strife, “you’re a blessing to your family lineage (if you’re submitting to my womanizing ways and are well hung)”
‘How long is it?’ WITH its newly administered spirit killing pill, stone cold medusa viagra venom swathed gourd, so to force it to be an affection, an affirmation of love, though not love, WAR to usurp the ‘will to not lift it’, the heart’s natural response when rained upon, HIT, by the weeping, the treatment of lies, deceit, greed, fear, entrapment, Italian shoes made of cement, lament, embezzlements,
fellowship of friends, for your preacher, there’s no more games to win, particularly while you’re repeating a tomb’s ticker, teasing, easing, ceasing the spiral to any conscience but what you sell as your science,
it’s just mopping a mud floor in a hurricane flood, to settle some fixed score that’s zero to zero, in the clay, you write, you quote, you key for freedom from a million lock less doors, while your ‘key master’ spites you to be “1001 whores”,
though this just is not so, these men are children, not men, not boys, in the dark we are all children, there’s no sex before life, after death, release the dungeon footsteps, returned party melts, ice-cream dripping, open mouths frozen in the pacific sand of your threats, your dismissals, the real theaters are closed to your world wide private rampage, truer roofs are opening to the setting sun, as you try to burn the firelight, will you ever admit it was, 37 years ago, already done?
ARE BE: how you privately scorn the moaning icebergs, blackboard screeching across the hard black armor of your closet-heart, that’s sinking the matrimony-titanic, scuttling by your own foot steps like a roach dragging into it’s cellar a pregnant wife’s husband’s ‘It’s a boy!’ cigar for a life raft part.
You grip the ladder that’s on fire and as you do, it does not melt you;
climbing, blinding, drinking endless mixed up wines, twine attached to twenty thousand departed hand prints upon your red soil castle called MINE, MINE, MINE,
twilight, tooth pulling caramels, strawberries and shit smashed on linen, another finished party’s beginning, another new day’s ending, hand asleep, caged heart weeps under water, bubbles rising, almost surfacing to wise you up, then you unzip some new naïve bulge that’s gotten yours up,
though not without a capsules stealth, he lets out a whelp, you quell it though, you’re the master at conscious disaster and know just the righteous things to say to a Christian heart to help, yourself that is, it always the same litmus test, if it hurts it’s fun for you, you get to make any face you want from where you are standing, all that smile practicing simply slips away and you’re back to yourself, the pain rises, the whole world cries without you;
melt, pain-body-welts five inches tall, while your Sunday meeting (at the end of this six day spirit-holocaust) is in an enthrall, with your successful fueling of their fires so to aspire to more, more, more, that ARE BE posture olive-crown-laurel,
and Hardy are rolling in their graves.
How can you all inhale, without the pale, winter remembrance of where from your hell’s hail from, the one who tried thousands of times to wake you up with accidental cold showers, pilot-lights flickering to ‘off’ at 3AM?
ARE BE: You’re still grinning, nestled smug, never alone, even when, by chance, you are, do you recall your inner twin-“evil-god” G. warned us all about, when it first began lying to the truth, through the skylights of a lover’s new eyes upon your old tunnel vision rod,
all these deeds of yours, to the solar system’s doom, though this rhyme cannot be too soon, we’ve got you somehow down here, not to fear, not to hear, yet, where, in this one moment can anyone honesty believe they can become your tardy tears?
Yet, we can love and do not need to speak and when we do, we are not adding to you, nor subtracting for you.
Word!
____________________________________________
l.t.y.a.
P.S. Thank you Anna, for the initial ‘spark’ inspiration to write this rhyme (FOF DEF JAM PART 2) tonight/morning and also, deeply, thank you Elena for your love, it assisted the ‘spark’ towards a ‘fire’.
Re: post 92
A former student wrote:
“I am amazed that at this point in my life what I had considered a closed book has come back and needed to be re experienced. This is no different than my surprise in my 40’s that what I needed to do as part of “recovery” was deal with “issues”. This meant I had to re-experience my childhood and adolescence and re parent myself. Cultivate my own “inner child”.
Reality has never turned out as I imagined.
When I joined the Fellowship I believed I was fated to awaken.
The paths that I have taken have been surprising.
No matter how many times I have apparently shed one level of being.
I have arrived yet again at just being myself as I have been all along.
I remain my own greatest mystery.”
I am still amazed when my own thoughts and experiences are so accurately expressed by someone else.
“Reality has never turned out as I imagined” — this gives me a great laugh. Let’s get some bumperstickers and buttons printed. Reminds me of this saying by Ashleigh Brilliant, the pithy 60’s sloganeer:
“I have abandoned my search for the truth and am currently seeking a good fantasy.”
I’m sure most of the current fof members view us ex-es in exactly this fashion.
#130 yo uno! or hamlet…
what have you been smoking?
Uno 113, 115, 130
I think you have a little too much time on your hands. ltya David
Once again, thank you everyone for sharing your poignant stories and insights.
And especially thank you dear Elena for constistently baring your soul to this audience. I was particularly affected by your expression “My soul is full of graveyards”. I also felt that way for a long time after loosing my friends and home up in the foothills…
You reminded me of this song which in turn reminds me of that painful time of leaving, of saying goodbye to everyone and everything, especially one’s starry-eyed dream…
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=TE5hK6eLkYI
And if we knew just what we could do
A cemetery song we’d not sing…
PS I just realized that a while back I wrote I post explaining how leaving the FoF hadn’t been that difficult for me. To avoid misunderstandings: dropping the teacher and the form of the school was in fact a relief, on the other hand I never got over having abandoned the people and places I had come to love. That must be why I am writing on this blog so often after all these years…
#127 – Purchasing Awakening thought provoking post
reminds me of a poem called Earl by Louis Jenkins:
Earl
In Sitka, because they are fond of them,
People have named the seals. Every seal
is named Earl because they are killed one
after another by the orca, the killer
whale; seal bodies tossed left and right
into the air. “At least he didn’t get
Earl,” someone says. And sure enough,
after a time, that same friendly,
bewhiskered face bobs to the surface.
It’s Earl again. Well, how else are you
to live except by denial, by some
palatable fiction, some little song to
sing while the inevitable, the black and
white blindsiding fact, comes hurtling
toward you out of the deep?
JohnF
Dear Elena,
You say your soul is full of graveyards.
I had lots of dreams like that in my teenager years, walking through graveyards, sometimes under mountains and even with dead people laying on top of them with their eyes open.
For me it became easy to let go of the fellowship, it just happen one day when one drop too much made the water run over. It was a long process to let go, for quite a while there was a little “what if” in the back of my mind: what if RB is right?
I finally found my way without inhibitions, my deeper voice affirming life in all possible ways, my fof sense of superiority dissolved, I became open to great souls/people, opportunities, new learnings.
Now I can say that RB is incredibly spiritually ignorant. He put himself so high and is falling down so low.
We put ourselves high with him and many of us got out on time fortunately.
Think about the true believers, the ones who have consciously decided to buffer RB ‘s crimes, they are the true dead people.
You can see it in their eyes. Their spirit is dead.
A true master tells you that the enlightenment of Buddha (or whatever name/concept you prefer) is the awakening of your heart.
A true master tells you that you do not need a master.
Hello everyone,
“Losing” vs. “Loosing” … The winner is… “losing”!
as in…
Losing one’s mind
Losing the school
Losing the work
Losing Influence C
Losing one’s perspective
Losing one’s friends
Losing all sense of reality
Losing time
Losing a debate
Losing “it”
Losing the World Cup to Italy
etc.
Generally such typos are not a big issue because these are wonderful posts, and we all realize that English is the second language for many of us, and also that it generally doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. And besides, all of us have our own typos so who are we to speak.
But that word, “losing” — it’s more important.
Because we are losing something within ourselves — the more we pretend, the more we imagine, and the more we hold to the comfortable confines of an illusion.
re: #134 laura “To avoid misunderstandings: dropping the teacher and the form of the school was in fact a relief, on the other hand I never got over having abandoned the people and places I had come to love. That must be why I am writing on this blog so often after all these years…” yes, well put, says a lot about motivation for visiting this site… being new here, i have yet to “bare my soul” – to recount my adventures and misadventures would echo many of the things already posted… i say (write) now after many years of reflection, it is the sense of community i miss most…
‘You grip the ladder that’s on fire and as you do, it does not melt you”
Unoanimo, post 130.
Gratitude.
Sheik wrote,
“I have decided to take a less restrictive approach to moderation because it brings out more from people.”
It brings out less because FOF members will be verbally battered and forced off this blog like myself. Some of the writers ARE what they THINK they LEFT.
I deliberately left out any mention of the FOF in the previous post. In reading it again, I can see that one of the Howard Carters of the blog could have written it.
In other words, is the illusion leaving or staying?
In my heart, I believe we all know the answer to that question, and no amount of argument or counter-argument will change a thing. We just know.
Best wishes to all of you.
Sheik,
If you ment if brings out more from Ex Members then I do understand you. I was naive to see that this blog’s purpose is to only fuel negativity for the FOF. I did not realize I landed into a wasp’s nest! Yikes!
Fat Boy (around) 140
Sheik,
If you ment if brings out more from Ex Members then I do understand you. I was naive to see that this blog’s purpose is to only fuel negativity for the FOF. I did not realize I landed into a wasp’s nest! Yikes!
***********
Yes you have landed in a wasp’s nest of criticism, good observation. Here is another observation, you apparently do not possess the good sense to get out.
Just as a generalization about your expressed attitude concerning Bob and the FoF: you enjoy getting humped in the ass as payment for getting to hang out with Bob, this activity seems to satisfy your spiritual needs and ambitions, therefore you can’t understand what all the fuss is about. Is that about it?
If so then you are exactly the kind of person that belongs in the Fellowship of Friends, someone happy to accommodate the excessive and bizarre appetites of a persuasive lunatic. Enjoy yourself now because eventually you will involuntarily mature as time presses on and likely your attitudes about all this will reverse. One day a decade or so from now you will likely be haunted and disturbed by the psychological and physical perversions you gladly participate in today.
Dear Fat Boy,
I have a feeling that you are very insecure. You are looking for something here in the blog, but you are not sure if you can trust these people. Something makes a lot of sense to you but something affects you so strong that you can’t deal with it. You can’t trust it. You have a conflict inside, you have seen some contradictions in the school, but to make a next step is just to scary for you. In the beginning I was like you. One part wants to know, another part wants to run away. If you run away and say to yourself and your friends – blog is just a bunch of negativity – sooner or later you will come back, because you already had a taste of the truth…
Dear Fat Boy,
Will you please read my posts 66,72 and 76 and tell me what you feel. These accounts are real and they actually happened to me and those close to me.
I for one will not use you as a punch bag.
It’s so sad to see you arguing about the periferal stuff. It leads others to assume that you are buffering everything that you can’t find fault with.
By the way I know it’s hard: I couldn’t even read the Shiek’s rather modest description of his prospective student meeting until way after I had decided to leave.
Good luck
Anna
Dear Fat Boy,
I do still find value in not expressing my own negative emotions (though this may be hard to believe based on some of my posts), but do not respect any attempt to use this idea to silence or embarass or marginalize or denigrate others, which is what you seem to want to do here.
This self-righteous attitude about “photographing” the expression of negativity is at the very least a bad habit in the Fellowship of Friends, if not a perverted, systemic tool to limit awareness of truth among FOF members. It is also a way of internally buffering negative or challenging realities that affect one’s own life by writing them off as someone else’s inability to resist expressing negativity.
Thus the non-expression of negative emotions is subverted from a valid spiritual tool into an imposition of hypocrisy and cover-up.
Let’s face it, you are not talking to happy current members here; you are talking to people who are angry about the pain that has been caused to themselves and their friends by your teacher. And you are talking DOWN to them. You marginalize someone like Bruce, but have not bothered to think through what he experienced in the FOF, or why it has made him so angry.
This behavior is called “passive aggressive.” The more negativity you stir up here, the more you think that ex-members will look like barbarians to any current members who may be reading, and who buy into your rationale that expressing negativity equates to a lower level of being and the abandonment of work on oneself.
The one most deceived in this arrangement is ironically yourself.
Warm wishes,
Joseph G
Fat Boy 19-140
Yes, it gets a little hot at times in that blog kitchen. And this goes for anyone, you can read that others (unoanimo or graduates for example) receive their share of @%#!…
I personally would like to hear you talk about your personal experience with RB, in the same way WhaleRider, Simon and others related theirs, but with your positive imprint on it, since it is your take on that experience.
After all, you said you wanted to be closed to him and you have. What has this brought you, aside from the sense of belonging to a “priviledged” group of men and the practical benefits it might entail in the FOF. How has your work deepened in the process? How have your realization of self, your growth as a person advanced in the process? How are your relationships with others, with your loved ones in particular, better because of it? Do you feel that changes that resulted from your experience with RB are permanent? Do you feel you have lost anything in the process and what would that be? Would you do it again? If you had a son who wanted to join the school and appeared sincere in his wish to work on himself, would you recommend the FOF? Would you make a personal recommendation to RB that he invites your son as soon as possible to join his inner circle of friends and why or why not?
Let us know.
19-145
“wanted to be closed to him” should read “wanted to be close to him”.
Interestingly, RB is generally closed to his students.
MIND CONTROL CULTS
INTERNATIONAL CHURCH OF CHRIST
The Nashville Church forces members to donate, suit says
Nashville, USA — Two former members of The Nashville Church have filed a lawsuit claiming the church uses cultlike tactics, manipulation, peer pressure and guilt to force members into tithing and making other financial contributions.
In their lawsuit, which was filed Friday in Williamson County Chancery Court, Jack and Kay Pelham of Red Boiling Springs say they joined The Nashville Church in 1998 and were required to contribute a portion of their earnings each year in the form of tithes and offerings. The Pelhams claim they were threatened with the “loss of their eternal salvation” if they didn’t submit to tithing and fundraising efforts.
The Pelhams are seeking to recover more than $93,000 in tithes and offerings they made to the church, the International Churches of Christ (the denomination’s headquarters in Los Angeles) and two affiliated charitable organizations. The couple had been members of the ICC for 17 years.
“These contributions, which were solicited under the guises of ‘contributions for the poor’ and ‘special missions contributions,’ respectively, were instead treated by the defendants as ‘unrestricted funds’ and diverted by them for the personal (gain) and benefit of several high-ranking employees and officers of the defendant corporations,” the lawsuit states
Traveller #89
Brilliant post! Keep on trucking!
Fat Boy (138, 140):
On 1(8), I responded (287) to a similar post from Just Me (260), inviting Just Me to try raising an issue directly with one of the bloggers here who is not typically negative, and there are several, and just dealing with that person, instead of complaining about all the negative posts. Anna, for example, has sent you an engraved invitation. I don’t think Just Me took me (or anyone) up on that suggestion, and neither have you.
So, it seems you don’t really want to engage in any dialogue about anything with anyone on this site, regardless of negativity. You made your point a long time ago that you think RB’s sexual practices are just fine, and the Fellowship is just fine, and people responded. Obviously, the people posting here don’t share your perspective. So now you participate only to point to the negativity and whine about it in self-pity, like a prissy, overdressed little boy who doesn’t want to get his clothes muddy by playing football with the other boys, and expects them all to come over to his house and play jacks instead. Now you’re even whining to Sheik: “Mother dear, those ruffians won’t play jacks with me! You must give them a good thrashing!”
I don’t know whether you’re actually fat, boy, but I do think you’re a boy who needs to grow up a little.
HOW LONG IS IT?
A true story
During the 1990s and early 2000s in Mill Valley, California, there lived a man/woman named Pippa. He/she was about 6’3″ and wore size 12 shoes. S/he was my neighbor for about eight years on Catalpa Street, where I moved shortly after I was released from the fof.
Pippa rode his/her scooter all over Mill Valley. It was his/her main means of transportation. She also rode one of those strange lay-down bikes. She was a famous spectacle around Marin County at the time so if you think I’m making this up you can do your own research to verify it.
Now, the strange thing to me about Pippa was not merely the normal rubber necking that 6’3’ transgender m/to/f types attract… no, no, no, for me it was that she had a striking resemblance to another he/she goddess wannabe that some of us here on the blog all have a certain beef with. Having been ushered into the magical world of noticing genuinely meaningful c-influence coincidences by the person to whom Pippa resembled, I was, to say the least, fascinated at the precision and humor of c-influence at placing dear Pippa in such close proximity to my everyday life… thus helping me to transcend my previous subconscious attachment to this other 6/3″ he/she wannabe goddesses who had so gotten into my head… if you get my drift.
The license plate readings weren’t nothin’ compared to this.
I mean, Pippa even had the voice! She’d had her vocal chords scrapped in an effort to have a more feminine sound but it ended up sounding more like a mid-gender raspy softness.
She was often lonely. Very lonely. She was shunned by the transgender community. She told me she couldn’t stand the bellyaching at their meetings and said as much when she attended them. She said they kicked her out because she had never been gay or a cross dresser, had no compassion. She said she didn’t understand what all the others were complaining about. She simply thought that having lived 50 years as a man was enough so she decided to engineer herself into a Barbie doll (her words) to see how the other half lived. I guess to main-stream America being a Barbie doll IS being a goddess.
As I befriended Pippa and eventually drummed up the courage to ask the $64,000 question, she explained that she was an engineer/graphic artist who’d always put together incongruent forms and made them work. She showed me photographs of herself and Johnny Carson from when she was on his show. She had made a car into a boat… that floated (this was in the 60s or 70s).
When I first met Pippa she had just had surgery in Europe to remove her, as s/he put it, ‘gorgeous penis’. Over the years that I knew her she would have one or another intervention every six months or so to feminize herself. At one point she had the prominent bone running under her eyebrows shaved down and had her chin reduced. She still worked out at the gym daily so her arms and legs were really cut. She needed to be strong to ride her scooter and her lay-down bicycle. She actually used to scooter and/or bicycle from Mill Valley over the GG bridge into the city. She was strong. Not kidding.
Pippa had no interest in metaphysics, psychology, spirituality, anthropology, transcendence, esoteric studies, human potential or anything at all to do with the inner life of man. Pippa once told me that she was such a consummate narcissist (her words) that after her next surgery to remove fat from her ass and put it into her lips she was going to ask the doctor save a little extra so she could bring some home and fry her eggs in it!
Now, fellow bloggers, picture the above conversation/s with Pippa whilst my involuntary associations were morphing the image of our beloved REB over the reality of Pippa as she described with pride her utter obsession with herself.
As REB so diligently taught me… I took the hint.
May this little story help those of you who are not yet clear on what Unoanimo, Whalerider, Veronicapoe, Bruce, Anna, Elena, Laura, Graduates et all are talkin’ about.
And if you haven’t verified C-Influence on your own, read a little Carl Jung, M. Scott Peck, Jean Shinoda Bolen or, dare I say it, The Celestine Prophecy.
L.T.Y.A.
To: 142-145, 149. Thank you and I value your posts.
I will have to take a deep breath for a few days and see if it makes sense to answer some of the sincere questions Anna and Opus asks.
Dear Joseph,
Your one of the few that shares his name and I revere that. Probably if we all shared our real names the tone would be different here. I differ with what you said that I wish to silence people on the blog. That is not true. I noticed in a couple of posts that if a blogger even uses the slightest profanity to you, you come fighting back very hard. I am not judging you about this.
Of course it is going to sound like we are talking down to each other if we disagree with one another, but I trully do not see myself better than anyone and try to respect your struggles. I can understand the pain that Bruce, Former Student, and Graduates have been through (although they will think I am full of shit) but I can not respect the profanities they issue and express. I don’t expect a cake walk here either.
Dear Life Person,
OK, I get it. But you don’t get it either….let’s play football but when people “face mask” like Bruce, former student, Graduate, and some others then it is hard to play the game.
I don’t necessarily thing RB or the FOF fine like you think.
Hei, Fat Boy! While you are still here, let me ask you a question. You wrote:”You will of course think I am crazy but the boys who enter Burtons’s circle generally in the end come out of it more of men. They seem to change for the better. Maybe it is learning things from Burton (refinements, consciouness), maybe it is serving; or maybe it is their struggle with sex; but something in this “role” makes them better human beings.”
I heard this before from a few people. Can you please explain how do they become more men? What does it mean? I heard one guy saying ” I am a better person because of Robert” but I see him as a disfunctional and traumatized. Of coarse, I don’t know how he was before, but still. Explain, please!
Fat Boy
To continue with the metaphor, there’s a big difference between face masking and using profanity. Face masking is against the rules because it can seriously injure the player–a broken neck is a broken neck–and if it happens to you, there’s nothing you can do about it. If someone uses profanity on a web site, you can, if you want to, respond in kind, or you can ignore it, or you can ridicule it, or you respond with kindness–whatever you choose to do, any harm is in your own mind. Sticks and stones and face masking may break your bones, but words can never harm you–unless you let them. The profanity here is more like getting your clothes muddy; you can always wash your clothes.
Fat Boy,
“I don’t necessarily thing RB or the FOF fine like you think.”
You’re a fake.
Ryan.
151 Fat Boy
“Your one of the few that shares his name and I revere that. Probably if we all shared our real names the tone would be different here.”
Helllloooooo!!!
“(although they will think I am full of shit) but I can not respect the profanities they issue and express.”
Unfuckingbelievable.
“Of course it is going to sound like we are talking down to each other if we disagree with one another, but I trully do not see myself better than anyone and try to respect your struggles.”
You are so full of shit.
“I can understand the pain that Bruce, Former Student, and Graduates have been through…”
uh huh.
“OK, I get it. But you don’t get it either”
Ok assholio.
Fat Boy
Do you listen to yourself? What keeps the people that are around you from throttling you, really? Pity. revulsion, apathy?
25 Graduates
“The thing that would end the Fellowship of Friends and Burton’s run as a “conscious being” is to provide an alternative community, a rival “school,” a competing non-profit organization where all the past and present members of the FoF could gather, remember themselves and celebrate real life outside the oppressive regime of an authoritarian psychotic fag.”
you are an idealist Greg and while I applaud the ideal I fail to see the possibility of any real “school” coming out of this.
Why? because apparently one aspect of what made the Fellowship of Friends successful was that it was a false school and appealed to false personality. It allowed individuals to exist without real work for decades.
From my perspective trying to have an “intelligent” discussion about something basic like the Law of seven and the six processes and experiencing the vacuous replies or lack there of and the lack of any real thought, this from those who say pridefully ” I studied the 4th way with the FOF for 10, 20 or even 30 years and never needed to learn to think why should I start now”.
This to me is an indication of the denying force of having any “real” school’ . Non Duality is about the dumbest thing I ever heard of and there appear to be many who find “no-thought appealing”. The fact that it is inherently contradictory and just a move from believing in one teacher and imaginary system to believing in another eludes them. It is a good example of “changing deck chairs on the Titanic”.
Gurdjieff gave specific and clear indications on what is required to overcome the results of the organ “Kunderbuffer” amongst them is the development of individual reason through the study of the objective laws of world creation and maintainence in the form of the law of three and the law of seven. One can just reference how many times and in how many different ways he presented this information in “Beelezebubs Tales” to get some idea what value he placed on these ideas.
In the “The 4th Way” the idea of scale and relativity in relation to the Law of Seven and the Law of three occurs in the first chapter. All of Collins work in “The Theory of Celestial Influence” is based on these ideas.
It is a fiction to say or imagine that anyone who has not studied and made a sincere attempt to achieve the change in consciousness necessary to see these laws in action has ever been part of the 4th way. The 4th way begins at a higher level than life. The idea of scale and relativity is supposed to allow us to develop one tool to understand both our inner world and the external world. You cannot separate the “system” (as the Fellowship has done)
Sometimes logic is useful. For example if the idea of triads is true than anytime we see an actual triad in action we are experiencing the absolute or as close as we can come to it as the triad is the initial division of the one. A corollary to this is that a means of penetrating the moment is to attempt to experience a triad, any triad in the moment.
I am disappointed with what I have read by Gerard Haven, to me his writings are just Robert’s same old crap regurgitated, the disappointment is that Gerard is a well educated scientist with the ability to apply some real directed thought to the ideas of Octaves and triads.
I would have imagined that after such a length of time the FOF would be able to publish a clear publication indicating the exact notes of an octave of self development this has been done in other traditions. Why not? Because no one knows it. How sad.
151 Fat Boy
You are a dumb shit
My identity is available to anyone not to lazy to read back posts. Maybe I should add an addendum to each post
Duncan Shockley FOF 1973-1980 on greater Fellowship
websites
Stillpoint @yahoo groups to discuss the 4th way
for those interested in discussing the ideas of the 4th way
Webshots Scottduncan- art and personal photo’s
e-mail scottduncan@frys.com
…and today’s pun is :Robert Button.
Hey Bruce,
You probably would not agree, but can’t you just skipp my posts?
Life Person,
I understand your anology, but it is not that easy for the emotional center to flick the switch to off to “malicious and crude negativity”. Of all people, I think you would understand this. It does not matter anymore, I see that I cannot post here or I will be attacked and made fun of by Bruce and a couple of others.
And Life Person, you still do not get it, I am willing to play football. There is probably 50 posts that made direct and harsh responses to my posts which do not bother me and that I learned from.
And really, I do see alot of the contradictions in FOF, and would eventually express them. There are sincere people on this blog and I wish them luck.
and Former Student, your the dumb shit, and I could give a shit who you are. I said to Joseph that he is one of the FEW who post there name.
re: 89 traveler
Essential. You wrote:
“Some time ago I noticed that I seemed to be suffering.”
That’s it.
To recognize and admit this basic background noise.
(Actually this is “The state you are in”.)
What’s so strange with being present?
I’m suffering.
What’s so strange with killing Fat Boy?
I’m suffering.
I am caught.
I’m not free.
160 Fat Boy.
Your right its not that easy to “flick the offswitch” but its a skill well worth learning, otherwise its a constant identification which cut out in cardboard goes like- everytime I see particular expressions I will become identified with them in a negative sense. A long time ago I worked with a very upper class englishman who told me that he could tolerate all rudeness except the expression “motherfucker” unfortunately he told everyone else too….and therfore they had a key to his major button and they used it mercilessly.
He fell for it everytime and became deeply identified With his response to it and visually negative.
Btw. Once when passing Grant R. With R b. He turned to Grant and said ” Fucking angels” it created memory.
There is a lot of real rudeness going on at Is’Is.
Hope you come to understand that.
“then to the rolling heaven itself I cried,
asking what lamp had destiny to guide
her llittle children stumbling in the dark?
and a blind understanding it replied”.
regards jack.
A former student (157):
With all due respect, Duncan, of all the participants on this blog and on GF (with the possible exception of Greg, with his channeling Ouspensky fetish), you seem to be the most wedded to “work ideas/formulas” as expressed in Ouspensky. (I don’t include Gurdjieff, because it’s impossible to say, based only on his and Ouspensky’s writings, what Gurdjieff emphasized on a daily basis. His actual teaching may have been much more nuanced than comes across in Ouspensky’s intellectual reporting.) I looked at Celestial Influence recently for the first time in many years, and although there are some great, inspired connections made, I was shocked at how much bullshit (or, if you prefer, imagination) Collin was cranking out in his effort to squeeze everything into a few concepts he learned from Ouspensky. It was embarrassing.
I agree there is no realistic hope of a “real school,” whatever that may be, arising out of the ashes of the Fellowship of Friends, but not because there aren’t enough people who value the law of three and law of seven. It does no disrespect to those concepts to say they are worthwhile studying, and can be useful tools, but are hardly essential to “real work,” “fourth way” or otherwise. “Right thinking” is useful, and maybe necessary, but being attached to intellectual formulations is neither.
I agree the perspective on non-duality put across in some of the posts here are childish, and reflect a need to finally be rid of all effort while at the same time being rid of the nagging feeling that there is something we’re missing–you get the cake and you get to eat it, too. But that doesn’t mean Advaita is for fools, just that some people have tried to interpret it to fit their foolishness; the folks who express that perspective seem to have missed all the times Nisargadatta emphasizes the need to make efforts to be present.
Again with respect, Duncan, if you really believe that the law of seven and law of three, or the six processes, or any intellectual concepts, are fundamental to awakening, you’re clinging to training wheels; you’re sounding like a fundamentalist citing chapter and verse as though you can’t get to heaven unless you know what it says in John 13:27, or unless you examine triads in your daily life. Thirty years after leaving the Fellowship you should at least consider giving the “work books” a rest and experience the world through some other lens, or, hopefully, none at all.
132 and 138 are newly moderated.
Fat Boy,
“Skipp” #160
Only one mis-spell. You’re slipping out of character.
Ryan.
Dear Brain Police and Duncan,
“you get the cake and you get to eat it, too”
You are the cake, silly!
Ryan
Oh, and after re-reading my last post, when saying that it was fascinating to listen to your ramblings I did not mean to say that I consider what’s being said here in general by everyone as ramblings, I was reacting to Fat Boy’s stance. I value and cherish everything that’s said here. I have learnt a great deal and it is a massive pleasure to keep this discussion going. I love you guys, can’t help it.
And Fat Boy, stop playing a game, stop trying to paint a picture of this blog for everyone to see, we have ears and eyes and make our own judgments. You have explained your views very well (in the past 30 or so of your marvelous posts), we understand what you are trying to say. Everyone here is out to get you, everyone here persecutes members of the FoF on sight, no-one ever leaves them to say a word (except for you of course). They are all worthless scumbags, less intelligent than the ex and non members around here, they have less sense, not forgetting that they smell bad. That’s exactly what we think and what we try to make everyone realize. That’s what we do, that’s what we live for. We love it.
I hope you enjoy your little game and persuade everyone in the world that this blog exists with the sole aim of bonding people together in order to persecute current members, I hope that this enlightening mission brings happiness to your life. I have no wish to further post in reply to your thoughtful comments so that you may use my words to illustrate what the real meaning behind my words is, you know so much better than I do. I am humbled by you, and at this late hour I feel the need to go to sleep. Too much work and too much of you (for anyone’s health or safety).
The unusual thing about a “blog” like this, is that there is no such thing, really, as “taking up too much room”. It’s not like a face-to-face conversation where one party can’t get a word in edgewise. All you have to do is write and press Submit. If someone’s posts are too long, or difficult, or offensive, or whatever, you just page down. It’s quite easy. Even the passive folks get to have their say, and be heard, especially if they write articulately.
If you don’t like the tone of voice, submit posts using the tone you prefer, and ignore what you don’t like. If someone attacks your post, well, you can respond if you want, or not if you don’t want. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to, and you can’t shut anybody else up if they choose to keep writing. I like it, both (all) sides of it.
(169) Ryan
Ryan, my friend, I hear you. And there’s a difference between knowing you are the cake and Being the Cake. I know I am the cake, but I don’t delude myself into imagining I fully appreciate the significance of that.
Brain Police (around) 166
(with the possible exception of Greg, with his channeling Ouspensky fetish)
********
Boring old Ouspensky…what, you imagine he is sitting around the grayer fringes of the universe giving lectures to other moldy, nodding immortals? If I only could channel Ouspensky! It is astounding how easily these television numbed moderns forget that in no time at all their smug self-satisfied exterior will be ripped off them and the emptiness beneath will be exposed to the vacuum of the cosmos. Then let them search their memories for the dreary advice of old Ouspensky. Meanwhile why shouldn’t everyone shop the philosophical strip-malls for a variety of exciting new beliefs? Why use the same old brand of insight year after year? For many of the inhabitants, In and Out, the real point of it all never developed further than a shallow ineffectual magnetic center. Anyway, around here everyone is an expert…except Ouspensky.
Chorus:
Don’t cry for me Advaita
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance
Brain Police,
Good point!
Love,
Ryan
Greg, Ouspensky’s wisdom isn’t the point. You’re not the only one trying to do the best he can while he’s alive, and who has recognized truth in Ouspensky’s writings, which should be comforting if you enjoy company, and threatening if you prefer the illusion that you know more than everyone else. Yes, making use of the truth where you find it, for as long as it’s useful, is always a good idea.
The point of my reference was your refusal to go out in public without your Ouspensky (or, in this case, Galactus) mask, and your florid response, invoking the “vacuum of the cosmos” to deflect attention from that point, only underscores it. You have some very worthwhile things to say, but your affectation makes it more difficult for people to hear it, which I assume is the opposite of what you intend.
175 Brain Police
You’re asking for one of Greg’s 1001 aphorisms. I hope you’re prepared.
Brain Police (around) 175
Greg, Ouspensky’s wisdom isn’t the point.
***********
Here is what you said:
“…you seem to be the most wedded to ‘work ideas/formulas’ as expressed in Ouspensky.”
It was at least part of the point when you were busy lying before, then you get a little creative energy from me and now it is suddenly, “Ouspensky’s wisdom.” You actually have no point, you just talk unnecessarily associating along like a sleeping machine. Develop an aim.
Greg, if you were your words, if you spent more time in self reflection rather than telling us how we should awaken, you’d fuckin be there, but guess what…? But that’s ok, I love you anyway, in a perverse way, for a perverse reason.
We all, even never-members, glorify our weaknesses. The more we know, the more we can delude ourselves.
I remember Roger C. (RIP) describing himself as a “take charge” guy who knows how to get things done. But until I left (he probably changed significantly) he was fucking unbearable to be around. People did things wrong just to screw him up.
As mentioned above Greg, if you reflected more honestly on how you come across, with your unbearable vanity and power, what you say would take on a whole ‘nuther aspect, and be more palatable.
And please, no “when someone speaks truth to ignorance” aphorisms or I’ll never speak to you again.
lty
Strange words
Spoken and read
Fleeting
Breathing
Connecting to what is
Not to wish things differrent then they are
When there is the pain, it is
when there is joy, it is
A time to read books
A time to listen
A time to be quiet
thanks for this blog
best of all of you
May you be your best friend
Bruce 178
But that’s ok, I love you anyway, in a perverse way, for a perverse reason.
**********
Thanks Bruce. I appreciate the effort.
Greg, Ouspensky’s wisdom was never my point. Ouspensky is dead.
What people do with Ouspensky’s recorded wisdom was, and is, my point. My point to Duncan is that he’s gnawing on the pages of the Fourth Way, and, as you point out, time is growing short. My point to you is that you’re using Ouspensky to delay having to relate to people on an emotional level, as a human being. And, as you point out, time is growing short.
Thanks Cyclops 165.
Sheik, I will say what I want until you take me out. And, I will quote you; the others quote me and pick me apart. Who are you, exempt from critism? If you don’t like what I say then skip me or don’t respond to me. This is what I am advised.
But I want to thank you for revealing your true colors through your sarcasm and judgement in 170; Look how you responded to me when I just made an observation about you in one of my posts. Just think if I threw fuck, shit and asshole in my post to you. How would you respond then?
But your right it is becoming mechanical for to keep responding this way, and I apologize if I keep saying the same thing.
182
People’s paths are individual. We’re all climbing the mountain. How one relates to ideas is based on one’s present place in their journey. Some people leave the “system” and it’s temporary cosmology, but we all take some tools that are indispensable to the road ahead, after the “system”. Tools, toys… and we each choose which ones, how we use them, and for how long based on their efficacy.
Duncan probably knows his particular machine’s dysfunctions and how best to deal with them at this point in time, I would guess from the stories he told that he needs a fairly rigid cosmology when dealing with “stuff”. I don’t see a problem with that. But it is fucking irritating sometimes.
183 Fat Boy
“But I want to thank you for revealing your true colors”
If you could see Fat Boy, you’d understand that he was showing you your true colors. It’s too bad it was lost on you. It was a gift.
“Just think if I threw fuck, shit and asshole in my post to you.”
You do, in almost every post recently. But you hide it,in a cowardly way by using them in criticism, complaints and examples. Its what a weenie does. As someone mentioned, it’s passive aggressive. Plus, it’s unbelievably childish. You are now pushing the unbearable barrier.
Robert likes eating his eggs runny.
Love Malcolm
There was a young boy of Arden,
Who got sucked off by Bob in the garden.
He asked, “You old ho’ ,
Where does all that stuff go?”
Bob answered, “(swallow hard)– Beg pardon?”
186
My kind of humor, I’m ashamed to say. Beautiful.
Daily Card 186
Love Malcolm
**************
Is this my ol’ pal English Malcolm the brickyard pub crawler?
Thanks Laura for the song, the words and so much more. Thank you Vera too. I guess this is what some have been calling the dark night of the soul. It is better today.
111 I see said the blind man, I just came across your post by accident. What a great way to put it, thank you.
Graduates, unfortunately I don’t seem to be able to follow you on this one. There is nothing strong enough in Fellowship students to link them to a new school of any form and I don’t think it is about “Schools” any more but penetrating life, after all, it IS the Way of Life. If anything ever happened in that direction it would not be from what we developed in the Fellowship but what little of ourselves we were able to protect from it.
Unfortunately the Fellowship dogma is tremendously poor and non practical. Students are more and more ignorant each day, more and more indoctrinated and freezing in the form. I also don’t necessarily agree with those eager to discard the system. The system was boring in its academicity but perfect for the squareness of western mind. If we had really been able to share our work with the ideas, we might have been able to push the system beyond into something beautifully practical but we got lost in trying to prove our worth to the inner circle and Robert who had lost any sense of values and gradually moved back to Christian mass methodology. We allowed them to use our purest energy for the hierarchichal machine of the Fellowship. It is very much like a romantic relationship in which you give the best of yourself and the other party does not value you. The less they value you the more effort you make until the cycle breaks with pieces of your being flying all over the place.
It is fine to assume responsibility for being so silly and needing to be valued by what one thought was a conscious teacher and worthwhile people. From the work point of view it is just another expression of inner considering and we all got busted for it. Maybe we’ll learn something. For sure, we have at least learnt that there’s no one worth following but one’s self which does not mean that one cannot work with others equally clear about not having to follow anybody else. This is what the blog is also about and in those terms, the possibility of sharing opens up.
What Fat boy says or the rest of us answer is quite irrelevant as is almost what any one of us says. It is not the talking what matters as much as the sharing. Being clear about the fact that we want each other’s company is the real issue. That is the seed for community. If we practice enough in this blank page, we might actually be able to smile sincerely when we meet each other. The more we open up, the less pretense, the more we can show others how beautiful and vulnerable and terrible we are at the same time, the more we’ll each learn to bear with our selves and others. The Fellowship experience might not turn out to be as bad as it promises if we can bring this desolation with which it left us to a different port.
Thank you for sharing.
186
The limerick as societal and political comment.
Fuck you Bruce. Expect this type of response from for now on. In case you did not hear it Fuck off. Same to you Former Student.
Looks like August has got me!
191
“Looks like August has got me!”
RB used to say “Ahh, there’s the buffer”. Even a stopped watch is right twice every 24 hours.
191
Fat Boy, now you’re just running on to the field, yanking on people’s face masks and kicking them in the shins. No one (except Sheik) can stop you from acting out your resentments if you feel like it, but surely you have more to offer than that. It’s been quite a while since you mentioned anything about how you relate to the Fellowship of Friends, or some other idea. You’ve been hinting that people are mistaken if they imagine you think everything about the FoF is fine. Care to elaborate? Or is there something else you might like to contribute? Is there anything you’re not already certain about? Let’s face it–this blog isn’t going to support you in maintaining all of your convictions, so if that’s all you’re looking for, you’ll always be disappointed, and soon you’ll just be ignored.
So…?
Brain Police: “But that doesn’t mean Advaita is for fools, just that some people have tried to interpret it to fit their foolishness; the folks who express that perspective seem to have missed all the times Nisargadatta emphasizes the need to make efforts to be present.”
Hey BP, I feel like we’re generally on the same wavelength, so I was sorry to read this. I’m sure you realise Nisargadatta can be used, like the Bible, to justify virtually any intellectual stance. But if you do what he says, rather than think about it, it quickly becomes blindingly obvious that the making of efforts to be present by BP, RN or anyone else is entirely superfluous.
I get the impression from this posting that you’re trying to fit Advaita into your old Fourth Way ideas. Believe me, they intersect hardly at all.
best regards, RN
Some recent deep wisdom from Our Beloved Mad Teacher.
Did you know that there is much more to 10 mammoths? Also, your usual reed coaster has a hidden deeper meaning. Wow.
Actually, whatever you see – is not it. Don’t ever believe your eyes – it’s all way more complicated! Let the Beloved Teacher explain. It’s either means a sequence, or a pyramid, or wordless breaths. See? Marvelous, isn’t it?
Enjoy.
10 MAMMOTHS AND 10 WOMEN
A cave painting from Rouffignac, dating from 14,000-11,000 BP, depicts a procession of ten mammoths. The six mammoths on the right represent the sequence, while the four mammoths facing them on the left represent “the salvation of God” – the four wordless breaths. The end of the sequence and the beginning of the four wordless breaths is where the “two worlds touch.” The two mammoths that are facing each other have two overlapping tusks, as well as two tusks not shown here, representing the four wordless breaths. It is a marvelous image.
Similarly, the fifteenth-century “Voynich manuscript” depicts a procession of ten women. The six women on the right, who are all touching, represent the sequence. Facing them on the left are four women, representing the four wordless breaths. The mammoths and the women represent the sequence, while the women also represent the white queen on the chessboard – the nine of hearts. A popular song says, “It’s still the same old story – a fight for love” – work ‘I’ number six – “and glory” – the four wordless breaths. I recently saw an advertisement on television that said, “So simple, even a caveman can do it.”
REED MAT
“Without corners” means that it is firm and even like a perfect square. A pre-dynastic reed mat in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo illustrates this idea. I could not quite believe it when I saw it. The “perfect square” in the center represents the four wordless breaths, while the eight rings of the spiral leading to it represent the inhalation and exhalation of the four wordless breaths.
Sharon and Life person,
Thanks for the comments and advise. I will need to take a breather after this last thread; sharing as Elena says is important but I will have to see if it makes sense to share the contradictions I see with FOF to this crowd.
MIND CONTROL CULTS
ENDEAVOR ACADEMY
Chuck Anderson, the “Master Teacher”
It is nothing more than a cult driven by a handful of dominant personalities declaring themselves to be “awakened minds.”
It has all the hallmarks of a true cult. Encouraging its members to surrender all their wealth and isolate themselves from the world – thereby creating financial and emotional dependence. Ruthlessly crushing all philosophical debate, objection and individual dissension.
I personally know two people, and know of several others, who have had to be hospitalized in mental institutions as a direct result of their participation.
To seek others to agree with our world view and support us in our beliefs would appear to be part of the human condition. However, to use the given words of God to use other people’s fears, insecurities and guilt to get them to comply with our doctrine seems to me vicious and reprehensible.
A fanatical cult operating in Byron Bay could be brainwashing people, a federal Minister warned yesterday.
“I’ve had grave concerns about this group for quite some time,” Mr Anthony said. “Many constituents have come to see me (who have had) family members or themselves tied up in this cult. And it has been very unhealthy.
“I think a lot of these fanatical cults, they brainwash people. They prey on very vulnerable people. “As the local member, I think people have to be very careful about getting involved in this particular cult.”
In a statutory declaration written eight months before her death, one of the suicide victims said she experienced “horrific psychotic episodes” as a result of her five-year involvement in the cult.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/eacademy.html
Fat Boy,
“but I will have to see if it makes sense to share the contradictions I see with FOF to this crowd.”
————————————————————–
Who better to share it with? If you speak the truth from your heart, then you are likely to find much support here.
Fat Boy:
I was just gonna say. Remember what is most important. Using explitives means you are getting identified. It’s hard not to, but actually in a format like this, it’s great practice because it’s just these typed words on a screen, sans the sweaty skin and contracted facial muscles, known identity, etc. Resolve to return to a less identified state. Be a good example.
#172 Brain Police
Too true. Sometimes just a taste of that cake will send you back to eating cardboard for a while.
It becomes increasingly difficult to convince yourself it tastes like cake.
#179 Bruce
“The more we know, the more we can delude ourselves.”
That may be the smartest thing I have read on this blog yet.
Not the most poignant, but the smartest.
You sure know a lot.
being new to this, i hope it’s not coming too much from ‘left field’ and as for protocol i’m not sure why this is mostly anonymous/ pseudonymous but i’ll follow those examples for now. i’ve looked at some of the postings here and have to wonder about the aim of this… everyone is unique, different. But we share experience. i’ve spent some time looking at the faces and names in the members section and many of you i remember but there are more that i don’t know. i have some time before returning to work, it’s an unusual day for august in phila, overcast, cool, raining, a good day for nostalgia and memories.
it seems that rb to some degree still has an affect/effect on those who write here and this is partly a way of processing.
the word ‘processing’ implies progression or at least some movement… where does ‘the work’ (in this case the conversation) get stuck and how to MOVE ON positively is a question. (on the other hand, there are those who claim to live on hate alone).
i moved to renaissance with ‘m’ my highschoolsweetheart in 1977. we ate, showered and slept at the lincoln lodge, then lived for a while in a tent in the woods next to a stream. i was asked to move to the blake cottage and followed the course laid out in many of the previous posts, i won’t go into the sordid details. (the ‘academy’ was under construction at the time although i might still be considered a “cadamite” – or catamite – is the beneficiary/victim of an older, powerful, homosexual predator-pederast who is constantly recruiting a succession of adolescents, and showering affection, preferences, professional opportunities and material goods in return for sexual favors. my question is whether conscious bob was aware of the rich pun involved in naming his house the ‘academy’ and the definition of a ‘cadamite’ ? probably not).
after i woke up to what was going on, m and i got back together, we were married at renaissance, she became pregnant, rb asked that the fetus be aborted, his rationale was that the child would not be born onto ‘the ark.’ my gut feeling was that this was revenge for moving out of the blake cottage. i asked miles barth for counsel, in so-many-words he said ‘teacher knows best.’ m had to be persuaded by the heavyweights surrounding rb at the time, despite her tears and protests she had the abortion. i still feel guilt and complicity over this, otherwise i wouldn’t be writing about it.
i left the fof in ’83 a year before one of the predicted cataclysms, m stayed, remarried and i think still remains (does anyone know?). i lived in sf after leaving, it was difficult, i lived for a time on the street, i bumped into and shared a bottle with kimo beech who had apparently suffered similar circumstances, he’d been ‘down-and-out’ for some time. i slept and ate in church shelters, and later managed to rent an apartment in the tenderloin, right next door to the glide memorial on ellis street. there is much i am leaving out here.
a minion for samuel sanders, his name was robert i believe, a venusian from vancouver? he said he had worked with counseling prisoners after certain experiences… whatever, he wanted to get me involved in the lawsuit – i declined, never did hear about the outcome. where to go from here in my story? to ‘move on’ was the idea then, that’s why i didn’t want to get involved in the lawsuit, i was trying to put the past behind. but one doesn’t forget the past… what to do with these memories? share them? where do they go? if there is a moral here, i guess it’s about moving on, recognizing the importance of memory, reflection, individuation and community.
Brain Police 182
Greg, Ouspensky’s wisdom was never my point. Ouspensky is dead.
What people do with Ouspensky’s recorded wisdom was, and is, my point. My point to Duncan is that he’s gnawing on the pages of the Fourth Way, and, as you point out, time is growing short. My point to you is that you’re using Ouspensky to delay having to relate to people on an emotional level, as a human being. And, as you point out, time is growing short.
*********
Brain, actually Ouspensky is not dead. Unlike you time for him is not limited. Understand something you self-appointed anonymous enforcer of the law, no one needs your assessment of their short-comings. I’m not sure why you take it upon yourself to be the critic of those using ‘work language’ to express themselves but if you don’t actually have some insight about RB and the FoF why not just mind your own business rather than policing the activity of the other bloggers brains? You are posting here as an anonymous little git while complaining that others are wasting their time not behaving emotional enough toward you and the world in general, you don’t notice the contradiction of such a position?
To #161:
…or……Robber Baron
Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who was close to Robert for many years until about 7 years ago. I tried to be very precise with my arguments against FOF dogmas and be friendly to a person at the same time. It was rather fiery conversation anyway because the inconvenient truth hurts…
What came out of it made me think that my friend is actually a Fat Boy. The words he said: “I know that Robert hurt many other people and I heard a lot of these stories, but it never happened to me. To me he was very kind and helpful. I felt his Love and I verified that he is the most considerate and humble person I have ever met in my life. Meher Baba washed the feet of the Mats, but do you know what it takes to go as far as giving them sexual pleasure and love as Robert does?…”
Since I never was close to Robert I could not find anything to reply to that. To me he looks different and I don’t buy his humble act. But it is rather amazing that there are so many people believe him and love him and feel that they receive his love in return.
205 somebody
“But it is rather amazing that there are so many people believe him and love him and feel that they receive his love in return.”
It’s what’s required in the moment to justify one aquiessence and still stay relatively sane. Though the pendulum often swings.
ton– Thanks for sharing your story. I’m not sure who you are, but I must have known you. I also lived in a tent in 1977. I’m glad you survived your difficult times. As you may know Kimo (and a few others) did not have such luck. If you email me her name, I will try to find out what happened to m (if I don’t know already).
Christina
cmsabin at infostations dot net
Graduates 203: “Brain, actually Ouspensky is not dead.”
You’ve verified this, right?
I just remembered a strange thing that happened to me back when the earth was still cooling down:
My mother died in 1988. I had been in the fof since 1984 and was only vaugely aware of Robert’s true nature and inclinations. A couple of weeks after mom’s funeral, I drove to the cemetary to visit the grave site. I walked to the spot where her headstone should have been and instead of my mother’s name on the plaque, the name Nellie Burton appeared. I registered the shock, drove home and called my brother, just to make sure I wasn’t somehow off-course. He confirmed that he had been out the previous day and discovered the same mistake and had already taken steps to correct it. Now the funny part…
At the next meeting, as we were cleaning up, I happened to mention this “shock” to my friend M_ch__l S_vi_k. When I got to the end he bugged out his eyes and started making a sound that reminded me of the sound they use in movies when the submarine crew is about to make an emergency dive. He also slowly backed away from me, tea cup in hand, as he did this. At the time I thought he was just being funny, yanking the new kid’s chain, but now I have to wonder. What would Jung say?
Dear Somebody,
My first thought after I read this guy’s explanation of Robert’s love and care was: So would any farm animal would say about their caretaker. They would feel that they are loved and cared for, and think what a kind being a farmer is.
Well, a farmer doesn’t just “love” cattle and poultry unconditionally, he has an agenda – he takes for himself milk, wool, eggs and finally life from the animals he raises.
I wonder if this “boy” realizes why R. is so loving and considerate to him (and not to women or other students that he is not sexually interested in). R. literally feeds of him and uses him just like farmer uses his sheep.
As for sexual pleasure – it mostly other way around, it’s pretty obvious who is constantly chasing whom and who’s got a selfish agenda. How pleasant it must be for a straight young (married) man to perform weird sex acts on an old fat gay? And to be “scheduled” to go do this? Please. It’s not exactly “giving them pleasure”.
When Robert will start washing feet of the homeless old women and give away all his money to the poor – may be we’ll see some selfless love.
202 ton
………being new to this, i hope it’s not coming too much from ‘left field’ and as for protocol i’m not sure why this is mostly anonymous/ pseudonymous but i’ll follow those examples for now. i’ve looked at some of the postings here and have to wonder about the aim of this… everyone is unique, different. ….
That is what I was wondering at the beginning when I found the blog.
Being a former fof and not sympathetic to the group or RB, I thought initially: how great this is ! the truth about RB is being told and eventually some authorities are going to find this out and put RB in jail perhaps.
As I say this I realize I do not feel a lot of consideration for the current members…I guess they are also very different within themselves… but the true believers who are continuing to hurt people in the name of RB, well, they can go to hell!
For the others more gentle and questioning souls I certainly do not want them to suffer too much, but perhaps a rude awakening will be inevitable if the authorities shut down Isis.
This seems even a more complicated scenario for everyone involved.
There are also several current members who are just waiting for something to explode one way or another, they remind me of children rebels to their parents, they can care less of RB’s fate including of his most faithful followers.
I hope this blog will at least prevent new students to join, the problem is that some of the center directors are also innocent and buffering so they would appear really sincere.
Thanks for reading.
202 ton
Thanks for your post. I was living in a tent up there in 1975 (hey, remember those “sun showers” somebody was selling, converted from 5-gallon pails? That was cool.) so maybe we know each other.
It sounds like you’ve had quite a journey, and the details of your experiences with Burton are important to reveal, if you feel comfortable doing so. It’s all still going on today, apparently.
After leaving, understanding the balance between personal responsibility for our actions and decisions on the one hand, and the reality of mind control and undue persuasion on the other, can be quite tricky. But it seems a key to healing to me.
If you can post under your own name, it will enrich the blog and it might make your participation even more valuable for you. Just a thought.
Be well.
JoelF
They say Bob Dylan (rock and roll artist) was a word master.
Not to equate the two, I think Unoanimo is up there somewhere. Wordsmith?
FATBOY or any FOF member: Somewhere on this blog somebody mentioned that Robert Earl Burton referred to the Mayan 2010 calendar.
I goggled 2010 and read some interesting stuff. I saw what to me looked like gargoyles and other “esoteric” figures.
Could somebody in FOF ask Robert what his interpretation is of these odd figures and coded messages.
I’m still scratching the surface above the Goldmine of Higher Mind and would like to add another dose of the whatevers.
Thanks!
Thus Spake Graduates:
“And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable.”
Ah, Greg, you’re a hard case, aren’t you. Lighten up.
Rhino Neal:
Not to worry–we’re still on the same wavelength. Words can get in the way.
ton
I’m pretty sure I know who you are, and while I’m sorry to hear you’ve got some stuff to process, I think you’ve come to the right place to try to process it. I second Joel–those looking for healing can find it here. For many it’s been a long time coming.
Good point from Brain Police about healing here.
When I found the blog I had lots of memories flooding me and felt for the first time I was processing the whole experience.
When I left I did it quietly and was having more pressing issues to deal with like reinserting myself back into life, with no assets whatsoever.
But one cannot just put aside 10 (+ or -) fof years just like that!
Beware though, there is no facilitator here, free speech can be a dirty business like the Sheik says.
One cannot be too sensitive to other’s comments. This is a very diverse group and I enjoy several people here even when they use profanity in a very honest way.
Brain Police 214
Thus Spake Graduates:
“And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable.”
Ah, Greg, you’re a hard case, aren’t you. Lighten up.
*************
Yes, too hard a case for anyone to believe that I ever uttered the pacified quote you invented.
Here’s one for you:
What is hard to comprehend is that almost all the inhabitants are communal clutter, some more presentable, some more capable, but nearly all without the ability or the will to resist adapting to the prevailing atmosphere of emotional deceitfulness simply for the sake of social survival.
I just saw the “Leonard Cohen – I’m your man” tribute concert movie.
Well he’s mine for sure. Mr. Cohen, one of a a rare breed of poets – zen masters, inspires and shines with his presence in this loving portrait. He’s so deep that he makes me want to just dive in his eyes and drown my self there forever.
By the way, have you guys noticed that ladies are suckers for musicians and poets?
How about turning the testosterone level down a notch?
:)
Hi Arthur, rigth, when I read Unoanimo Bob Dylan keeps popping up in my mind too. That’s why I keep forgiving his biblical fury and incendiary moments. Sometimes he is a bit toaster-happy. Anyway, you’gotta love him, right?
and oh, I’d forgotten:
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=7pA5UhNaYw0
#209 Kid Shelleen
Oh my god!
My girlfriend is named Nellie!
Oh, what an intricate and perfectly designed play. I have made a terrible mistake!
I am rejoining the fof. How could I have been so wrong?
It is true! Getting your dick sucked and being shit and pissed on and treated like a worthless bag of bones and paying for it is the true way to paradise!
Got to go, have to go rent a Ferrari, no time to waste.
Oh my god, oh my gawd, how could I have not seen this so obvious truth of these indications of how important I am to the universe that these perfect emmissaries from God almighty have written the whole play of the earth to show me who I should give my money and my dick to. Silly me, I am so asleep. Oh, bad me. Oh no the moon, the cosmic vacuum. the boogie man…..
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Sorry for the misunderstanding, Graduates–that pacified quote was from that wimp, Neitzsche. Didn’t mean to suggest you would have said such a thing, just that your 203 reminded me of it.
219
Not a Ferrari–according to Bobby Earl, sports cars represent the fastness of false personality.
218 Laura
Great one. Fantastic video.
lty
219
“All signs indicate no”
magic eightball
Brain Police 221
Sorry for the misunderstanding, Graduates–that pacified quote was from that wimp, Neitzsche. Didn’t mean to suggest you would have said such a thing, just that your 203 reminded me of it.
**************
An Advaita-head quoting Neech. Fragments and contradiction.
218 #….when I read Unoanimo Bob Dylan keeps popping up in my mind too. That’s why I keep forgiving his biblical fury and incendiary moments. Sometimes he is a bit toaster-happy. Anyway, you’gotta love him, right?…
Maybe I should smoke a little…
ton #202: Girard Haven said, “I don’t want you sleeping in the park, but you have 24 hours to get out”.
For what reason? Beating my meat in a dark room? Nope. Watching somebody else beat their meat in a dark room? Nope. But, all this was going on while he is giving me the boot. All I did was heat up a married woman who also had a boyfriend. No sex because somebody slammed the window down above our love couch.
It’s not a complete discription of what happened. He asked for my side of the story and I refused to say. That lead to the dismissal and an reentry for $2,500 dollars.
I took the RULE about no talking with former students literally to heart and the onus of being kicked out led me flee San Francisco. I could’nt imagine any Fellowship of Friend homeless on the streets of San Francisco except me.
I was homeless off and on about seven years. It’s a grind being homeless.
But, guess what? Thank Jesus the Christ, “C” Influence and this Blog for leading me out of the morass of staying too long with the big lie.
I found this blog almost at the beginning was shocked as I read. I didnt know anything about law-suits, hell-letter and the other totally shocking “eye-openers”.
This is really unbeliveable to this day. Rodney Collin said that we have to watch ourselves when we become too interested in criminal behavior or rub elbows with criminals because their
viberations can arc over and effect us.
Anyway ton thanks for being here.
Here’s a little story:
Back in the early mid 70’s I was living at the boy cottage. RB was starting to cultivate me for his wicked plans. So, of course, he would spend inordinate amounts of time (10-15 minutes at a time) getting to know me one on one (not really “on”).
I told him that in 1969 I had traveled to the west coast. Somehow I got a job on a movie ranch in the Santa Susanna Mts. of LA. I had ridden all my life back east (albeit English).
I was a footloose hippy. My job as a cowboy was to herd horses (small numbers at a time, and not out on the range). I would also take paying tourists up in the hills, 4-5 at a time. I also fed the horses, mucked the stalls etc. I was told I could sleep where I want, so I bedded in the “Saloon” on a couch. Occasionally crews would come there to film either TV series or small shots for other western movies (shootouts and everything). It was one whole western street with all the buildings (but only on one side).
About two days after I got there I noticed some people my age that seemed to live there, one girl helped take care of the blind owner. Younger runaways would come there and every few days the cops would roust them back home.
After a few days, the live-ins (a few women and a few men) started talking to me. They seemed a bit odd, and their stories were from another planet (race wars, Death Valley etc.) They were sawing off barrels on shotguns.
One morning I came out and this older guy with a beard was sitting on the boardwalk playing guitar, badly. He introduced himself as Charlie. He said that when he took acid he played guitar as well as Clapton. Yeah, ok, I’m a guitarist, and the guy didn’t have a clue.
Over the next few days the men and women started trying to draw me in with their bizarre theories. Some of the were very extreme.
One morning I had a really bad feeling so I just got up, packed my backpack and slowly started walking along the road. As soon as I felt I was out of eyesight I started running. Two weeks later the Tate LaBianca muders took place.
Naturally, for the next few years I was worried someone would connect me and I’d be brought back for questioning.
So my point:
I told RB this when he was courting me, he said (completely paraphrased- it’s been over 30 years) something like “My, my higher forces has certainly given you an exceptionally interesting life. First they brought you to one extreme of society to observe extreme criminal behavior, then higher forces brought you to me, the very opposite part of the spectrum.”… and I had a charmed life etc., etc. yadda yadda yadda.
After some of the usual events with RB, and my latest decision to call him on his shit, and rejecting any further overtures he said something like this: “Bruce, you are the thorn in my side. You might wish to consider that you have been exposed to Manson because there is such a strong propensity in your body type for criminal behavior. You probably attracted it.” or something like that, that’s the basic gist. He intimated that I was making the wrong decisions and if I left (which I didn’t until 85 because of the bookbinding I was involved with) I could take that as an indication that I was acting from a criminal place.
I always found that interesting.
Bruce 227
**********
Here’s another story, when I was about 16 or 17 or so and visiting a cousin in the San Fernando Valley we were taken to a “movie ranch” (Spawn Movie Ranch) to go horseback riding. It was my first time and my horse followed the other horses about a quarter mile along the trail and then refused to go on, in spite of my best efforts it turned around and went back to corral where I was told that my ride was effectively over and I had to wait for the others to get back from riding. So I moseyed along the ‘main street’ to a “Saloon” and had a look inside. Inside were about anywhere from 12 to 20 “hippies” sitting around in an odd sort of gathering. My first reaction was of course “Cool, man. Hippies!” One of them called to me to come in and when I didn’t respond but rather just stood there evaluating the “vibes,” suddenly from behind me a male voice shouted, “Hey get away from there! Don’t go in there!” I don’t remember exactly who did the shouting but the tone of voice was urgent and demanding enough that I quickly backed away. Soon my cousin and friends came and we left.
Bruce we almost met it would seem. The odd thing about it is that I just told someone this story a day or so ago.
228
Unfuckingbelievable. The snake bites it’s tail
228 I also told this story a few days ago.
228
I knew that horse. He did that to everyone.
Silence on this end.
Bruce, love to you
One of the things I took from the above experience:
Even with swastikas engraved in their foreheads, Squeaky and Linda were still more attractive than RB.
did I say that out load?
Robert needs to sit on a cushion
Love Malcolm
There once was a youth from Australia,
Who got caught in Bob’s bacchanalia.
He extracted a Reidel wine glass
Still intact from Bob’s ass
And even a full grown Azalea
235
Even the FOF can’t stifle true genius.
Quite a pair of stories, Bruce and Greg. Awesome.
228 Graduates
““Hey get away from there! Don’t go in there!”
Most likely Charlie. We’re both lucky to be here.
I am so blown away.
For those interested, “Los Angeles Center, 1973” is now online:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheEsotericHistoryArchive_119
239
Won’t load.
When you sling shit at Fat Boy, you are slinging shit at most current students; the mindset is representative of many – to varying degrees.
Many current students are moving rapidly beyond the outer circle closer to ex-members. Many ex-members were students 1, 2, 6 months ago.
A year ago, many now on the blog held the same attitudes as FatBoy. It becomes laughable when recent leavers criticize current members; I left 3 years ago and in my perception, many recent ex’s were students for a long duration when I was an ex. Should I vilify you all for the usual shit after I left?
Leaving the FOF doesn’t suddenly justify condemning current members. A few months or years difference in duration of membership or dates of departure – on the scale of decades of membership – makes NO difference. We are all guilty of being members when SOMEBODY was an ex-member.
Right now, I sense that some Blog contributors are so long gone from the FOF that no emotional bonds exist between themselves and current members. The tone of their posts reflects that absence of connectedness and therefore ambivalence about the status of current members.
For many of us, current members were recently/are our FRIENDS. We may be temporarily estranged from them; we may witness their play from a distance; they may lag behind our own timeframe in the FOF by a few months or years, but the connections are there – alive, loving. I do not feel like bashing, condemning, inculpating all current members for their support of RB etc. We were ALL complicit too recently.
Over the last few months, a number of large parties, dinners, & other types of gatherings have occurred in OH that include both members and ex-members. The distinctions IN & OUT are blurred; we are blending, dissolving the divisions in many small ways.
A huge gulf no longer exists between members and ex-members. Any such perception is old news, is not reflective of new directions. Last weekend, at a party of 70 people, nearly one half were current members.
People that assume the existence of a great division between “in” and “out”, and who assume hostile tense rejecting relations are out of touch with the reality.
The majority of members and ex-members are renewing friendships and creating new forums for being together and new ways of relating.
Most of us feel that transcending the old divisions is a more positive, cleaner, higher way.
Even RB has capitulated (what choice did he have!) and indicated that the FOF won’t be enforcing the old rule any longer.
241 Morgan la fe
“When you sling shit at Fat Boy, you are slinging shit at most current students;”
Sorry, your starting premise is entirely false. Period. You can rant all you want about it. Fat Boy is Fat Boy and that’s how he’s been responded to. What a completely specious perception. You may take it that way, but that’s entirely you.
241 Morgan la fe
““When you sling shit at Fat Boy, you are slinging shit at most current students;”
And anyone who feels that way probably has a reason to share the guilt. And maybe even be a self centered AS to boot.
243 should be AH
Nicely told story Bruce, 227. Sincerely.
245
Why thank you Fat Boy.
240/Bruce
Worked for me. Try the actual photo at:
247
Oh my God.
that worked , thanks for all your work.
(241) Morgan le Fay
You Make some interesting points. I think most of us here on the blog actually do sympathize quite a bit with many of the current members. We know that WE WERE THEM not too long ago, and we hope that somehow they will see the light and get the hell out of there. There are a handful of people that are still there that I really care about. They were good friends – nice, intelligent people, but for whatever reason they’re still in it. I wish I could do something to help them to get out. I guess this blog and the Greater FOF are probably as good as anything to help them.
Of course there are a great many people in the FOF that I don’t even know and don’t have any real connection to. But I still hope for them that they will leave, if for no other reason than to dry up the money that makes RB’s abuse possible. I certainly don’t wish any of those people ill and I bet most of them are not so damaged that they couldn’t make it on the outside if they really tried.
Although I don’t necessarily favor “bashing, condemning, inculpating all current members for their support of RB”, as you put it, when a current member posts on here and starts preaching the gospel of RB, so to speak, I think we have an obligation to call that person on it and expose the errors in their thinking. Sometimes people take off the kid gloves and get a little harsh. So what? I really don’t think the pro-RB position deserves any respect. It’s beyond ridiculous.
However, if a current member gets on here and can be somewhat honest, and at least begin to acknowledge some of the problems in the Fellowship, and express some of their doubts about RB, I think I would be inclined to respond a bit more kindly and try to do what I can to encourage them to open their minds up.
I’m glad to hear that there are lots of big parties where current and ex members are mingling. I would imagine that there aren’t a lot of real hardcore current FOFers at those gatherings. They would probably be afraid that they would be contaminated by the evil lower center energy from the ex-members. At any rate, maybe it will be an opportunity for some of those that are wavering on the fence to finally ‘break on through to the other side’
You say the ex-members shouldn’t be condemning the current members. Well for me it’s kind of like that old saying about ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’. I don’t hate those people, but I do have a problem with the fact that they are supporting a criminal through their donations. And they are also complicit in his crime by their unwillingness to speak out against it. By the same token, I realize that, much to my shame and embarrassment, I supported him too for 15 years and so I can have empathy for them.
There is a wide variety of voices and perspectives on here and I enjoy reading (almost) all of them. A lot of really good, smart, funny, sincere, cool people. Hopefully the cumulative effect of all these posts, the harsh stuff and the friendly stuff, will work to loosen the shackles that enslave those still in the FOF.
Good Luck to everybody!
247 Veronica, where do you get this stuff??? thanks again for your fantastic “archeology” and keep ’em coming.
When I was first in the FoF I was interested in photography and took many photos of Burton with my Hasselblad. One day he came up to me and whispered in my ear, “Goodness, I’d like you to destroy all the photographs you have of me.” I was shocked but, like a good little robot, went and threw them all out.
JoelF
247 Veronicapoe
Many of these people were in Honolulu later in 1973 when I went on a visit there with Burton–Bonita, Stan, Amanda, John, Brandy, at least.
JoelF
250 Skeptical Optimist
Hasselblad? I hate you Joel. You didn’t really throw them out, DID YOU?
250 Skeptical Optimist
“Hasselblad”? You bastid. 500 C right. I would have been allover you.
Actually, I lost all my negs from pre fellowship days while at “the ranch”. I’ll never forgive myself. I love self-flagellation.
250
Eventually RB succumbed to the immortalization thing and learned to pose.
212 Skeptical Optimist “I was living in a tent up there in 1975 (hey, remember those “sun showers” somebody was selling, converted from 5-gallon pails? That was cool.)”
Thanks for the memory, Joel. I remember showering outside in that lovely, cool water on a hot day. The water smelled funny, though, and after my shower, I climbed up and looked in the pail and there was a drowned rat.
MIND CONTROL CULTS
APOSTOLIC FORMATION CENTER FOR CHRISTIAN RENEW-ALL
EX-MEMBERS SAY HOMOSEXUALITY PART OF GROUP RITES.
A former member says the organization’s founder, J.Roy Legere,convinced members that engaging in such acts was the ultimate sacrifice in submiting to God.
Click to access afc2.pdf
COMMUNICATIONS ALLIANC
FOUNDER “GABRIEL”,PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS TONY DELEVIN OF PITTSBURGH RECEIVES “TRANSMISSIONS” FROM CELESTIAL BEINGS IN OUTER SPACE
A celestial being named Paladin allegedly told Delevin, “Your level is the highest and most important on the planet today.”
Gabriel later claimed to be the only “audio fusion material complement” on earth able to conduct “fusing” with celestial beings.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/acc.html
APOSTOLIC PENTECOSTAL CHURCH OF PLASTER ROCK
PHYSICIAN SAYS SECTS BUILT ON ‘FEAR AND APPROVAL’ STRAIN MARRIAGES, LIVES
“We were told ‘You should have checked it out with daddy first,’ ” said Ms. Corbin.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/apostolic_pentecostal.html
WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
The emphasis on obedience was apparent in some of the headlines from the church’s newsletter.
“HOW YOU DRESS FOR CHURCH Could it keep you out of the KINGDOM?’
“OUR LIGHT IS SHINING! and not the cosmetics on our faces.’
“It created an exclusivistic culture we do these things and others who don’t do these things were not Christians,’ Kelly said.
Tithing was mandatory: 10 percent of a member’s income had to be given directly to the church, 10 percent to celebrate festivals and another 10 percent for supporting needy members.
“It created a culture of one and only. It caused us to be separated from the mainstream Christian groups,’ Kelly said. “We didn’t associate.’
http://www.rickross.com/groups/wwchurch.html
THE APOSTLES OF INFINITE LOVE
Fifteen sect members have filed complaints with the SQ, which began an investigation into sexual and physical abuse at the monastery six years ago.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/apostles.html
APOSTOLIC FAITH CHURCH
In addition, Jones raised questions regarding alleged pornography, incest and homosexual acts involving the church, according to the letter. She asked the assembly to suspend all activities of Keyes’ church, including marriages, voting rights and services. She attached a petition containing signatures of other Apostolic Church members to her letter.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/apostolic/apostolic8.html
INTERFOR
She says the course, held June 10, consisted of 14-hour classes, probing personal questions and elements of “sensory deprivation,” which caused her such distress that she demanded back her father’s $2,430 class fee.
“I consider the 11 hours I spent at the place to be psychological rape. It left me a totally different person with all this fear I never had before,” said Forst, who has a master’s degree from Drexel University.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/interfor.html
AUM SECT/SHOKO ASAHARA
The cult combined supernatural forecasts of a coming apocalypse — it predicted the US would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland — with a frightening ability to produce high-tech modes of mass destruction.
The cult Asahara founded is alive and well, but it is missing the vital ingredient to make it a major threat once more. What the authorities fear most is that a new charismatic leader will emerge from the ranks to map out a dangerous new path to doomsday.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/asahara.html
255
One had to carry the full can up to one’s tent (half mile for me). By the time you got there, you really needed a shower. Symbiotic.
But they were cool.
Hi folks.
“Robert did you ever listen to the doors?”
“oh yes ..come on baby light my fire!”
ltya jack.
The stories people tell have been helpful to me, perhaps this one will be helpful to others.
Miles was ready to leave the fof a few years before we actually left. I, however, was not yet ready and pleaded with him to stay, give rb more benefit of the doubt, etc. I now regret the personal damage Miles did to himself over those years, not being able to fully believe the strong message his role as chief apologist conveyed to others about rb. During the time that the fof was needing to prove that it was a religious 501(c)3 organization, we were asked to look at other “cults” to show how the fof was different from them. All we could see, however, was how similar we were to them. When the day finally came to leave, the cognitive dissonance too strong, Miles was ready to go, with me or without me. He gave me the choice and it was an agonizing one. Fortunately, over those years since he’d first suggested leaving, I, too had been looking at things somewhat more critically and knew in my heart it was the right thing to do, however painful. He just wanted out and was definitely not interested in influencing others to leave and starting his own group. To this end, we decided to leave without telling anyone, not even my sister. We felt the need to tell rb in person and had to wait several days after our decision to leave until he returned from a trip to Europe. I remembering attending a concert at the town hall, sitting next to my friend Charles R. and feeling like the walking dead, knowing that that evening, I had 1,000+ friends, and the next day would have only one.
Our departure from Renaissance was a surreal experience that is still very clear to me. RB was quite tired when he returned to the property and wanted to rest but Miles was persistent in telephoning his house to say we’d like to come by. When we arrived at the Goethe Academy, I remember removing our shoes in the area just before the door. It was beautiful, we looked around, then at each other, knowing that we’d never see this again and it was a bittersweet leave-taking. Robert opened the door and seemed annoyed that we had been so insistent about seeing him but ushered us graciously into the “den”. We spoke a few pleasantries, he told us he was preparing to send us to lead the Paris center, and then we dropped our bombshell on him. I don’t remember exactly the few words Miles spoke, but Robert’s response shocked me in its calculating brutality. He immediately withdrew his energy from us and began to muse aloud, “what will happen to the donations? This will have an impact on the membership.” I think he asked us if we were sure of our decision, then quickly showed us to the door.
Others left the fof at that time, many for whom Miles had symbolized a canary in the mine. He did lead some meetings for less than a year which served as a sort of “half-way house” for those making the transition from in to out, the blog of the eighties. When he felt he had nothing more to say, he disbanded the group and began to pursue his own path.
I’ve hesitated writing about Miles, not wanting to put words in his mouth, or intentions in his actions that are not true. I suppose I more strongly feel that choosing conscience over convenience is a personal struggle worth making and writing about.
81 Rhino Neal
Apropos of nothing in particular:
Nisargadatta: “Awareness does not require anything. Therefore it is immaterial whether or not there is consciousness.”
So no need for efforts to increase consciousness, eg trying to be present, doing sequences or mantras, meditating.
Consciousness comes and goes, but it doesn’t matter. States are irrelevent. Consciousness appears in awareness, which is always here, and we are awareness.
WORDS ARE MEANINGLESS, OOPS, these are words, time does not exist, oops again!THERE IS NO ONE TO WRITE,WHAT THE HELL !! WHO IS WRiTiNG?!!! WHERE IS THIS NONE WRITING COMING FROM aaaah! My brain exploded, good luck there is no need of it!
89 Traveler
“I do still see a deep tendency in myself to want to acknowledge the experiences of others as more authentic, more reliable than my own. That doesn’t just go away. And from a perspective of acceptance, it’s actually okay.”
There is a saying
“comparing my inside with others outside”.
What we see of others is the moving center. The moving center can imitate the acts of others. This can create the illusion of competency.
I tend to not value myself and my own individuality. Intellectually I can reason that I am not responsible for who and what I am. I created nothing, not the planet, the air , my family and can only vaguely remember my life. Yet I still feel guilt and shame over things I have no control over. I accept this I consider it better than indifference.
104 2b
“Active acceptance doesn’t fit with the program in the FOF. It would mean self-expression. Hmm. For those of you who still relate to the ideas of the Fourth Way, it might even mean… self-remembering.”
My understanding of acceptance as it has been developed in 12 step programs includes the idea of accepting yourself and the world as they are while maintaining an awareness of a higher power and also having the courage and will to do the will of a higher power.
This fits the description by Rodney Collin of the correct triad of self remembering and the idea of dividing attention into three parts.
William Blake spoke about this emotional state’ In a letter ( this is close but may contain errors I memorized this 30 years ago and cannot find the reference)
“I am under the direction of Angels from heaven both daily and nightly but the nature of such things is not as some may imagine without trouble or care. Oh no, temptation is on the right hand and on the left the sea of time roars right onward and if we fear to do the dictates of our Angels if we tremble at the task set before us who can describe the torment of such a state.”
Something I used as a mantra and still do is the serenity prayer.
“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. ”
In searching the Internet I found the rest of this prayer which I had not known of. IT seems so appropriate and does connect the christian religious tradition to some 4th way concepts.
“Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen. ”
–Reinhold Niebuhr
There are similar concepts in the Buddha’s teaching and in the I-Ching. The idea of will and fate are not something that can ever be resolved. An understanding of them leads to what in the Christian traditions is one of the great “mysteries” along with the nature of God and the trinity.
By mysteries I mean apparent contradictions. I have just come to live with contradiction as a normal part of life. Even a superficial process of self observation reveals how my understanding of anything changes just in one day according to my state and certainly over the course of my life I have held a number of different views.
As I wrote in other posts to me the process of reading and participating in this blog is changing my thoughts, attitudes and even my memory of the past. In a real sense it is part of forming a time body of self remembering by bringing consciousness back in time to memory.
I assume I speak for others in saying I did not intentionally join a cult and speaking for myself most of what I now see as the attitudes of a cult member where my own. I sat with Robert as he pontificated on “California falling into the ocean”, “The great depression” and “the nuclear holocaust”. My objection to Roberts approach to these prophecies long ago was not to reject them but confusion at his apparant indifference and incompetence in getting ready. Apparanyly he did not read science fiction.
I am personally happy to not have been in the time line that lead to armegedon ( at least so far for those of you who might like the idea of paralal Universes)
I never expected to be here at this time and it is just another layer off the onion that once again moving forward is the same as moving backwards.
163 Fat Boy
and Former Student, your the dumb shit, and I could give a shit who you are. I said to Joseph that he is one of the FEW who post there name.
This is indefensible. One , if you are a student you are under an agreement not to express negativity. You either honor this or not but it is a fact. When you do so in this format you are disrespecting your teacher and school. You are that lowest of characters -the hypocrite.
Two This is the exact kind of behavior that you criticize in others.
Duncan Shockley FOF 1973-1980 on greater Fellowship
websites
Stillpoint @yahoo groups to discuss the 4th way
for those interested in discussing the ideas of the 4th way
Webshots Scottduncan- art and personal photo’s
e-mail scottduncan@frys.com
166 Brain Police
“Again with respect, Duncan, if you really believe that the law of seven and law of three, or the six processes, or any intellectual concepts, are fundamental to awakening, you’re clinging to training wheels; you’re sounding like a fundamentalist citing chapter and verse as though you can’t get to heaven unless you know what it says in John 13:27, or unless you examine triads in your daily life. Thirty years after leaving the Fellowship you should at least consider giving the “work books” a rest and experience the world through some other lens, or, hopefully, none at all.”
Actually while you are trying to be civil and keep saying ” with due respect” this is not true. Triads and octaves are not theories. The system is not just an intellectual structure. I did put aside this material for many years. If you had read some of my earlier posts you would have saw where I stated that my use of this terminology is because this is what I saw, what I experienced and still do ( but only to a degree). I accept the possibility not unreasonable that this is a disillusion. I also accept the possibility that Ouspensky, Gurdjieff and Collin both experienced and believed in what they wrote and taught.
This is where we differ you apparently see these ideas as just one of a myriad of possible artificial intellectual constructs. this is OK you do not how ever consider the possibility that they could be accurate. To me this is simply a closed minded attitude and one I am finding very common in former Fellowship members. It is my observation that most of the former members I have had communication with consider the system as part of the Fellowship and something to put aside.
I try to maintain the same attitude that I brought to the study of the system from the beginning, which is to consider it a valid hypothesis and try to use the tools to test it.
I see triads , you do not. I hear triads I don’t know if you do but they exist. I cannot argue the existence of color to someone who is color blind. This is what is described in Plato’s tale of the Cave.
I first studied Plato in 1970. I instantly found the theory of forms and the idea of the higher dimension of ideals reasonable. I have read all of Ouspensky and find the theory of a six dimensional matrix acceptable.
I see intervals and octaves all around me. This is my reality it is not an intellectual concept. Try and accept that there may be ways of seeing and experiencing that you don’t understand.
So spare me any more pseudo intellectual harping. You have a familiar if anonymous voice.You only present a one sided approach you postulate and assume that the “system” is incorrect and in that approach my right to see and experience in my own way and form are denied.
If you wish to discuss this you need to separate the ideas from any question of my personal understanding. When you fail to do so you are insulting. It is fair to say you do not see, understand or accept the validity of the ideas of scale and relativity, that you believe that the law of seven and three are mere intellectual concepts. ( funny how this sounds so familiar) but it is a question of doubting my own consciousness of these things. To say that these ideas are false and not objective information means that you know what is objective. I don’t believe you do and unless you do try and practice the idea of scale and relativity.
179 Bruce
“I remember Roger C. (RIP) describing himself as a “take charge” guy who knows how to get things done. But until I left (he probably changed significantly) he was fucking unbearable to be around. People did things wrong just to screw him up.”
One time at Mt.Carmel there was an Octave of digging trenches for the electrical and phone lines. I learned how to operate a back hoe and worked on it. I also went into silence for 40 days. One of my simple pleasures was experiencing how negative and frustrated Roger became when I would not speak to him. I kept little note pads and communicated through gestures and notes.
Another small pleasure is when working with chain saws to clear land he would usually try to “fill the interval” when I took breaks, he liked to be physically aggressive and push into peoples space he would turn red trying to control himself when I would look him in the eye ( which meant looking down , ) and respond slowly.
I also had a theory that it was his job to ask me to do things and my job to be responsible for knowing what I could or could not do so I would say no. It was the same when I was Maitre”D when it was my job to ask people to do things.
Working with others under intense circumstances is a very real and successful tool used in transformational psychology in many forms. From the perspective of “right effort” and useful effort it is the aim and understanding that determines the value and success of the effort.
While I was working on the backhoe octave I found the process so boring that it was difficult to stay alert. I needed to find something that would help me focus my attention. So during the time I was in silence I memorized some 20 of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Memorizing a piece and reciting it internally over and over gives a different relationship than just reading. It is hard to realize that I memorized this 30 years ago. At that time I could barely imagine being 40 it seemed a long way in the future. and now the second to last line has an impact that is so different.
” This were to be new made when thou art old,”
To me Shakespeare is speaking of his higher self and it is true I am now old the the poem is as fresh as ever.
Sonnets of William Shakespeare
Sonnet 2
II.
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
191 Fat Boy
“Fuck you Bruce. Expect this type of response from for now on. In case you did not hear it Fuck off. Same to you Former Student.
Looks like August has got me”
Good, Good boy, yes its all right get it all out now, everything will be just Roses roses. Are you ready to talk about yourself yet or are you still looking outside for answers?
202 ton
welcome to the blog
I lived in a tent, I worked and lived in the tenderloin, was homeless etc, etc.
I was a student from 1973 to 1980. I had one sexual encounter with the Big Bobber in Phoenix. I was leaving in the Bay area at the Kensington house when I left because my wife and I had a daughter and she was leaving and I did not chose to have my wife and child not have me there. I was not fated to stay with them and often over the years regretted “Loosing the school” this blog has been of tremendous help in returning to past experiences and moving forward.
thank you former student. It’s been good to wake up this morning and read your posts.
Re: Post 217
Laura wrote:
“I just saw the “Leonard Cohen – I’m your man” tribute concert movie.
Well he’s mine for sure. Mr. Cohen, one of a a rare breed of poets – zen masters, inspires and shines with his presence in this loving portrait. He’s so deep that he makes me want to just dive in his eyes and drown my self there forever.”
Great movie with outstanding performances (although Bono is, as always, a pretentious windbag). As I get older, I find that a lot of Leonard’s songs mean more to me and move me more than Dylan’s. I love the fact that he left his teacher for a woman and wrote him an apology note! Leonard has his priorities in their proper order. Hallelujah!
Bruce/Greg
Over the next few days the men and women started trying to draw me in with their bizarre theories. Some of the were very extreme.
One morning I had a really bad feeling so I just got up, packed my backpack and slowly started walking along the road. As soon as I felt I was out of eyesight I started running. Two weeks later the Tate LaBianca muders took place.
Now that’s a crappy little cult!
a former student: Amen to the nth degree. For me I’m just barely scratching the surface in regards to the 4th way as brought forth to the West. So, I’m sticking with it.
Thanks for all your posts.
The hugh photograph that Veronicapoe provided at #247:
The person standing in front of “our teacher” is Jose G. He is the one I ran into placing bookmarks and he is the only one that came to visit me in the hospital.
Hello, Jose where ever you are.
Dear if memory serves,
thank you for your story!
I joined FOF after Miles left. I heard many good stories about him and he looks nice on the pictures. Please, tell us more about him! What is he doing these day?
Bruce and Graduates,
Have you googled Spawn Movie Ranch?
Someone I was once related to had an experience not unlike Bruce’s, at Wavy Gravy’s Hog Farm commune in Tujunga (San Fernando Valley).
What are the odds of three of us on this blog bumping against that? My bump is one step removed, but close enough that yours gave me chills.
Hey Duncan and Brain Police:
In my life I have studied astrology, and even met a few great astrologers in the Fellowship of Friends. One taught me how to locate planets like Mercury with my naked eye during the day, which is there if you know were to look. For a period of two years, I did daily planetary charts to correlate my observations and experiences on my small scale with what was happening in the heavens.
And yup, I saw plenty of cool stuff. The major planetary alignment called, the“Jupiter Effect”, occurred while I was in the group, which happened to be timed with the big depression Robert Burton predicted that didn’t occur. That was interesting to experience play out. (I hear there is still a big depression circulating in the membership, though.)
Still, I would notice that if something was happening with one of the planets up above, then sure enough, down below in little ole’ Renaissance, I would observe an effect or action would occur with or through a follower with that planetary or combination of planetary type(s).
Although, I realized and verified that there was great room for subjective error in my observations. And at the same time studying astrology was a wonderful study in synchronicity, and still is to this day for me. One of my close astrologer friends calls this, ‘living a planetary lifestyle”. It’s how my friend works on lowering identifications in his life, so he can return to a state of equilibrium faster when the planets above tip over the apple cart in our lives below. He likes to have the inside scoop from the outside in.
To me, that’s how ‘higher forces’ pulls our strings in a more or less general way on a large scale. It’s up to us to make the best of it. Of course, Robert Burton’s micromanagement style is reflected in how he preaches that ‘higher forces or c-influence’ give us more specific shocks through ideas of reference on a much smaller scale. Which I believe is his error.
Anyway, I eventually gave up the practice of planetary divination and took the Walt Whitman approach of just working in the present on transforming what came my way each day and radiating love. That simplified the fourth way for me.
When you reach an interval, make stronger efforts. That’s what the law of seven means to me now. How could you abandon or dispute that?
And I can tell emotionally what is the wrong triad way before I can put a label on it, can’t you?
A little more Leonard Cohen, this one seems to me strangely pertinent.
The Future, dedicated to RB:
Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that’s an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
You don’t know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I’m the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
but love’s the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It’s over, it ain’t going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil’s riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder
Things are going to slide …
There’ll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There’ll be phantoms
There’ll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You’ll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin’
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby:
it is murder
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=AX6cZ7k8r3w
To: 263, A former Student: Fuck You.
To: 264, A former Student: Good post.
To: 265, A former Student: Frankly, I am not in the mood of reminiscing or bashing FOF.
Whalerider, we posted exactly the same minute so I got to read yours only after, I just wanted to say I’ve come to such a similar place at this time in my life… I think it’s a very good sign when the work becomes quite simple…
it’s not easy, it’s just not complicated
Sorry to A Former Student: I ment Fuck You in 262, not 263.
Former student, sometimes you’re so funny when someone pushes your 4th way buttons.
“I see triads , you do not. I hear triads I don’t know if you do but they exist. I cannot argue the existence of color to someone who is color blind.”
I know! It sound so familiar. This is what Robert is doing too these days, exactly that, the difference is he now sees Sequence everywhere. You should hear him, Former Student! For him (and his devotees) it’s completely, totally real. He sees Sequence everywhere, he labels all kinds of simple things as a sequence. And from this perspective you’re completely blind if you don’t see it his way.
Funny isn’t it?
How about trying to just see WHAT IS without additional labeling – triads, octaves, intervals, 30 starts, sequences etc. Just for fun, to clear the mind for a change.
We usually SEE simple things, and then we THINK other things out. For some it’s labeled triads, for another – sequences, for yet another – some other intellectual or religious explanation of observed simplicity. Who is right? Who is blind? Why assign this additional meaning to what simply is, and argue over the intellectual meaning?
All we really see is various objects and their movements. We experience various thoughts, sensations and feelings.
You can label it in your mind as you want and connect it in any intellectual patters you want! Weave your own rug and fly on it in your own imagination.
Or – keep it really simple, and enjoy things as they are, without judgment and assigned deeper meaning.
And it’s all good! Who is to say who is blind?
I really enjoy (and prefer) your true stories, please keep them coming.
It’s hard to imagine that FatBoy is anything other than another member of the tag team hired to “reduce the level” of the discussion here to “negativity,” which in turn supposedly will discredit the blog (so the theory goes) in the eyes of current followers and “prospective students” who might be reading this. Other tag-team members have used slightly different approaches, but the one common goal of these efforts to distract people from the real issues — that something is seriously wrong within the Fellowship, and that there’s a rich, rewarding, and spiritual life outside the Fellowship for those who want to discover it.
The thing is, each and every tag-team member has failed to distract anyone from these issues. Far from it… They’ve helped bring the issues even more into focus, and have evoked some of the best commentary throughout the blog. Meanwhile, the stories keep coming.
—————–
On a related topic, I really liked David B.’s comments above (around #249). An excerpt:
“However, if a current member gets on here and can be somewhat honest, and at least begin to acknowledge some of the problems in the Fellowship, and express some of their doubts about RB, I think I would be inclined to respond a bit more kindly and try to do what I can to encourage them to open their minds up.
“I’m glad to hear that there are lots of big parties where current and ex members are mingling. I would imagine that there aren’t a lot of real hardcore current FOFers at those gatherings. They would probably be afraid that they would be contaminated by the evil lower center energy from the ex-members. At any rate, maybe it will be an opportunity for some of those that are wavering on the fence to finally ‘break on through to the other side’.”
Worth reading the entire post if you missed it the first time. Thanks for writing, David.
I had a dream once:
I’m walking down a flight of stairs on Piazza San Marco in Venice (never been there in real life). People and pigeons everywhere. As I’m coming down the stairs I see Peter Ouspensky standing at the bottom, feeding the pigeons popcorn from a rumpled, brown bag. He looks up at me as I reach the step before his. He squints and seems to be carefully studying my face. Or, maybe the setting sun is in his eyes. Suddenly he says, “Oh,” and wistfully looks down at the pigeons at his feet. He looks back at me and says, “Listen, I just want to apologize for…” I cut him off before he finishes his sentence and say, “No need, man, no need.”
I now notice that Peter has some sort of twine sash tied around his shoulder; it secures a bright red ukulele which he has tucked under his left arm. He makes a waving motion with his hand and nods his head as he tosses the bag of popcorn into the air. The pigeon population explodes into the air and I watch in slow motion as every kernel is snatched up before it hits the ground. Ouspensky has turned and is slowly strolling away from me. He has taken the uke from under his arm and is softly strumming along to a tune he is whistling. What is that tune, What is that tune? My very life seems to hinge on knowing the name of the tune. Then it comes to me: “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.” And then it was over.
256 is newly moderated.
Fat Boy:
To: 263, A former Student: Fuck You.
To: 264, A former Student: Good post.
To: 265, A former Student: Frankly, I am not in the mood of reminiscing or bashing FOF.
I just wanted you to see, once again, what you wrote. I could put a label on each line but I’ll leave that to you. Wake up, boy, wake up.
241 Morgan Le Fay
“When you sling shit at Fat Boy, you are slinging shit at most current students; the mindset is representative of many – to varying degrees”.
True, many are a lot more indoctrinated and severely convinced of the righteousness of the Fellowship than Fat Boy. These are actually the most well meaning, harmless and defenseless. They’ve simply being supporting and doing their best for over 20 years. But they are also willing to shut their ears and eyes and not listen to anyone outside or inside the Fellowship questioning them for supporting an institution mostly dedicated to guaranteeing sexual and economic satisfaction for Robert.
“Leaving the FOF doesn’t suddenly justify condemning current members”.
It is not about “condemning” current members but being able to look together at the mass behavior that allowed us to neglect each other and worship Robert, Girard and now Asaf, who is being put in the role to draw young blood and continue to “legitimate” the Fellowship. This is what older students in the Fellowship are doing to younger, idealistic students, still under the spell of external authorities, idolatries.
There is an ENORMOUS distance between the objectiveness of an institution as a valid human experiment and the subjectivity of our likes and dislikes. We can like or dislike each other as much as we wish but if we wish to move into the objectivity of human values, it is necessary to catapult ourselves beyond likes and dislikes and hold to what is right. Every single life institution still functions, like the Fellowship, with the subjective like and dislikes between people and people have to sell their souls to the few in power of any kind to be able to participate. Participation is our birthright and it is what those in power in the Fellowship and everywhere else in life, have instinctively taken hold of to deny others the right to participate. This is why people in life starve physically and why people in false schools starve spiritually.
What is being discussed here is not the right students have to share some coffee; what is being questioned is the right students have to decide who sits at the table. Why, in what was supposed to be a Conscious School, it is money and the capacity to sell their soul against the rest, what decides who sits at the table.
The fact that the Fellowship has loosened its tightrope today is
a very coherent move not designed for the students that it has already lost but for the students it has not yet lost to make them believe that it is not nearly as coercive as exstudents are stating.
The coerciveness in the Fellowship is not about what students say outside of the Fellowship, it is about what students cannot say inside the Fellowship and what they cannot say inside the Fellowship of Friends is: I AM.
ALL THEY CAN SAY INSIDE THE FELLOWSHIP IS: HE IS.
We, like everybody else in life, have learnt to conjugate the verb as:
I am not
You are not
She is not
We are not
You all are not
HE IS, Robert Burton is the only one who IS here but that is a LIE.
This is the verb that who ever is still a student is conjugating and I will stand against it wherever he or she stands. It is not the right to be what is being questioned, it is the act of not letting others “be” what is being assaulted because no paraphernalia of hierarchies will in the future hold any human being from participating in the community that he belongs to, the Community of Human Beings. This is not a right that any individual will have to fight for in the future because this is the right that we have to fight for in the present.
Each student ought to be able to pose to himself: I am human enough to decide what is done with my money, my children and my wife, my husband and my friends. Am I conscious enough if I have to pay for the manipulation of young men to sexually satisfy another human being who says and most around here hold, is a conscious being? What kind of consciousness is the one I am paying for? What kind of school can legitimate such standards?
It may be that in the past and still today because there is such a lack of consciousness, power, “status” is conditioned by money and in the Fellowship of Friends Robert could not have rubbed this fact on our noses more crudely but anyone human enough to have experienced these humiliation for having loved, will come out of it knowing that there is no money that can buy the soul’s authority and no one has to pay for being.
It is not “friendships” that I came to buy in the Fellowship of Friends, it is “consciousness” and no friendship or lover will ever bribe my soul to give it up to justify the horrors of the Fellowship.
Thank you If Memory serves (258) for actualizing Miles’ story. My husband told me that Miles had left because he thought he was superior to Robert and wanted to open a school of his own, which failed. Thank you David B and Morgan Le fay and all of you for sharing your being on this blog that so many look down on as being a cheap sidewalk, because they are so afraid of letting go of the pedestal that they’ve been paying for.
For those interested, Fellowship of Friends, Inc. v. County of Yuba (1991) is now online:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheEsotericHistoryArchive_554
274 Was KathleenW
I received a private email from a friend here who also has a Spawn Ranch story to tell me from the same time period. I’m waiting to hear.
Geez Sheik, I thought you were not going to comment on my posts anymore! If you don’t want me to respond back to you then shut the fuck up.
Here is your Shit below:
Everyone here is out to get you, everyone here persecutes members of the FoF on sight, no-one ever leaves them to say a word (except for you of course). They are all worthless scumbags, less intelligent than the ex and non members around here, they have less sense, not forgetting that they smell bad. That’s exactly what we think and what we try to make everyone realize. That’s what we do, that’s what we live for. We love it.
Fat Boy, you have some serious work to do. Day Care is closed, go home to papa.
287
Too much.
19/282 Kid Shelleen Ouspensky dream: Awesome!!! Beautiful.
Laura, your da bomb
Wurd
212
joel, ‘ton is a shortened version of carlton (i never liked that name).
still trying to figure out what this thing is about… the details of individual involvement with fof seems almost beside the point… what is the point here anyway? i hope that doesn’t sound rude or flippant…
“After leaving, understanding the balance between personal responsibility for our actions and decisions on the one hand, and the reality of mind control and undue persuasion on the other, can be quite tricky. But it seems a key to healing to me.”
ya i still wrestle with that. on one hand an individual in that situation is making decisions for himself, right? but consider the situation, the ‘environment.’ i do question in retrospect, the reasons for following certain courses in life, for choices made, i have to remind myself of the initial idealism… the naivete of youthful idealism is best left behind anyway.
the point ? for me, at the moment, if the material on this site were to somehow help prevent further exploitations by rb… ?
Bruce 288,
I know your capable of responding more intelligently and when you do then I will also to respond to you intelligently. For now, Fuck you.
Hello. I haven’t posted for a long time, but I check in and read a couple of times a week. Or more. It helps some, but I’d like to hear more about how people who have been in the Fellowship are finding ways to forgive themselves. I find myself so permeated with rage and self hatred for abdicating my life for 30 years that I can’t seem to figure out how pick up the threads of being human, of finding some joy once in a while in how beautiful the world is. I know it still is, but I can’t get there. Joseph G.? Janna? Veronicapoe? Laura? (Leonard Cohen helps a lot and plays virtually non-stop in my car). Anyway, thanks to you all for your postings.
264
Duncan:
Your assumptions that because I consider the law of three, etc. intellectual constructs I do not see triads or octaves, have never properly understood the ideas, and consider them false are all incorrect. I consider them very accurate descriptions of reality. The law of three has for good reason been a part of most traditions for thousands of years, in the form of the three gunas in Samkya and ayurveda (rajas, sattva, and tamas), the Christian trinity, the Hindu trinity, Taoism, and so forth. Perceiving and formulating the law of octaves is a stroke of genius; I’ve found it useful for decades. On the level of such things it is certainly very real. But only relatively real.
Even objective knowledge consists of intellectual constructs that describe reality. They are not reality, and like every other intellectual construct they are ultimately limiting if a person insists that his constructs are more objective, more real, than everyone else’s intellectual constructs.
More important than all of that, I’m sorry if you also consider my saying these things uncivil; you may be taking something personally that was not intended to be. It isn’t about Duncan, but about identification with constructs. But I apologize regardless. I’ve got nothing whatsoever against you. I see you’re a very sincere person trying to make your way through this world, just like me.
I am
You are
He is
She is
We are
You are
They are
The question is not “To be or not to be”, the question is
“Who is not?”
WhaleRider 275:
“When you reach an interval, make stronger efforts. That’s what the law of seven means to me now. How could you abandon or dispute that?”
I agree completely.
Shelley, Thank you for your Talking with Angels. There were many valuable moments and this morning I woke up with the one that said “When you really listen, you can even hear the rocks speaking”
This is what I heard from my friends about Miles:
When Miles left the Fellowship he wrote a general letter that expressed profound grattitude to Robert and sincere regret to all of his friends. When Robert told him he was making a mistake Miles replied that ‘If I can verify that I will return on bended knee.” (Robert’s response was that ‘We are all on bended knee here’ and he told Miles that he would be accepted if he wanted to return) Miles called Robert several years after he left the school and spoke about rejoining… but he obviously did not rejoin.
Somebody (297): “Miles called Robert several years after he left the school and spoke about rejoining.”
Maybe someone else can confirm this. But I find this part very hard to believe given everything else I’ve heard regarding Miles and his comments about the Fellowship while he was in the process of leaving. Also, hypothetically, if he did ask RB if he could return, it’s very unlikely that RB would have allowed him to return. I didn’t take Miles’ “bended knee” comment as being deferential to Robert in any way. Miles was basically saying, “The ‘if’ is a very big ‘if.’ “
297
“We are all on bended knee here.”
From what folks have been saying about RB’s practices, he must have been using the royal “we.”
299 Brain Police
““We are all on bended knee here.”
Aphorisms from a lazy mind. He used to do it constantly. and it sometimes appeared he was profound, at least he thought so. Once we were pulling into SF in one of the Mercedes sports cars. He said to park in a handicapped zone. When I told him we couldn’t he said “We are all handicapped goodness”. Incidentally, I was uninsurable for a few years when I was on salary due to driving like I was told to do.
We were driving back to the ranch and some neighbor’s chickens ran out into the street and we flattened them. He said “just another way to eat chickens goodness”.
He’s developed a colossal sense of entitlement.
300 Bruce
I assumed he was just acknowledging his sexual predilections to Miles, or perhaps it was an invitation.
302
That too. But it was interesting how often he would say “We are all……….. goodness” to show his humility,
It was his own version of “We are all equally beggars”. When he said “we” he actually meant everyone except him.
Bruce (297): “He’s developed a colossal sense of entitlement.”
A friend told me a story once long ago. They were “traveling” with Robert somewhere on a secluded road in the Sierras. All of the men in the car were drinking from the same bottle of scotch and laughing and having a great time, and Robert took the last swig and hurled it out the window as the Lexus was speeding down the highway — obviously concerned in case the California Highway Patrol happened to pull them over. The story left an impression on me. That was my first glimpse into that side of Robert — reckless, irresponsible, or at least showing lack of judgment. Not the calm and loving facade that he presented to most of us.
Later, I heard stories about his propensity to have his driver speed at 90 miles per-hour or more in 55 mph zones…. this from multiple sources. On one occasion long ago, one of Robert’s closer ex-students was driving at very high speeds — the car went into a spin on curvy road and nearly went out of control. That might have been “it” right there, both for my friend, and for RB.
This is not only a comment on the speeding, or the drinking while traveling in a speeding vehicle, but also on the attitude beneath the behavior (as mentioned by Bruce above). And what I also find interesting is how this kind of behavior rubbed off on many other students. I’ve met several who routinely would drive down the highway with a beer in hand, as though there was nothing at all risky in that behavior. And of course, no, there was never any “task” in the Fellowship related to drinking while under the influence.
Is it just me, or does reading those quotes of Robert addressing everyone as “Goodness” make others want to puke also?
292 and 294 are newly moderated.
Fat Boy has been banned from the discussion.
307
It’s not just you. Maybe just me and you.
297 Somebody: Part of the impetus for me writing my post above about our leavetaking was to set the record straight to the best of my ability. I also wanted to address just the sort of imaginary conversations you heard that might have become part of fof lore. For the record, we never considered re-joining.
310
But it wouldn’t be surprising if RB subtly started that rumor.
Abigail
Rage, self-hatred….
For believing obvious absurdities, fairy tales designed for the credulous. For being used as sexmeat while hating it. Or for not hating it as much as we thought we should. For throwing money that could have been used for education, for retirement, for a home, for useful charity into a bottomless pit used for a fraud’s self-indulgence at the expense of those who trusted him. For being naive about what was really going on. For knowing what was really going on and staying around anyway, and paying good money to do it. For alienating those we loved and who loved us because we imagined we were superior. For doing so even though we knew we weren’t superior. For squeezing ourselves into clothes we didn’t like to listen to music we didn’t like while watching performances we didn’t like, and pretending we did. For feeling like we should have learned in a year lessons it took us ten, twenty, or thirty years to learn. For years of feeling smug and self-righteous about something we now see as a humiliating illustration of our vanity, our naivete, or our lack of courage. For wasting precious time. For knowing that the con, the abuse continues.
Oh, yes, there’s plenty to feel rage and self-hatred about, but “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
There are far more reason to be grateful.
I’m grateful that I was given the opportunity to see my weaknesses; had I had fewer of them, I might not have needed such a powerful lesson. I’m grateful that I’ve been permitted to learn from them that I am not worth any less, or any more, than any other person, plant, animal, or rock. I’m grateful that I’ve been allowed to continue my life, and work on those weaknesses, and make something of the time I have left. I’m grateful that I have children that make my heart burst. I’m glad to have lived to taste a mango. I’ve seen the sunrise, and I will see the sunset. If I’m lucky, I may be allowed help relieve the pain for someone, somewhere.
Dear Abigail
In 294 you wrote “I find myself so permeated with rage and self hatred for abdicating my life for 30 years that I can’t seem to figure out how pick up the threads of being human, of finding some joy once in a while in how beautiful the world is.”
Writing that note seems to be picking up a thread. When did you leave? I left at the end of May.
People seem to have very different reactions to the experience… it took from the end of November when the first glimmerings of reality began to break through my ‘believing’ fog, to the moment of writing the goodbye note.
To me even those first glimmerings felt good; they were beckonings from a brighter world… A world full of Life people who are ‘being’ in a way which is awesome, and humbling.
Lots of them write here on this discussion; am learning things every day. There are occasional rushes of shame. Repulsion towards Robert. A wish for others escape him.
A friend asked me if I was grateful for anything I had learned in the school. Had to tell her the truth and say ‘No’. It feels as though RB was teaching us how to be less present. But there isn’t so much Naiveté about teachers now, and more certainty about what awakening is not, that’s precious.
Some of my student friends are angry though. Would be curious too, read about how others who have been out longer, have come to terms with their fellowship years…
293 Brain Police
“Even objective knowledge consists of intellectual constructs that describe reality. They are not reality, and like every other intellectual construct they are ultimately limiting if a person insists that his constructs are more objective, more real, than everyone else’s intellectual constructs.”
I am not sure of what point you are making. I stated a number of times over the course of several pages that I also put aside the ideas of the 4th way and it was only as a result of other experiences that I returned to the language and ideas. The system is a useful tool to explain my experiences. My recent academic work also provided an opportunity to show the validity of the system as a tool for organizing ones thinking as it enabled me to approach diverse disciplines each with its own language and theoretical perspectives and by seeing how they fit into a larger framework be able to relatively easily manipulate the concepts.
Going back to post #166
“Again with respect, Duncan, if you really believe that the law of seven and law of three, or the six processes, or any intellectual concepts, are fundamental to awakening, you’re clinging to training wheels;”
This is were we disagree. First let me point out I don’t recall asking your opinion on awakening etc. This is an area were one needs to be cautious about venturing personal suggestions.
What I have stated and believe is that Ouspensky, Gurdjieff and Collin all stressed the importance of these concepts in their work. I choose to believe these were sincere individuals who in their way did their best to assist me by providing objective information. I have studied and applied these ideas for over thirty years and the theories are still accurate and useful for me.
Some parts I have absorbed more than others . My own experiences of higher states and efforts to study and become familiar with life in general have lead me to believe this is accurate information. The law of three and law of seven are correct ideas. The 6 processes are correct.
When you say to think this way is an indication that my approach to awakening is that of one still using training wheels it is a personal attack on my understanding. It implies that you Mr. Anonymous poster are the one who has come to a realization of a higher knowledge. I see nothing that indicates to me that you possess any higher knowledge I desire to gain.
My other point was and is in relation to former fellowship members who appear to not have studied the so called “4th way material”, who would be unable to write down the 6 processes, diagram an enneagram or write out the table of hydrogens and transmission of forces. This is basic theory. Apparently this lack of intellectual work was a general rule in the Fellowship. I am not saying that the study of the theory is the desired result of the 4th way but rather the beginning.
The idea of being practical and going beyond theory applies to those who have learned the theories. Those who did not learn the ideas prior to or while in the school and now proclaim they have “given up the system” need a good kick in the ass to indicate that you cannot give up what you never had. This is my perspective not an objective view and it applies particularly to those who did not study the system and now do not have a good grasp of non dualism yet cannot restrain them selves from posting theoretical gibberish.
I mean gibberish. Sentences that maintain no inner logic Uses of undefined terms to explain other terms. Perhaps this comes back to the need for a being on a certain level to overcome the inherent contradictions that occur whenever we use language to explain higher states.
This is not a question of the relative objective value of the information. They are not compatible and cannot be compared. The system is designed as a theoretical framework to simplify thinking. This only applies to those who already have a complex thought structure it would seem obvious that the simple minded do not need this approach.
I myself have always thought too much and a system that provides a point of focus and structure is a useful tool for me. Both non dualism and the system lead to the experience of the moment. That they start at a different point explains all I need to know about why they differ. The largest difference is that those who have posted on non dualism concentrate on states which fundamentally are indescribable. You cannot and do not know my states.
Use of the system in this context is meant to be external consideration. Most individuals on the blog are familiar with the ideas. If you have a hang up about, get over it. My intellectual constructs that describe reality are in my art work. In this I am either mad or enlightened as I hold to an idea that those who have any real inner development should be able to read them just like a book. So in my limited little world if you cannot read these or are not interested leave me alone. I am not a teacher and don’t like explaining myself.
Here is an example. I did this back in the 1980’s. The idea is this. This is an essay. It is designed specifically to be read only by someone who can control attention for 2 minutes. So look at it for two minutes and tell me what you think.
http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/1000812561000601390
Life Person (312)
Bravo! Well said.
For myself, and some others I’ve spoken to over the years, things change once you start to reclaim yourself.
I still deal with the inner negativity from what went on, but after a few years I can’t deny that it changed my entire view of life on earth.
Except during the times when I’m exposing my stuff “here” I’m truely happy about most aspects of my life. I know many people who can’t get a grip that they “threw away” so many years of their lives. I don’t feel that way. Who I am today is a result of EVERYTHING that came before. Feeling the way I do now, I can’t truthfully regret what did or didn’t happen. For me it happened the way it was supposed to.
At the same time, and not negating the above, crimes were perpetrated on me and innumerable people. I can have the damage not predominantly effect my life, and I can evoke it and look at it when it’s appropriate.
I’m guessing that over time you will come to reclaim the good parts of yourself, and feed them. And you will probably be a point where you like who you are. But remember that who you become is part and parcel of where you’ve been. There’s no way around it.
But, then again, what of the unfortunate souls who didn’t survive this trial. There are too many to say to oneself… Well it’s ok because I survived. It’s our responsibility, which we are doing here, to let all the people know the possible permutations of damage that are a result of RB’s crimes.
Both are true.
Dear Abigail, you said
“I’d like to hear more about how people who have been in the Fellowship are finding ways to forgive themselves. I find myself so permeated with rage and self hatred for abdicating my life for 30 years that I can’t seem to figure out how pick up the threads of being human, of finding some joy once in a while in how beautiful the world is.”
I am truly sorry that you feel rage and anger.
The way I look at it: what happened – happened. I don’t believe that I or you could have changed anything. I remember some quote from Gourgieff or Ouspensky about things being only as they are, and “huge planetary forces” are standing behind every little thing or event in our lives. I always loved that quote. Whether it is true or not about huge forces – it helps to accept things as they are (or were).
From this prospective rage at “lost” or “wasted” time doesn’t make sense. If you could have done something else – you would have. I don’t feel any anger at myself for doing what I did. I had not much choice – stuff had to happen this way. I didn’t know any better then.
I guess, this was my deal – to spend 12 best years of my life in a cult. OK, so I did. Now it’s finally over, and it feels great! It’s like a movie I went to see – may be it was intense, captivating, emotional, dramatic. Or it sucked and now I feel like I wasted my money…
But the movie is over. Time to go home, have some dinner and a glass of wine or something. There may be still 30 or more years left in life, would be nice to enjoy it.
We have these things happen through life all the time – failed marriages, jobs that didn’t work out, friendships that ended… If we look at all this as mistakes, then most of life is wasted. But it is not, I think this is what life exactly is about – try this and that, experience, learn. Fall, raise, try again. Until the game is over.
I certainly like to warn others against FOF experience, just like anyone would kindly warn a friend against a bad movie. For me it’s simply a human act of compassion to warn other sincere spiritual seekers against a possible trap of FOF. But I understand that this is my subjective view, and some people will still try it, just like some kids still go to the army knowing about dangers of war… It’s just their deal, their play so to speak, this is what is supposed to happen to them in this life.
I am simply grateful for this life, whatever it brought, it’s so nice to live and do stuff!
Best of luck to you Abigail, much love to you.
284 Elena
Thank you Elena for taking the time to respond to this post in such a well reasoned and clear tone. I felt it deserved some response but certainly not as civil as that which you produced.
I do not feel that currant members of the Fellowship deserve any of my respect. I just don’t care that much. It is true that I have not been a member for a long time and have no ties to individuals. The core of my objection is that individuals living around Oregon House who seem to be who this post is about deserve nothing for having parties with currant and former members in attendance.
Big fucking deal, the only reason this is occurring is because of the blog. As long as there is one student who has to undergo having a sexual interaction with a predator, as long as the structure supports false Prophets like Boobert, ASSaf and Girard it is not O K.
Once it becomes OK to speak about the same subjects with the same freedom as on the blog at official Fellowship events then I will say good.
The Fellowship lives on a construction of lies. There are many reading the blog who bit by bit are changing their thinking. The blog brings freedom of expression to the Fellowship on a world wide basis. Many who have never been close enough to experience the perversion and lies that surround the great Boobeeee ( say it internally slowleeee short Boo to startle oneself awake then long Beeeee to maintain a moment of presence) Are hearing of situations for the first time. When someone like Elena who was there testifies that these are facts there are those who will listen.
Yet it is not enough to say the truth once but it needs to be repeated over and over as the pressure to continue the denial continues. Try not to be naive there are those within the Fellowship who understand full well the nature of the lies, manipulations, and abuses and actively support these practices as their own lives have become dependent on them. They have exchanged money, prestige and power for any spiritual growth.
As for those who have devoted their lives to being Roberts disciples unfortunately I think they deserve what they have earned which is the responsibility for every young man who was fed to the beast, every young magnetic center that was damaged , all the suffering the financial mismanagement and pressures have caused for so many, the sorrows that the young woman had to endure in silence as their lovers and husbands became emotionally wounded and unable to express a healthy sexual and emotional relationship.
Those who continue to be in denial and want to continue on with out addressing the core issues are the same superficial ones who acted as enablers all along.
The ones who deserve compassion are Kimo Beech
Randolph Giddings and others who are dead and cannot experience this opportunity to hear the truth that it is the divine Robert that is at fault not them.
To all those who came to the Fellowship and brought their highest ideals and dreams and were abused and had their self confidence shattered , their sense of self worth abused and their conscience stifled and destroyed. These are the victims who need to have someone speak out and denounce those currant members who don’t want to accept their part in the play of crime.
So Morgan La Fay in case you didn’t get it I am not sympathetic.
294/Abigail
Drop me a line at veronicapoe@gmail.com. Maybe we can talk privately.
Duncan:
Thanks for taking the trouble to post 314. I did what I could to put the issues into perspective in my 293, so no need for me to repeat it. I read some of your response to say, “Well, just because you say you didn’t mean it personally and you’re sorry to have offended doesn’t mean I’m not going to take it personally and let you know, again, that I think you’re a jerk,” which I’ll take as a good lesson that I should think twice before offering unsolicited statements that might hurt someone’s feelings. Good point.
As far as nonduality goes, you may not have been directing that to me, since I’m not one of the bloggers spreading the nondual doctrine. Like all valid approaches we can deceive ourselves to turn it into a justification for doing whatever we want.
I did look at your picture. I thought it was beautiful. Did I miss something?
Dear Abigail:
Here’s a simple little exercise that works for me when I notice feelings of shame or self-hatred arising.
As soon as I notice the painful images or thoughts in my mind, I close my eyes, open my heart space and say silently, “I forgive myself”. Thankfully, the images or thoughts stop reoccurring.
Nobody else is going to do that for you.
Robert requires sexual intimacy from his young friends
Love Malcolm
Bob, the old Kinky of Clubs,
Likes to jack off the young men he loves,
He will use his mouth and bare fist,
As the fellers can hardly insist,
as they would, if they could, he wear gloves.
# Elena Says: From Part 9
May 13, 2007 at 9:50 pm
To Abigail and friends,
I want to thank you for your post which much impressed me. There is so much sincerity in it that before the words and the suffering, is the source of love.
Allow me to not believe that you find yourself untouched by such despised weaknesses as warm feelings or remorse toward people you hurt. This is not really what your letter is about. What your are exposing in the purest way, is the fact that people in the fellowship acquire a tremendous ability to hurt others, the closer to Robert they become. Ironically not to Robert who is close to no one but to the imaginary picture of themselves connected to a higher being, authority. That phenomenon, that willingness to hurt others justified by serving a higher being, is what is so dangerous about patriarchal, authoritarian structures in cults or social orders. Fascism was the ultimate expression of such tendency.
You have described the horrendous process that takes place as we indoctrinate each other in the “form” of the school or the formless, merciless second line.
It is not only Sandra or Joel, but all of us in different degrees.
In the process of healing what we all need to understand is that we connected to the Fellowship form with both our strengths and weaknesses, but in dealing with what we think are our weaknesses, we must be able to see the power and the beauty behind the weakness.
Weaknesses in the Fellowship are the desire to be and to participate, to love, to play, to work. Strengths in the Fellowship are to submit, to work like a robot in any octave, to lower yourself before Robert or Robert’s assistants, close and long range supporters who decide wether you are ‘good enough’ to participate, to be a part of the whole.
We all tried both, that is, we all wanted to love from our innermost beauty and took roles in which our features hurt ourselves and others. We all tried to be part of what we thought was the will of a conscious teacher, we each gave our measure of work, love and play and we were each confronted with the fact that the Fellowship is a “being” consuming machine.
No one counts in the Fellowship besides Robert and those willing to support him have given themselves up and have totally submitted, most particularly Girard, my husband, who became the ideal model of the good student and asked anyone who was not willing to submit in the same way he was willing to submit, to leave or to accept not participating in the life of the School, with the slight difference that unlike anybody else, he was the “chosen” one. One with the Whole, the whole of Robert.
All of our plays will look like children’s delight faced with the play between Robert and Girard. They have been the artifices of each other’s fall and they have been so with the best intention. Intention alone is not enough because the feature will carry it down the darkest road, when power remains unchecked and they did not even check each other but protected unconditionally each other’s weaknesses.
Sandra and Joel, Abigail and the rest of us who have left are just survivors who were in the gracefulness of our weaknesses, unable to submit the whole of our being. Thank God for weakness.
It is wonderfully interesting and necessary to be able to look at our selves and know the deep impulses that pushed us to participate in the Fellowship in whatever role it was, because beyond the ambition to be someone in a significant role, is also the willingness of essence to be a part of the whole. When one can understand that, one can let go of the judgement that sees only ambition and embrace the spiritual “whim” (as Meher Baba called it), that wished to participate.
To live is the act of affirming the consciousness of our integrity and the fragments of our unconsciousness is what creates separation between ourselves and others. The blessing of friction is that it is only attacking our unconsciousness. The damages that most of us suffered in the Fellowship were damages to personality but the prolonged continuation of the Fellowship in its momentum to consistently deny students the ability to participate, has the horrendous potential to create prolonged damages in essence.
It is worth noting that M.Baba did not call it “desire” but “whim” because there is a difference when personality desires to i.e. marry Girard Haven so that one can “have a role” to the whim in essence that wishes to love a man and a community.
It is this difference between a desire and a wish that allows us to transform judgement into understanding. A desire is the other side of the coin of a wish and it is perfectly legitimate if the essential impulse does not degenerate into antisocial behavior, because it is in the community that the individual can develop himself in the Way of Life. The problem with the Fellowship of Friends is that it aborted the community and gave birth to a more than a few narcissistic, sex maniacs.
All the friction and pain we have endured against each other, has both components. Amongst us we judge each other in personality because personality alone can only see the desire, the ambition, the feature, the greed, but to heal, we must be able to see beyond personality the beauty with which we all sincerely wished to love and be………loved.
It is with this same rod that we need to understand Robert, Girard, Linda, Karen, Rowena, Steven, Guinever, Meredith, Collin, Robert, Kevin, Elizabeth, Frances, Elena, whalerider, Asaf, Mihai or Maurizio or any one else amongst us.
Judging each other, that is, recognizing that we have stolen each others being, lied about what the school is, and fed on each other’s weakness to support our own or Robert’s role, is as necessary a step as acknowledging that it was all, sadly, done in good will. The will to develop a conscious school in which we hoped to give our selves up to the whole but instead, gave our selves up to Robert and Girard.
In this perspective, we will not have finished healing until we can redeem them, for Robert and Girard and their close supporters are the most damaged. Robert did not become a narcissistic sex maniac in one day, or on his own, he developed it because he was supported by all of us. It is not conscious crime for there is nothing conscious about crime but precisely because it is unconscious spiritual crime, it needs to be transformed.
Those inside still sincerely believe that it is a conscious school and it is the love, the suffering they’ve put in it, the buffer that does not let them see the horror in which it has developed. Did Ouspensky not teach us that the most difficult thing for people to give up, is unnecessary suffering?
Individually, each one of us has to find enough compassion within himself to know that beyond the greed for a role, the ambition for a place in the hierarchy, was the deep spiritual “need”, “whim”, “love”, “desire”, the absolutely legitimate urge TO BE one with the whole, the absolutely legitimate right to belong to a human community.
And as a community, we must find enough compassion in ourselves to embrace the most damaged amongst us including Robert and Girard.
What is being digested on this blog in letters like Abigail’s or anybody else’s suffering, is the poisons that made us sick and we do need to recognize the poison to apply the antidote if we are to come to any healing. Hopefully we can do that now so that we don’t have to dwell on it for another three or four lifetimes. Time counts for or against us and the only consciousness that will prove worthy in our play is that we transform our suffering with infinite compassion.
Thank you Abigail and again, greatly thankful to Lady B, and each one of you for your participation in this blog, including Exlax, and who ever seems trapped in the horrors of greater pain.
Daily card:
“We have a beautiful inner circle, and no shortage of serious students.
Love, Robert”
(P.S. We do have a shortage of teaching payments. Seriously.
S.O.S., Robert)
On being an accomplice
I have gotten a lot of mileage from being your friend. Dropping your name here and there. The most wonderful and mystical contact me. Tell him how much he meant to me.
Magically, you have reappeared but we are still talking in platitudes. Arms length, politesse. Time and distance has not benefitted us.
Not always like that, loved you like a brother; you loved me like a sister. All those early mornings of making lunches for school, remember, me for my mine, and you for you. How can you eat the same lunch day after day, I would say? Remember, what was your excuse, Saturn, or Jack, Well boring, boring I would say. You have no comprehension, you would say. We had such good fun you and I. Laughing, laughing and the clock had not struck seven.
Got me into trouble a few times, way too protective, no need to call in the guards. Tough as nails I am, never convinced you. Seen me a few too many times face down in the dirt weeping.
But still it is true, tough as nails I am. I could have taken it, you could have told me anything. Cared for you so.
You were never the same after your return. Something was wrong, too troubled, never could share it. Casting dark shadows before and aft. Me, never aware of what it might have been.
Even still I am not sure, only suspecting, only inferring. only guessing. And, if true would answer all questions.
Too fair, too tender for such an experience, it would have violated your very soul. You could have told me. You could have said something. Cared for you so. Maybe could have even helped, some how, any how.
But me continuing to open up and you continuing to shut down. And it began, further and further apart until you became someone a mutual friend would tell me about.
Still here for you
Cake
Abigail:
Once one is across the river one must be careful not to return as one will fall with one’ head in the water. As long as one walks forward and doesn’t look back one is safe. There is something tempting in standing still and looking back at the danger that one has conquered, but such vain self-reflection doesn’t bring bliss. One can get caught in al kind of entrapment. If one is not strongly determent to walk on, it is easy to fall back.
I Ching – 63.6
deleted at the author’s request
327… Gorgeous
Re: A former student, 19: 159
You have raised, a.o., the question of the stages of development in the 4th way, or the Work octave. I thought it was a very important question, so I spent some time today to see if there’s anything about it in the Books (to begin with).
–
Ouspensky- The Fourth way, ch. 11.
“If we take school-work as an ascending octave, we know that in each octave there are two intervals or gaps, between mi and fa and between si and do. In order to pass through these gaps without changing the character or the line of the work it is necessary to know how to fill them. So if I want to guarantee the direction of the work in a straight line, I must work on three lines simultaneously. If I work only on one line, or on two lines, the direction will change. If I work on three lines, or three octaves, one line will help another to pass the interval by giving the necessary shock. ”
O. A record of meetings, p. 319:
“Q . You spoke about octaves of remembering. . . .
MR. O. Not exactly. I said that if you work, your work may form itself into octaves and will have intervals. If you do not know where the intervals come, then your work will change.
Q . In attaining one’s aim, self-remembering would be the octave Up that octave, do you gather increasing energy?
MR. O. This is the most difficult octave. Because, such as we are, we cannot make octaves in self-remembering. It will only start and disappear If we make two notes or three notes it will be very good We have not enough initial energy. But we must start and start and start until we make an octave.
Q . But coming from the beginning there is one main octave?
MR O Theoretically, yes, but not in actual work. Such as we are it will be interrupted. We have to start every day afresh Do, re, do, re, mi . . For a long time no further than miQ . And when you get to the interval?
MR O. Then you stop You do not know what to do But you must not be tired If you go on, some time you will learn to pass this interval.
MR. D. Are there many people who do not go on at all?
MR. O. Certainly People who think they already remember themselves
MISS C. If you get a do. re, mi. then what happens?
MR. O. Then you go back. For a long time you will not pass the interval
MISS C. And when you have passed the interval?
MR O. When you have, then we will talk about it! It is different, doing and talking.”
–
Rodney Collin also refers to stages of development, for individual man, and for the school as a whole, in The Theory of celestial influence, ch. XX. The cycle of regeneration, esp. subchapter 2. The work of schools, and subchapter 3. School as a cosmos.
In subch. 2 he speaks of 4 processes: the loosening of the personality and preliminary purification; the death of personality; the implanting of a soul; and the fixing of this soul and the attitudes and understanding characteristic of it. (The fixation or crystallization is achieved by trial and suffering; Collin expands upon this subject in the Theory of eternal life, ch. 11. Separation by suffering.)
In subch. 3 he describes the triangle (within the enneagram) of the school as a cosmos: the first point (point 9) is Higher school; the second point in the triangle (point 3) is the visible teacher (e.g. Christ); the third point (point 6) is persecution or struggle with resistance or the antagonist (e.g. St. Paul).
“In school this point 6 is the mechanism by which instinctive ‘belief’ must be broken, in order to make possible a higher ‘understanding’. ”
At the other points on the enneagram he places the disciples categorized by planetary body-types.
(On an aside, there is in these two subchapters a lot of material to meditate on in relation to the fof.)
Collin also describes phases of soulcrafting in The theory of eternal life.
In ch. 3. The soul in the molecular world:
“The soul, or body of the molecular world, can only be created artificially by long accumulation of the finest energy which the physical organism produces, and its crystallization through the continuous attempt to become selfconscious. But ordinary man cannot help spending this energy as fast as it is produced—on fear, anger, envy, longing, and his normal state of fascination with himself and the world round him. In order to restrain this wasting of it he must create WILL in himself. In order to create will he must have ONE AIM. In order to have one aim he must have learned all sides of himself, and forced them to accept the domination of his CONSCIENCE. Before this he must first AWAKE conscience from sleep. And not one of these stages can he achieve by himself. ”
In the next ch. – 4. The spirit in the electronic world, the way of acquiring a spirit is briefly sketched:
“The achievement of spirit implies transmutation of matter. A man has first to acquire a soul by diverting all his molecular energy to this one end. Then he has to learn how to connect this soul with a still higher level—a level at which it cannot be misused. He must transmute it to an intensity which individual personality cannot survive and where understanding is therefore permanent. Such intensity is found only on the electronic level. This means he must infuse soul with spirit. In himself he has to learn how to convert molecular matter into electronic, that is, to split the atom and release internally a degree of energy which only our own age can begin to measure. It is the release of such energy which alone can carry him up into that divine world attested by these visions.
All this means that we cannot imagine the achievement of spirit. We can only say that John’s record, even if it conveys little, proves the most important thing of all—that a way does exist from the physical world of living men to the electronic or divine world, and that actual men have both passed there and returned.”
In ch. 10. Memory in the invisible worlds he says something which might be considered the (Si-)Do of the octave of becoming conscious:
“It will then be borne in upon him that his only chance is to become conscious now. He will understand practically the principle that our only way of communicating memory to another life is by the force of consciousness in this. And he will see that the purpose of acquiring consciousness in life, is to remain conscious through death. ”
—
If I’m not mistaken, it is Maurice Nicoll who first wrote about the “Work-Octave” as such in more detail. There are 3 chapters on the Work-Octave in vol. 3 of the Psychological Commentaries (pp. 1074-1083)
In the first chapter he states the first 3 notes:
Do: evaluation of the Work-ideas.
Re: the application of the Work-ideas to oneself.
Mi: the realization of personal difficulties.
Then he insists on the necessity of sounding a strong Do.
Next he speaks of the space between Re and Mi, where lie all the processes of connecting the Work with what one observes.
Of the note Fa he says it “is always a new thing in one – as if another being with a new understanding had begun to grow in one’s being.” Furthermore, to establish oneself at the note Fa is something no teacher can do for a disciple; it requires an effort only the man from his deepest sense of himself can make; it touches Essence – and therefore it can have nothing to do with imitation (for that only increases Personality.)
Next, he compares the stage Mi with the driver awakening from his drunken sleep in the inn and going out and seeing the wretched state of his horse and carriage; also, “where one was narrow and contracted to the illusion of oneness, one is now an expanse of many people where choice is possible.”
In the second chapter he emphasizes on Do being a passive note (all ascending octaves begin with passive Do). One sees the Work as greater than oneself.
It would not be possible to start from Re (application), to make Re into Do – that implies man is puting the valuation of himself before anything else, thus starting from the wrong place in himself.
If one has possessed Magnetic centre, Do will sound early and clearly; valuation also increases as Re and Mi sound stronger. “Things will get cold, however, unless you constantly return in your mind to the Work and relate it each day to your self-observation and to all you remember and to what you want. For what you want will gradually get more and more distinct.” [‘what you want’ will appear to constitute a further note, in Pogson’s version of the octave.]
At Re you have to learn all the Work teaches, to learn the language and the meaning of the Work, and to apply it to yourself. You can only learn meaning by seeing the truth of it for yourself. “We all need to work. But do not criticize another’s way of working. If you must criticize, begin with yourself.”
At Mi you learn to speak and understand the language of the Work. “And because you know and understand yourself better and have lost many conceits, you know and understand others, and cease to judge them. It is when you have reached this stage that the Work itself may begin to speak to you internally, because you have learned something of the language in which it speaks. This is why the note Fa becomes possible.”
The third chapter stresses that for right valuation, the Work must become emotional. If it is merely registered in external memory, in the jack of diamonds, it is detached from one and does not affect one, like remembering dates of historical battles… Supreme object of the Work is to awaken the Emotional centre. Necessary to purify the emotional centre.
“One cannot pass from Mi to Fa in the Work-octave if one believes in one’s negative emotions.”
“No one can pass from Mi to Fa unless they know all about how they lie and have observed lying in themselves.”
“We have to come to accept, to endure, what we are, which is the only way to accept and endure others in the Work.”
In the same volume 3, at pp. 1219-1220, there are some remarks on the Mi-Fa gap related to crisis and choice.
In vol. 4 here are 2 commentaries on the note Re: “Practical application of the Work-ideas to your life now” (p. 1342) and “On applying the Work to oneself” (p. 1356)
In vol. 5 there are also 2 commentaries on sounding Re, at p. 1356 and 1706.
(In these volumes are also several commentaries on “Balanced Man” – and Balanced Man will appear as the note Fa in Pogson’s octave.)
(Google-books provides some excerpts)
–
To be continued… (Pogson, Bennett)
#259 if memory serves
Dear Susan,
Thank you for sharing this and other chapters of your personal story here. It shows a lot of courage on your part, as well as innate generosity to the many others here who cared about both you and Miles, and have wanted (and needed) for years to know the truth about what happened. I hope that on an emotional level “letting go” of these stories by sharing them has helped you reach more closure.
Today we do not lose all our friends by leaving, and may even be surprised to suddenly find new friends that we never knew we had, or else had forgotten about. But at the time you left, and with the role you played, losing over a thousand friends from one day to the next is no exaggeration. Maybe now, 23 years later, this rediscovery of friends is happening for you as well, at least in a small way through GF and this forum.
For my own part, I am proud to have known both you and Miles back then, and am very grateful to have reconnected with you now.
Joseph G
Dear Abigail,
Go to all the emotions. Look back as Unanimous states. Fully.
Feel the hurt in your guts, your heart, cough it up, feel the anger in you liver.
Feel it ,see it face it, cry and then…let it go.
Some friends say they left every thing behind easily.
I could not and others could not.
I have moaned cried, called strangers for help and went through the whole and sometimes still.
How?
I do breathing, EFT, express myself and be my own best friend. When an emotion comes up I go with it. Breathe till I can not hold the emotion and the wave of emotions goes through the body and expresses itself. Sometime I feel all the pain of the other grievers and of my family heritage. The same pain my parent had when she saw the church was a scam and had sexual “unfinished business”.
I work on my own unfinished business and try to clean up the emotional and practical clutter.
Get in touch with Veronica….just the reach out will help you even though you might never talk. Accept every help even if you think it does not apply to you.
Some like Janna are able to go on so easy…i could not either. Some of my friend say they do not have a conscience. I do not understand….I wake up in the middle of the night and have an understanding and see things in a new light and this can hurt so much. My conscience speaks and I am so ready to listen…There are always signs.
Yes forgive yourself….step by step, day by day….it was a play…I am still forgiving myself of my unawareness, not seeing because I was always busy, doing things…be a “good student”, believed in possibilities. No time to stand back and reflect. NOT ANYMORE
I sat ( still) for hours and went with what came and let it go….Just let your mind not take a run with you….That can cause craziness. Seen it, Been it and understand the depressed, crazy, schizophrenic, bipolar labels, individuals. It is all in me too.
When we see what is going on and do not listen to our inner voice, the inner conflict can take over, the mind can run with us and drives you crazy….Yes drives you crazy.
That what we do not know and do not yet see can drive us crazy and will rule our world. That, what is seen and know in us will not rule us and we will be able to anticipate that what we see.
Feel, go with the motions and in you inner of inner pains we will be together. when your tears dry up and the sun comes through, we will be together. There where there is nothing we will be together.
Love, and courage to you.
Dear Sheik,
Would you consider giving Fat Boy a two week leave and returning? You are the host and I will respect your decision on this but no matter how many times someone says Fuck you, he’s only expressing his own desperateness. And we need each other’s company. To never leave anyone out for too long for one does harm to one’s self when one is left too much on one’s own and this too is a community. In a community, everyone is responsible for everyone. There’s nothing wrong with calling to attention but indefinite banning is deadly for the soul, it creates hatred.
We are like migrating birds and need each other’s currents to balance our selves.
It is possible that Fat Boy will not wish to come back, but as long as he knows he can, it will be alright. I will personally try to interfere more actively when he addresses that much attention to you if you do decide to let him in.
329 Alice E.
Dear Alice
Thank you for the research, I assume you have e-books and can do a search in that format either that or you invested a lot of time into copying.
There is a forum on the greater fellowship called “The Work Octave”and I think these references would be a great addition to the discussion.
Yes,
please don’t ban the fat boy. Whoever they might be it is obvious they are struggling. Their emotional tone and maturity seems to be about that of a child who is learning to attract attention with profanity. They it is not a good example of the freedom that is encouraged in this format to force them out.
Thank you
Dear Alice
329 Alice E.
Thank you for the research, I assume you have e-books and can do a search in that format either that or you invested a lot of time into copying.
There is a forum on the greater fellowship called “The Work Octave”and I think these references would be a great addition to the discussion.
-Unoanimo #130
Thank you for that. Thank you for putting yourself on the line.
You surrender yourself so easily to the poetic current. You are the catharsis for others, even if they claim to not understand you.
So many people here on the blog have asked you what you’re smoking.
I think you should call it: Fellowship Blowback.
(for those who need a definition of the word
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback )
-Ton #202
-Thank you for your post, it touched me deeply.
Your thoughts are rich with insight and meaning for many of us on the blog. Does Robert know he mocks us? Yes, I think he does. Does he know he pits friend on friend, lover on lover, sister and brother pitted against each other? Yes, I unfortunately think he envys the intimacy.
Please write some more, it is much appreciated.
-Elena #298
I am very happy that you came to see Talking with Angels. The quote you mention “If you truly listen even the stones will speak”, is in the script because I wanted to underscore the Native American spirituality I found in the book. How strange it was that artists in 1943 Budapest would be directed to talk/listen to nature or ‘stone people’ for answers. More on this at http://www.woodfish.org
Also- Thank Uno and you for the reprint of your May 13, ’07 post to Abagail.
-Abagail, thank you for posting your thoughts. I look forward to reading more.
-Bruce
#227 …Oh My!
I hope you got a kick out of my 152 post. I wish more people would write about the strange coincidences/synchronicities they experienced in their lives. …That is the main tool RB used with both men and women- he made a personal franchise out of C-influence. THAT is the rape of the soul because it goes to the very root of wonder.
Thank you again for all your blog posts!
love to you all,
Shelley
Sheik–I also vote for letting Fat Boy back on probation. He can be irritating at times, but I think he’s doing some important processing here.
The profanities were getting a little too much so I agree with the ban on FB, but agree with Elena too.
In a weird way it reminds me of the days when I was in the Fellowhip and Robert would give someone a leave of absence even though it seemed clear that the other party was more at fault.
It did appear that FB was only responding to others who used profanity toward him. It does seem two-facedness or hypocritical for some to attack him with profanity and when he shovels the same sh_t back that he gets banned. Comical too.
Keep going everyone and I am enjoying the posts the last couple of days.
M
Dear Graduates
“it is Maurice Nicoll who first wrote about the “Work-Octave” as such in more detail. There are 3 chapters on the Work-Octave in vol. 3 of the Psychological Commentaries (pp. 1074-1083)
In the first chapter he states the first 3 notes:
Do: evaluation of the Work-ideas.
Re: the application of the Work-ideas to oneself.”
Perhaps this is why your theorizing can be so irritating. Perhaps it is the emotional perception that one who directs all their energy to theorizing about others is not processing the ideas internally and not going past the initial Do.
The idea of the note Re- indicates that the proper focus and tense is oneself, my sleep, my features, my thoughts, my identifications. What I bring of value to the discussion of these ideas is my experience, my observations, my thoughts. Not because they are objectively correct but because they are a reflection of my being at any point in time.
I think that reflecting on the outer world and greater scales is a useful process but not if it is at the expense of inner work.
I think your writing has improved immensely and it seems to be just a simple change in the use of pronouns. I hope you are enjoying being received in a more positive way.
Now are you brave enough to reveal a little of yourself in your post’s? With all your deep thought there is a massive lack of any thing simple and real in your writing, it still tends towards being about the outer rather than internal world.
You can of course return to your pissed of how dare he or anyone care about me attitude, and perhaps you will be right why bother? Perhaps the idea that you have something of value to contribute is a fantasy that is better not indulged Oh well.
the psychopath feels little, if any guilt. he can commit the most appalling acts, yet view them without remorse. the psychopath has a warped capacity for love, his emotional relationships when they exist are meager, fleeting and designed to satisfy his own desires. these last two traits, guiltlessness and lovelessness conspicuously mark the psychopath as different from others…
as to the type of pathology or disorder, there are many nuanced descriptions, causes, and manifestations described in the literature… those with more knowledge of these things might dispute the term ‘psychopath’ to describe rb but i think many of us here can agree that something has been rotting at the core of the fof for a long time… moralizing interpretations are a natural reaction and response… but if the source of the pathology consists of a medical condition, is he morally responsible for that condition? if he is a ‘damaged machine’ who is unable to stop damaging others, wherein lies the capacity for responsibility? although he deliberately cheats others and is conscious of his lies, when others fail to accept immediately his word of honor as a gentleman, his amazement is often genuine, his subjective experience is so distorted that he is invincibly ignorant of what life means to others.
it’s stating the obvious to say that the emotional life of people caught up within such a deviant psychological reality is fraught with dangers and difficulties, horror stories from this site will attest. in spite of natural critical reasoning, a certain saturation of the personality with pathological psychological material is unavoidable in the situation, there is a degree of primitivization and rigidity of feelings in part due to the constant efforts to control one’s emotions so as to avoid having a stormy reaction: i.e. repression means that suppressed emotional reactions surface later, when the person can afford to express them… (maybe in another lifetime if you believe in such things). neurosis is a natural response of human nature if a normal person is subordinated to the domination of pathological people… mere awareness that one was subject to the influence of a mental deviant is in and of itself a crucial part of healing… understanding the disease is an essential part of the regenerative process…
is this moralizing? does moralizing get in the way of understanding? we don’t tend toward moralizing interpretations when someone develops an illness, the individual in that case is simply diagnosed and given appropriate medical treatment. to draw an obvious analogy, the treatment in the case of the fof is the unvarnished truth administered with the intention to rid the ‘body’ of the pathogen. if the pattern remains from my days there, the body (fof) responds to the treatment as an attack on it’s integrity. (?)
‘pathocratic’ leaders believe in: achieving a state where the minds of others become dependent on the effects of a charismatic personality, through pedagogical means, disinformation, use of psychological and emotional coercive techniques, etc… this belief on the part of the ‘pathocrat’ has a foundational and basic meaning for him, it is his system… and he can’t understand when others will not accept his “virtually self-evident, obvious, and realistic truth.” for reasons mysterious to him, the ‘others’ wriggle out and tell each other jokes and create limericks about the ‘pathocrat’
when i left in ’83 i wrote i rb a letter to explain myself. among other issues stated in the letter, i said that i could not exist in a dictatorial, hierarchical social structure, with no sense of democratic process… i preferred the chaos and anarchy of life on the streets. he offered to build me and the little wife a house there just off the property if i would stay… attempting to buy loyalty further reduced his character in my estimation. some time later, word came back to me that he had read the letter and i got the ‘pat response’ i’d heard before when students left the school – he said that i ‘didn’t understand the system.’ ya i did, i understood it was his system, i understood and saw very clearly after a while what was going on there, but not in the way he would have liked… and so here i am with ‘the others’ who have managed to wriggle away to share in some jokes… and community.
488 part 12 little suzy
“In my experience what occurs is one opens oneself to the beauty that is already there just waiting to be released so that joy and the experience of being a live is fully realized.”
For some of us that is the work. Not turning away from what is simple and straight forward even when circumstances try to keep us stuck on the treadmill of the mind.
543 little suzy
“I believe a very unfortunate result of the realization of how one was ‘duped’ is that idealism is replaced with cynicism.”
Cynicism or skepticism? We can turn either into a key to unlock the critical thinking part of ourselves that we either set aside when we joined or never had in the first place.
535 Graduates
I doubt anyone will accuse you of not being incredibly intelligent. I have never been able to quite formulate a description that explains the power that Burton has had over so many for so long. Thank you for that clear and concise analysis. It does need to be reposted periodically.
A Note Sent to me from Arete Publications (William Patrick Patterson) (make of it what you will)
“There comes a point in the Work when it is clear that ‘I’ don’t remember myself. I am remembers.”
Lord John Pentland
Thank you Uno, for reprinting that letter.
Dear Abigail,
It matters how we “feed” each center every day. If you’ve ever had dogs, you know that they need to go for a walk or they will start destroying your place. We have five dogs inside if you include the sex center. I am daily struggling with your question and trying to work with the following understanding.
If we look back at Isis, what seemed to work is that there’s a community with an aim and people “do” things in relation to that aim.: Making money for Robert disguised with the ideal of becoming conscious. As long as I was convinced of the ideal and dismissed the facts, my first line was filled with “successes” and it was beautiful. As soon as I tried to extend to second and third line, the dissonances had no alignment with my conscience or consciousness and the struggle became explosive.
What is so difficult about being out in life again is that there is no established framework that made my little world so easy within the Fellowship. As long as I was willing to swallow the given conditions, and worked on glittering the muck below, it looked very pretty. In the long run it has left that sense of depletion from how much time and effort I have unknowingly wasted on putting gloss on Robert’s dirty lifestyle to seduce more students into participating and paying endlessly.
But it worked (for way too long)!. It worked because the structure works. It is the base of it what was corrupted. Not the students or the work.
The structure of three lines of work is still valid outside of the school and can continue to help one practically when the framework is no longer a closed school. The sense of being embraced by a ‘family’ or ‘community’ of any kind gives a great deal of security and that is one of the reasons it is so difficult to let go of the school. In our times when both family and community are so badly eroded into huge cities, the individual sense of loss is depressing. (It is fine if I am talking only for myself, hopefully it will allow you to clarify your loss).
So far I’ve been trying to acknowledge where some aspects of depression come from.
It may be that the struggle the “individual” is having to face up to today is precisely the struggle of not belonging to any particular family or community but raising himself above the limitations of the “clan” of family, community and nation into the open ocean of human beings. While the lower emotional center may feel extremely distraught when there is a loss of structure in a small scale, the higher emotional center may still connect to the community of mankind on a large scale.
It is not just my family, my friends, my nation that matter it is that one can connect to any human being any time, any where, if there’s enough valuation for what is common between us and not negative towards the specific in each of us.
“That” as an emotional background. And if that happens to work then what one can give or receive from “living” also opens up immensely.
I can observe that I am happy or sad in any particular context in as much as I am identified with the context. I make efforts for others because I am identified with them and have so often lost my self from the horizon. A lot of the sense of depletion, depression about the Fellowship comes from that identification with it. That is what is necessary to assume responsibility for in the first line. In second and third line it is still necessary to expose it for what it is: a fraud.
I often get depressed because I make huge efforts for what I am identified with and cannot take in anything from what is not my identification. Some of these identifications have been, the person I am in love with, the Teacher I am in love with in a different way, the people I am in love with in still another way. Some of the things I’ve missed from appreciating is the food I eat and the attitude with which I eat. The people I am not mechanically attracted to. The carelessness in the space around me. The clothes I wear. The music that is played without listening to it. Driving without considering the people in other cars. Having a negative attitude about the daily chores.
What has helped in raising myself from the depression is to remember that to be alive is a gift. That all I am being asked is to carry my own self and if I am at any time strong enough to help others carry themselves, the better; That there’s an enormous amount of love in human culture and I would need an infinite number of lifetimes to appreciate it and that I am still a beginner in everything but particularly in cooking, playing an instrument and writing, so there’s really little time to waste inner considering because others don’t value me which is what depression is identified with.
In short, what works for me are the few efforts I can make each day to actualize in the second line the being and understanding I have been able to amass from the first and third line. It is in the second line that first and third line can continue to grow. That is why the Fellowship of Friends is a dead end.
What is so depressing about the time we live in is that there is the generalized attitude that no human being is of any human value. People are only valuable in as much as they have something to show for themselves (money, talent……)and the society hardly gives anyone the opportunity to show anything for themselves so every one is running around trying to prove themselves so that others value them without having anything to prove themselves with. This was equally intense in the Fellowship. When at some point one realizes that there is nothing to prove, that one simply is and that is more than enough, that nothing of what one or others do is worth more than the person, then, the aimless struggling to “become through action”, can be let go of and the daily activities simply adorn the beauty of “being”. Neither I nor you need to prove anything with your actions for us to value each other. You matter simply because you ARE and so do I. How we share this short time and space that has been granted us, flows smoothly when the human priorities are established between us. It is simple, civilized “respect” and if mankind had any of it, no one would still be starving because we have enough land, we just don’t have enough being. In the instinctive realm people deny each other land, things, food, in the emotional realm, people deny each other “their” “Time”. They make an object of time and neglect to be.
Thank you for sharing.
re: 294 Abigail
Dear Abigail,
I am sorry you feel so bad especially towards yourself.
I cannot quite grasp what it would feel like to be in the fof for 30 years and then leave a chunk of life behind yourself knowing it was a bad deal after all.
In one of the books from Anthropologist Angeles Arrien (cannot find it at the moment) she says that one of the most difficult things for a human being is not to be able to find meaning out of some intense or painful experiences: in this vein the term marriage comes to mind , your fof experience being like a long term dysfunctional marriage, now broken…
People eventually recover from that and find greater freedom especially if they felt stifled for a long time.
I bet you have in you something that wants to come out and breathe and have even some fun. I hope you will look for this part of yourself that loves life and wants to dare to do something you have never done.
Sheik, add my voice to the chorus of those who want Fat Boy unbanned. I’d try to convince him it’s better to be civil, but manners are a different issue altogether.
In relation to a forum on the Greater Fellowship on “the work octave” I was reflecting on the relationship of the 12 step program and how the 12 step groups function effectively as 4th way schools. I thought I would post it here and encourage anyone interested in joining the discussion to look for it in the Greater fellowship.
AA is a 4th way school.
At least in the sense of being a practical method for personal psychological transformation and spiritual growth in life. Of course one factor is that unlike self remembering you can usually tell when a member is drunk and thus not following the program. You cannot always tell when individuals are not really self remembering and only imitating the external acts of others. Also interesting is how AA has evolved into a program involving millions without allowing the creation of an inner circle or spiritual hierarchy, the acquisition of property and the creation of prestigious positions.
Also Of Interest , at least to me, is that the symbol of Alcoholics Anonymous is the circle with a triangle or an incomplete enneagram. This leads to reflections that some of the same principals apply to both.
Part of the successful program of AA is the need for three lines of work as shown in the AA symbol. There are other correlation’s between the AA model of a 12 step program and the idea of an Work Octave. The 12 step program as developed and used in AA and other 12 step groups is a program of psychological transformation. Many methods that have been effective in these groups have become part of modern psychology as a whole. Particularly cognitive group therapy.
A key aspect of the 12 steps is what Maurice Nicoll called “Metonia” a change in thinking that leads to changed attitudes and a change in ones view of oneself. Part of this is learning to see and accept contradictions in ones being. This is called partially overcoming “denial”. Another important component of why AA has been successful is that it is focused at one very specific point in a descending octave the final si-do interval. It is because this is an interval that an external shock can enter and change the direction of the octave. This shock as defined by AA is one Alcoholic helping another. By sharing their own experience, strength and hope, by being there both one on one and as a group to support change AA is successful and rightly considers what it does as a miracle. This one on one contact also corresponds to a definition of “C influence” in the sense of the transmission of information from one being to another.
Like the partial Do-re-me octave as described by Ouspensky AA has what is called the AA three step in which individuals are able to do step one, two and three and balk at step #4 and do this over and over.
These 4 steps are
1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable.
2) Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
The first step is a massive step as it corresponds to the realization of sleep, it is the end of one octave and the beginning of a new one. It marks the end of total denial and the beginning of the acceptance of ones illness or condition. This is a prerequisite to a practical approach to change.
The second step marks another milestone in which one accepts that all of ones efforts, ones best thoughts and theories are not sufficient to either give up ones drinking or awaken. It marks the entrance of a relationship with a higher power into ones efforts. It marks the entrance of the idea of needing help.
The third step is an active and ongoing process of attempting to remember the nature of a right relationship to a higher power which is to be passive and try to accept a higher will. This corresponds to Rodney Collins description of a right triad of self remembering. It also involves being open to help from other Alcoholics. To begin to see that receiving help is an active process. One needs to actively seek, ask for and effectively use what help is available. This also means understanding that higher forces work through others. That one is given what is needed.
The 4th step is self observation, self acceptance, over coming denial and accepting ones own part in ones play. It means giving up blaming others and accepting ones own character defects or mechanicality. This is the mi-fa interval.
The big book of AA says ” At some of these we balked. thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. ”
I cannot express to you the great spiritual power, healing and support that was available from these individuals who as a FOF member I would have thought beneath me, at whose ignorance I would have been arrogantly dismissive. Yet is was here amongst these “Dregs” of society , the fallen, the Alcoholics and addicts that I found a true 4th way school of healing, acceptance and spiritual growth. This becomes a key ingredient in evaluating the validity of any idea in regards to a “work octave” does it as Walt Whitman stated stand up under the test of the open road, out of the classrooms and books amongst the tests of reality?
Compare the results of AA work over the last 80 years, the number of individuals relieved of the burden of a fearful dependency a physically, emotionally and moral destructive force , these sufferers who in their 1000’s , 10’s of 1000’s and 100’s of 1000’s have been restored to a useful productive life based on spiritual principals and devoted to spiritual growth.
The Big book of AA states in regard to the steps
“Many of us exclaimed, “What an order! I can’t go through with it.” Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. ”
I can only imagine what the Fellowship of Friends would be like if Robert Burton and his inner circle of enablers and co conspirators had a small part of the honesty and humility fostered in AA.
Re: A former student, 335
Thank you for your reply! Hopefully it is not inappropriate if I post the rest also here, because so far I don’t intend to get involved in the Greater Fellowship (no time, and no strong enough reasons to do it…) I will try to follow the discussion there though.
Work Octave, part 2
There are some references to the Work octave in Beryl Pogson’s “The Work Life”.
http://www.google.nl/books?id=ROJMzvbuHYoC&pg=PA112&dq=mi+fa+inauthor:Pogson&sig=kTnWqQaIFkYIshR5csz6DoJtvXg
First at p. 112 there is an Octave of learning, which she discusses [p. 111] in connection with the Work:
Do. Hearing (the ideas)
Re. Knowing
Mi. Acknowledging
Shock.
Fa. Understanding (making aim has to come out of understanding.)
Sol. Aim (or decision)
La. Willing
Si. Doing
Shock.
In her discussion of this octave she emphasizes that the gap Mi-Fa “cannot be finally crossed for a long time, but it can be represented many times on small scale. You have to cross the gap many times before you finally cross it.”
“Then comes the next stage, understanding. … Understanding comes from acting according to what you have acknowledged in yourself, and then it becomes part of your being. … Then the octave continues and goes much faster – deciding, willing, doing.”
After this it becomes a bit tricky as she goes on to (re)label the Fa stage as “the level of balanced man”. How is Understanding to be equated with ‘balanced man’? Perhaps it has to do with Understanding being defined (in ISOTM e.g.) as ‘a function of three centers’ – a function thus that only a balanced man can exercise.
More remarks on the gap at Mi-Fa and the note Fa can be found ibid. at p. 178.
“At the note Mi one comes up against oneself, one’s pictures, buffers and all the rest. After seeing something of the outer person at Re, we come up against him at Mi. Here is the gap that it takes so long to cross, but if one receives a strong enough shock, one can emerge a new person, as Jonah from the whale.”
Work at the Mi-Fa gap involves becoming aware of the pendulum, learning to say Yes and No; becoming aware of the dark side of ourselves, working against chief feature; awakening to real conscience etc. And one facet she discusses more in detail has to do with furnishing centers, balancing inner parts with outer.
“Furnishing the inner parts of the intellectual center entails taking in new ideas, attempting to practice psychological thinking, finding the inner relationship between esoteric writings and the Work.
The inner parts of the emotional center are furnished with appreciation of truth and beauty.
Both centers are fed with B-influences. All work at this stage leads to the development of Essence.”
Next, balanced man is characterized as having a.o. real conscience and a permanent center of gravity.
And there is a reference to the 3 lines of work as help in bridging the mi-fa gap (p. 179):
“When someone comes to the gap in the Work-octave, one of the other octaves can help bridge the gap. For example, Mr. Gurdjieff found that at a certain stage of his work he needed to form groups and to start the second and third lines, in order to bridge the gap in the first.”
–
The degrees described by Collin in ch. 3 of “The Theory of Eternal Life” (see quote in my previous post) seem to fit in nicely with Pogson’s octave: at Mi-Fa could be placed the process of awakening the conscience from sleep; then at Fa: conscience, at Sol: aim, and at La: will.
Furthermore, if Fa level is taken to signify Balanced man – this again fits it with conscience. (conscience being supposed to be one characteristic of Balanced man.)
Another way to describe the stages of the octaves might be if we consider Balanced man (at Fa) as Man no. 4, to continue at Sol with Man no. 5, La: Man no. , and Si: Man no. 7. Or, in other words: Man no. 4 has direction, Man no. 5 has aim, Man no. 6 has will, Man no. 7 can do.
In relation to Collin’s enneagram of the school as a cosmos (Th. of C Inf., ch. 22 part 3, also cited in my previous post), I wonder if the second shock (point 6) is likely to mean the disciple’s leaving the group/organization ???
It would be interesting to develop an enneagram of the Work-octave with the 2nd and 3rd lines of work included (analogous to the enneagram of the 3 kinds of food).
–
Then there is an enneagram of the transformation of man in Bennett’s book “Enneagram studies”, at p. 61. The steps here are presented as follows:
1. [Re]Knowledge
2. [Mi] People involved
3. [Mi-Fa] [point on triangle, place of first shock] Pupils
The phase from the begining of Work up to point 3 is called: the exoteric stage.
4. [Fa] Being involved
5. [Sol] Will involved. Acquiring 2nd body.
6. [point on triangle, second shock] Dying to self. Acquiring 3rd body.
The phase from 3 to 6 is called: the mesoteric stage.
7. [La] Twice-born man.
8. [Si] Purpose.
9. [toppoint of triangle] The Work.
The phase from 6 to 9 is called the esoteric stage.
Bennett discusses this enneagram over a couple of pages, but I must say that I find it harder to relate to his interpretation than to the other ones reviewed so far. I did think interesting his (beginning of an) explanation of the movement w-i-t-h-i-n the enneagram from 1 to 4 to 2. He describes stage 1/Re as concerned with the ‘what’, acquiring of knowledge; people read books, come to school, are taught things – but they have not yet really began to involve themselves; it is teaching on the outside. 2/Mi occurs when they are taught ‘how’ to do it, when they begin to discriminate and are shown what to do and when. “This is why you have in this case the 1-4-2. Point 4 represents the stage when the work is beginning to enter into people and something actually happens to them, when they are no longer experimenting or trying things but have committed themselves to letting something happen to them. It is with that in mind that they learn ‘how’ to do things.”
–
Today an example came to my mind of how an octave of learning can start succesfully – that is, with a passive Do, valuation – in ordinary life. Have you noticed what best-selling writers set at the places of first contact between their books and their potential customers/readers (on the back cover, first page, sometimes even on the front cover)? Praise – lots and lots of praise for their book from as high ‘authorities’ as they can get… To buy a book and be as wiling as possible to learn from it, the buyer needs to be convinced of its value… you get the point…
–
So, that’s as far as I could get by now. All comments and additions are welcome.
‘ton
339
You raise a good point about the role of morality in relation to a psychopath. Do you see this as fundamentally different from the role of morality in a “sleeping machine”? In anyone, if we assume “it is a play,” or put another way, that the physical forces that started with the Big Bang are playing themselves out as they must and we only imagine that we have any control over what happens, internally or externally? Are you familiar with the work of Thomas Szasz, who wrote The Myth of Mental Illness, and who believed in abolishing the insanity defense, that psychiatric diagnoses are a form of control derived from the old priesthood, and that everyone should be assumed responsible for his actions in the absence of some physical pathology?
346 brain police
thanks for the feedback. there may be an actual physical pathology in this case. the language and jargon of the psychiatric ‘priesthood’ and potential for abuse of power in that regard is an issue… the impetus for adding 345 came from abigail’s 294 about ‘rage and hatred.’ i don’t know if this helps, i have a lot of questions…
andrew m. lobaczewski
p.s. brain police, what will you do when the label comes off and the plastic’s all melted and the chrome is too soft?
Alice E. #345: Don’t go anywhere!!!
The “finding the inner relationship between esoteric writings and the work”.. The paragraph in which this is found and the next three is very interesting for me.
I need to go back and reread everything you have posted. Thank you very much.
I think the more I read this blog the more psychic I’m becoming. A few days before Abigail wrote her most recent post, I too had bubbling up within me a similar “feeling”. Not as intense though. I was trying to formulate a question when her post arrived.
Thanks everyone for (post) mailing get well thoughts to Abigail.
342 vera.mente: “I cannot quite grasp what it would feel like to be in the fof for 30 years and then leave a chunk of life behind yourself knowing it was a bad deal after all.”
I completely understand that for some leaving is difficult, but I was in for 27 years, left a year ago, and feel fine about it. In some ways it was great being a member. I met many, many unusual and wonderful people, made friendships that endure and will probably continue to do so. I travelled the world in ways unlikely to be available to the average traveler – imagine sitting in a tiny apartment in Novosobirsk (central Siberia) with thirty super friendly Russians who provide a concert, readings, food, vodka, dancing, all at a beautiful level!
I never fully bought into the more preposterous aspects of RB’s teachings – the predictions etc. I did however believe he was conscious in the 4th Way sense, so I tried to follow his spiritual suggestions. Trying to be present isn’t such a bad way to spend your time! I now see the this as a kind of preparatory school for what came later, in my case Advaita.
Fortunately I didn’t give up my day job, so I’m not destitute, like some long term students.
Three or four of years ago, I began to hear believable reports of Burton’s personal excesses – prior to that I’d persuaded myself that the stories were exaggerated. At the same time his teaching became less and less credible. My self hypnotism slowly faded till I reached the point where I saw he is just an ordinary man, not conscious, with excessive greed for money and sex. Then I left.
I still live in Oregon House and do what I can to help current students to see the truth about the FOF, if asked.
I truly don’t have any regrets. Those 27 years were in many ways well spent. If I hadn’t been hypnotized by the FOF it would probably have been something else. And the whole experience contributed towards what is happening right now, which is just fine.
“There comes a point in the Work when it is clear that ‘I’ don’t remember myself, I am remembers.”
Lord John Pentland
“Rose, oh pure contradiction, desire, to be no one’s sleep under so many lids.”
Rilke
“First, one is like a hunter in search of a quarry, then THE HUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED, finally there is only love.”
Robert Daniel Ennis.
“If we think we ‘get’ something from these efforts to ‘awaken’ we are severely full of shit.”
Yesri baba
332 Elena
shame
351
Shame at what?
‘ton 347
For me, that time came, so now I take my clothes off and dance.
Arthur ~
Any news concerning email access from the prison system?
_______________________________________________
?
352 Bruce
‘Dear, tell him he is given a leave of absence’ – the pattern is very familiar.
355
I guess one can see it that way. I don’t. If someone came into my house, the first time he shit on my carpet and justified it, he’d be out. You can also look at it that way too.
355
Also, this isn’t a school, we aren’t here to save him (only he can do that- we’re here to help), and he ain’t paying us.
Robert likes to have sex with heterosexual men
Love Malcolm
His dick is most surely a dilly,
A grand and marvelous Willie.
Bob gives him head,
But he would rather instead,
Be with his wife, screwing her silly.
When we understood the four wordless breaths,
simplicity finally emerged.
Love, Robert
Aelred of Rievaux: One should pay attention to
the four steps which lead up to the heights of
perfect friendship.
_________________________________________
Following the ballet performance on Wednesday August 22, Robert will be hosting a reception in the
Rose Garden by Poseidon’s fountain.
The reception will be held immediately following the ballet, and the dancers will be attending.
If you wish a memorable late night gala experience, please come and join Robert and friends.
Prices are: $30 regular or $20 special and include a buffet dinner catered by the Galleria staff.
– We hope you enjoy it with many moments of Presence –
Hello Innernaut,
I believe I accidentally deleted an email from you tonight (it was marked as spam). Since I don’t know who you are, you will have to resend!
C.
Dear Fellow Students,
During Journey Forth to Isis, the council is sponsoring the following series of discussions to support and deepen our understandings of our inner work. Councilors will be available at the council table at Apollo D’Oro to answer any questions.
“Making the Teaching Practical” with Mihai Algiu
Friday, August 24, 2-3:30 PM at the Prytaneion
From Mihai: During this friendly gathering, using the format of discussion and questions and answers, we are going to attempt to find immediate practical application of Robert’s current teaching so as to further our moment to moment quest for awakening. All questions are welcome.
“Presenting the School to Life”
Monday, August 27, 2-3:30 PM at the Grand Bazaar – small group discussions
Developing an understanding of our inner work in such a way that we can formulate it for prospective students that come to us from a variety of experiences with various traditions, teachings and practices.
“New Forms of Second and Third Line Work”
Wednesday, August 29, 2-3:30 PM at the Grand Bazaar- small group discussions
With the Work I SERVE, second line work now is more about helping our fellow students to be in the moment in a gentle, loving way. It also includes working together to increase our understanding of the keys; sharing what we have learned and being open to hearing what others have learned. Third line work in a center now has a new focus on collecting images and keys from all esoteric traditions.
“Creating a Spiritual Environment”
Thursday, August 30, 2-3:30 PM at the Prytaneion – small group discussions
Using images and the new teaching to inspire and breathe life into the way we use the various old and new forms of the School both in the centers and at Isis
Dear Friends,
To open our Journey Forth to Isis, Robert has requested that we have a Special Welcome Reception on Thursday, August 23,
in the Abundance Garden at 5:00 pm. Please join us for this lovely event as we gather around the fountain for a toast
with our Beloved Teacher and the beautiful sight of the release of thirty doves.
After this opening, we will enjoy tables of six with our friends around the garden.
This reception will replace the Breakfast Reception that was planned for Monday, August 27,
at 8:30am at the Nile Garden Terrace, which has been cancelled.
If you have purchased a package, you may choose between this Special Welcome Reception and the one planned
for Wednesday August 29 at Old Lake Nancy.
Dear Friends,
Robert has asked Asaf to host a ‘Journey Forth to Europe’ gathering on the weekend of August 31st until September 2nd in Milan. He intends this weekend to coincide with the closing weekend of Journey Forth to Isis, so that our friends at Isis and Europe will be gathering at the same times. Asaf will host a reception on Friday the 31st, followed by a breakfast and dinner on September 1st, and a meeting and tea on September 2nd. More information will follow later this week.
Love,
Kevin B.
Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter.
Rumi
!
Dear friends,
As some of you already know, Asaf is spending some time in Europe, traveling through the centres, together with Ansley. He will be based in the Milan teaching house, where we are organising some events: you are all warmly invited to participate. Some will be formal meetings, others will be less formal and we hope especially the latter will allow us to meet Asaf in an environment of simplicity and friendship.
Some of us were with Asaf on his arrival at Istanbul and then in Greece. Together with him and the Athens students we visited archaeological sites, museums, orthodox monasteries, searching for connections with the Schools and with the keys that we already know. My personal perception is that it was above all a journey inside ourselves, where knowledge and theories would become inspiration to the magic of the Present.
One of the aims that Asaf has shared with us for this trip in Europe, is that of helping us, thanks to his close working connection with Robert, to use the teaching in a more personal and creative way.
Asaf invites us all to those events and wants to underline that cost should not be a denying force, therefore please do not hesitate to contact the Milan or your centre directors to ask for a reduction.
The main events will take place in the weekend from August 31 and September 2 in Milan and they are named ‘Journey Forth to Europe’. As requested from Robert, they will take place at the same time as the final events of ‘Journey Forth to Isis’. Since there will be many octaves, any help you could give us will be very appreciated. Please refer to Francesco M. if you are interested. In particular, those who might have financial difficulties for the events, are welcome to actively take part in the octaves.
Please, find here our contacts:
for subscriptions, Gabriella U.
for accommodations, Ilaria B.
With Love, Francesco
Milan Center
EVENTS
FRIDAY August 31st Reception h. 19,00 – EUR 15,00
SATURDAY September 1st Breakfast h. 09,00 – EUR 50,00 seated, 25,00 standing
“THE NAME OF GOD: SHORT BE”
SATURDAY September 1st Dinner h. 19,30 – EUR 75,00 seated, 35,00 standing
“THE NAME OF GOD: LONG BE”
SUNDAY September 2nd Meeting h. 11,00 – EUR 50,00 seated, 30,00 standing
“THE NAMES OF GODS: THE THIRTY WORK I’S”
SUNDAY September 2nd Tea h. 16,00 – EUR 30,00 seated, 15,00 standing
“LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF THE KEYS”
All the events will take place at the Teaching House, via Zanella
We have a beautiful inner circle, and no shortage
of serious students. Love, Robert
Anna,
! Indeed, my friend, indeed….
Renaissance Winery invites you to
Renaissance Winery’s 30th Harvest
August October 2007
Harvest time has come!
We welcome any friends willing to join us at 6.30 am at the Prytaneion parking lot.
You will be instrumental in bringing the legendary 2007 vintage onto the market.
All you need to bring is a hat and yourself in the present.
Journey Forth by Day – Renaissance Open House
Friday, August 24th, 3.00 pm, Renaissance Winery
Prepare your senses for a remarkable treat. Enjoy a privileged experience of our mountain terroir wines. You will have the opportunity to taste our latest releases. In addition, our winemaking team Gideon, Shawn and Carlos – will offer you a barrel tasting of our 2006 Syrah, Cabernet and Rhone blends.
For your information
* If you are interested to participate in any outdoor or indoor activity at Renaissance,
we would be happy to have your help for whatever period of time you are available.
Please contact us at ….
* Our wines are available at special prices for Fellowship members.
For more information, please email carmina@
We look forward to seeing you!
With love,
Renaissance Winery Team
Gideon, Tessa, Shawn, Carlos, Yasuko, Hugh, Massimo, Carmina, John, Patrick, Manuel, Norbert, Ronald
What makes Renaissance wine distinctive?
Our unique terroir leaves its unmistakable signature in each of our wines. Regardless of the variety, all tend to be concentrated, intensely flavored, with pure fruit aromas, a marked spicy/minerally side, and a powerful structure Consequently, Renaissance wines have outstanding aging potential, and increase in complexity and harmony over the course of many years in the bottle. Even our white wines age exceedingly well, developing rich honeyed, nutty flavors with extended cellaring.
“Let your limbs make the necessary movements, while your heart stays with the Master.”
Al-Jilani
Dear Friends,
We’d like to invite you to a Special Ballet Fundraising Event with Robert
at the Galleria Gardens this Sunday, August19.
May we celebrate the height of summer with a delightful Middle Eastern dance
performance in the Grand Pavilion, followed by a sit down dinner under the stars
in the Park of Abundance!
Performance begins at 5:30pm. Please arrive at 5:00pm for check-in and
a Margarita Reception. The dress code is casual elegant.
Menu for the Evening
Hors D’oeuvres: Bourikas
1st course: Lemon Chicken Tajine with Couscous
Moroccan style vegetables
Cinnamon perfumed onion pure with deep fried Almonds
Dessert: Chocolate Mousse Au Bergamot
You may reserve your seat by calling ….. or by responding to this e-mail.
Prices:
Reception and performance – regular $15/ special $10
Seat at the tables of six – regular $35/ special $25
Seats at Robert’s table – regular $100/ special $75
Robert ~ ‘Dear, it looks like you’re putting on weight, maybe you should loose a few pounds; I’ll have Dorian suggest a scale for you.’
Student ~ ‘Robert, I’m pregnant.’
Robert ~ ‘Well, you know, as I said.’
#369 ~ Quote from “Ice Ice Satin Satire Solicitations”
Warm Regurds
LOL
unoanimo
You are redeemed for all past sins.
Please skip if you have a mechanical abhorence for quotes.
This is one from our soon to be four year old daughter, Sara Joy:
“Sometimes when I am close to Linda, I get confused as to whether I am Sara or Linda.”
She said this in Spanish, so it is translated or paraphrased.
Linda is her school mate. When I told Linda’s mother, one of Sara’s school teachers, she responded in Spanish in this way: “This is pure love.”
“
Re: Shelley M. 336
Thursday evening. My husband sits on the couch reading Jung’s autobiography; he stops and tells me something about it. Suddenly I feel compelled to recount him my Work-dreams (and I do so). Was it just an association?
Friday. Reading page 19 of the blog – what do I come across? post 282 – Kid Shelleen with an Ouspensky-dream. Was it just a coincidence?
—
Re: Arthur 348
If you are interested in finding inner relationships between esoteric writings and the Work, Pogson herself has written interpretations of Shakespearian plays. You can find links to two of those essays on my blog, and/or order two of her books, published by Eureka Editions: “In the East my pleasure lies” and “Royalty of Nature”.
http://www.eurekaeditions.com/
It is sad to catch glimpses (those posted on this blog) of that shallow sequence-interpreting… It cheapens art, makes it serve a personal and subjective whim. Worse, it obscures the earnestness of thought and feeling, and length of concentration, required to reach the deep pleasure of verily Understanding esoteric works. There are those who think there is nothing esoteric whatever in any art; it is however no less fallacy to see whatsoever you wish in… whatsoever you wish.
There is a beautiful illustration of these types in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series: there are the Muggles who have eyes but do not see; and there are those two fantastic characters, the professors of Divination at Hogwarts: the rational Centaur versus the irrational Mrs. Trelawney.
—
Re: A former student 344
It was very interesting to read your analysis of the 12 step program as analogous to the Work-octave. I don’t know sufficiently about the subject to comment on it, but your account led me to wonder about triads within the enneagram. You know it is said the enneagram connects the law of 7 with the law of 3. I haven’t seen anywhere however a model of the ennegram with the triads included: there is the triangle, yes, but the forces aren’t written on the triangle in triad style. Perhaps we could develop an enneagram with the triangle labelled according to the triad of Regeneration – 3rd force on top (at point 9), 2nd force at point 3, and 1st force at point 6. Would this be correct? Would this help us better understand triads and octaves, and the nature of the shocks required? I don’t know how you see the AA 12 step program: as regeneration [3-2-1] or as healing [2-3-1]?
#19.344 – a former student
Thank you for your writing. It feels really good, it shows an open mind in combination with solid being. It is always good to read about a proven process that really works and is doing good.
I am so free to ask you if you also have the other 8 steps available. If you do not want to publish it here you can also send it to me at Peter@WerkPortfolio.nl
I would like to study it and come back to it – and communicate with you about it.
For now goodbye,
Peter
356 / in general
In order to be faced to oneself and to get opened to more truths one needs a wide emotional / psychological space. A safe place without the pressure to wear shells masks where there’s no need to pretend. I can make my initial steps only from where I am now. But first I have to admit it to myself – which is not easy at all. It might be uncomfortable to communicate. Like – horribile dictu – “hey boys I love Robert I can’t help it” If I love Robert how could I start from anywhere else? Is it safe to come up with such thing here? And – on the other hand – I could say “hey boys Im deeply disappointed regarding Robert”. Is it safe to come up with such thing here?
Is there any need to say “hey dummies there you have to admit my disappiontment is better than your love”? That would be suffering on both sides I think.
love to you people of anger of fear of whatever – we are falling together, and falling is love
Abigail 294
Dear Abigail,
since you have been kind enough to mention my name, I have been thinking of a worthy reply to your question. My mind has been flooded with numerous propositions, a good number of which echo the ones that other posters have already graciously offered.
While pondering a bit longer on a personal contribution, which is in need of some heavy mental editing or it would definitely take too much space, and since you mentioned that you also find solace in music and poetry, what I can do at this point is present you with a more “impersonal” offering. It’s the lyrics from Joanna Newsom’s song “Monkey and Bear”, from the album Ys. I am not including a video for this one (the recorded version is over 9 minutes long), and am bold enough to recommend that you just get yourself the album.
I was simply blown away by it, and listened to it for non-stop weeks a few months before discovering the blog.
Now, it’s taken a whole new layer of meaning in relation to the discussion going on here. If you neeed help in unraveling the symbolism, or are simply curious to find out how it has been “keyed” by its loving, careful listeners, go to
http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858623196&offset=25&page=2#comments
where you can find some insightful interpretations.
Down in the green hay,_
where monkey and bear usually lay,
they woke from a stable-boy’s cry.
He said: “someone come quick—
the horses got loose, got grass-sick—
They’ll founder! Fain, they’ll die.”
What is now known by the sorrel and the roan?
By the chestnut, and the bay, and the gelding grey?
It is: stay by the gate you are given.
Remain in your place, for your season.
O, had the overfed dead but listened
To that high-fence, horse-sense, wisdom…
But,
“Did you hear that, bear?” said monkey, “We’ll get out of here,
fair and square—
They’ve left the gate open wide!
“So, my bride.
“Here is my hand. Where is your paw?
Try and understand my plan, Ursala.
My heart is a furnace
full of love that is just, and earnest.
Now.
We know that we must unlearn this
allegiance to a life of service
and no longer answer to that heartless hay-monger, nor be his accomplice—
(that charlatan, with artless hustling!) —
But Ursala, we’ve got to eat something,
and earn our keep, while still within the borders of the land that man has girded,
(all double-bolted and tightfisted!),
until we reach the open country,
a-steeped in milk and honey.
Will you keep your fancy clothes on, for me?
Can you bear a little longer to wear that leash?
“My love, I swear by the air I breathe:
Sooner or later, you’ll bare your teeth.
“But for now, just dance, darling.
C’mon, will you dance, my darling?
Darling, there’s a place for us;
Can we go, before i turn to dust?
Darling there’s a place for us.
“Darling. C’mon will you dance, my darling?
The hills are groaning with excess, like a table ceaselessly being set.
C’mon, will you dance, my darling?
And we’ll get there yet.”
They trooped past the guards,
past the coops, and the fields, and the farmyards, all night, till finally,
the space they gained
grew much farther than
the stone that bear threw,
to mark where they’d stop for tea.
But,
“Walk a little faster,
don’t look backwards—
“your feast is to the East, which lies a little past the pasture.
“When the blackbirds hear tea whistling they rise and clap.
Their applause caws the kettle black.
And we can’t have none of that!
Move along, bear; there, there; that’s that.”
(Though cast in plaster,
Our Ursala’s heart beat faster
than monkey’s ever will.)
But still,
they have got to pay the bills.
Hadn’t they?
That is what the monkey would say.
So, with the courage of a clown, or a cur,
or a kite, jerking tight at its tether,
in her dun-brown gown of fur,
and her jerkin of
swansdown and leather,
Bear would sway on her hind legs;
the organ would grind dregs of song,
for the pleasure
of the children who’d shriek,
throwing coins at her feet,
then recoiling in terror.
Sing, “dance, darling.
C’mon, will you dance, my darling?
Darling, there’s a place for us;
can we go, before i turn to dust?
Darling there’s a place for us.
“Darling.
C’mon, will you dance, my darling?
Keep your eyes fixed on the highest hill,
Where you’ll ever-after eat your fill.
O darling…dear…mine…if you dance, darling: i will love you still.”
Deep in the night
shone a weak and miserly light,
where the monkey shouldered his lamp.
Someone had told him the
bear’d been wandering a fair piece away
from where they were camped.
Someone had told him the
bear had been sneaking away,
to the seaside caverns, to bathe;
and the thought troubled the monkey,
for he was afraid of spelunking
down in those caves.
And also afraid what the
village people would say,
if they saw the bear in that state—
lolling and splashing obscenely—
well, it seemed irrational, really, washing that face;
washing that matted and flea-bit pelt in some sea-spit-shine–
Old kelp dripping with brine.
But monkey just laughed, and he muttered,
“When she comes back, Ursala will be bursting with pride—
till I jump up!
Saying, ‘You’ve been rolling in muck!
Saying, ‘you smell of garbage and grime!’”
But far out,
far out,
by now,
by now—
far out, by now, Bear ploughed.
Because she would
not drown:
First the outside-legs of the bear up and fell down, in the water, like knobby garters.
Then the outside-arms of the bear fell off, as easy as if sloughed from boiled tomatoes.
Low’red in a genteel curtsy,
bear shed the mantle of her
diluvian shoulders;
and, with a sigh,
she allowed the burden of belly to drop,
like an apronfull of boulders.
If you could hold up her threadbare coat to the light,
where it’s worn translucent in places,
you’d see spots where,
almost every night of the year,
Bear had been mending,
suspending that baseness.
Now her coat drags through the water,
bagging, with a life’s-worth of hunger, limitless minnows;
in the magnetic embrace,
balletic and glacial,
of bear’s insatiable shadow—
Left there!
Left there!
When bear
left bear;
Left there,
Left there,
When bear
stepped clear of bear.
(sooner or later you’ll bury your teeth)
God is too wild to slide into bed with one woman or one man, it seems that even seven billion is not enough, they’re still, after tens of thousands of years fighting over who gets the last beer, the last cigarette and the Sunday comics first.
Dear Nol and others,
Where have you been? Your mind is walking with you, overnoising your inner voice.
Nol writes:”we don’t tend toward moralizing interpretations when someone develops an illness; the individual in that case is simply diagnosed and given appropriate medical treatment”.
This is another form of not listening to your inner self. So any people are misdiagnosed, getting the wrong medications with too much side effects or wrongly diagnosed.
Have you ever seen somebody getting better on anti depressants or bipolar medications?
ALLOPATHIC/PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG DEALERS WITH THERE 750000 IATREGENIC DEATHS PER YEAR Kevin Trudeau.
What about the 80,000 (80% of the 100,000) that CDC reports as dying
from iatrogenic infectious diseases? And, more importantly
(number-wise), how many of the 880,000,000 annual pt visits to private
doctors’ offices result in the cross-contamination of infectious
diseases?
The changes to get side effects after taking more then 6 medications are very high.
There are many not reporting errors…..Believe the medical science blindly and you are getting yourself in big difficulties, comparable in many ways with the fellowship of friends.
Dear Nol, if you want to make other people responsible for certain behavior in our society, go ahead. I would say this is too much talk…everybody has to start with him/herself. Looking in their hearts and to come to their own understanding and take responsibility.
Here, talking on the internet is easy. Maybe find out who is still in the fellowship of friends and interact with them and find out if they need support. Give them feedback.
Go volunteering in a mental hospital….or be true to yourself each moment.
Too much relativity kills the moment.
Too many words is air
Love is silent
Penetrates walls
Love
Thank you Bruce.
Innin, shame is the waste product, why do you choose to feed on it and miss the point?
Whenever one chooses to misinterpret the intention behind a post one needs to question one’s own agenda.
Nevertheless the two weeks were questionable and I think I was considering the Sheik more than Fat Boy but still, two weeks should be enough to come up with new vocabulary and wonder whether addressing his frustration towards the Sheik is the inversion of addressing his sexuality towards Robert and missing the mark both times.
What I find interesting about the issue is, where and why and which limits would we establish? The Sheik put his freely but you questioned my intervention so that someone could continue participating and expect me to feel shame. What would make you feel shame? Standing up for a friend?
I doubt you’ll answer but your answer is welcome.
Unoanimo, thank you for reminding me what I am not missing. Are the book and the talk still available? Or is the identity mistery prefered? You could wear a mask!
Robert likes feel like a woman
Love Malcolm
Bob, as well as the crude and sadomasochistic,
likes to be frigged in a manner artistic:
More like a French whore reclining in splendor
than a perverted forceful old bender
he likes silk – ‘cos it makes it feel more realistic
~324 Purchasing awakening
Daily card:
“We have a beautiful inner circle, and no shortage of serious students.
Love, Robert”
subtext: “You can be replaced, dear.”
Hey Uno, thanks for posting those JFBD announcements. 365 sent a shiver down my spine! RN
349 Rhino Neal
Rhino,
thank you for sharing your point of view.
You remind me how different we can be with our experiences. I am sure Abigail will take this into account.
I am so glad you had such positive times, I too had some fun along the way and had (still have) very meaningful friendships with several outies and innies.
(not belly buttons!)
One of my favorite things in the beginning at Renaissance was to take a ride home late at night after an acting class in a beat up truck full to the brim with French speaking people mixed with English and Spanish. I loved the diversity!
BTW, what is Advaita?
P.S. Abigail, if you are reading this, if anything at this time there is more support available. Good for you to come out with your real feelings!
Sheik, I forgot to say Fatboy should be here.
I read back a few posts of his and feel he contributes to the discussion.
You are the host I know , so it’s your call in the end.
Personally I don’t care what decisions are ultimately made regarding Fat Boy. I didn’t suggest banning, and I also understand the Sheik’s decision. It’s his gig, and he’s been remarkable in adapting the ever changing form the blog has taken.
There have been a number of hostel members posting (Joel has referred to them as the tag team). I don’t object to them either, however, I do object to the objections to jumping on them when they warrant it. They know what’s here, we know what’s there. I think the current “free market” of exchange has been good.
Also, let’s not forget that of all the FOF posters Fat Boy has been coddled, reprimanded, jumped on, rejected, judged (rightfully and erroneously), ridiculed, praised, encouraged, advised etc., more than any other FOF poster. His immaturity and neediness is profound. This has also been responded to in all the above permutations.
This is a hard call. When to draw a line. Each of our experiences are going to dictate different conclusions.
I trust the Sheik’s decision making in this area, simply because he is fluid and adaptable.
Just my 8 cents.
re> 378 another name
i see how this goes… so much can be misinterpreted in this format and in that sense ‘talking on the internet’ as you put it is NOT easy. the intention IS to help. i wish this instrument (website) had been in place 25 years ago when i left. as previously stated, the impulse for my post to which you refer, the one with medical/psychiatric jargon, (i was channeling lobaczewski when i wrote that), came in response to abigail who seems to be adjusting to life post fof. you completely misunderstand me if you think i’m talking about anything other than taking personal responsibility for one’s own life and biography… and by the way, funny you should mention, i do work in a mental institution…
386 Ton
” i do work in a mental institution…”
RB would then say “We all work in a mental institution, goodness”.
Our experiences, or our responses to our experiences, are so astonishingly different. From the many kind responses to my question it is clear that quite a few do not even understand the shame and revulsion with which I remember the 30 years I spent in the Fellowship. (Anna: officially at the beginning of this year, actually I celebrated my 30th “school birthday” by determining to make no more payments). I don’t think I had friendships in the Fellowship–I had complicities. Among the many precepts that I took seriously was that it was important to associate only with those who would strengthen the “work ‘I’s” (mygawd, I can barely write this crap that I was so diligent about). Now, reading your postings, I understand the loss of the friendships we might, perhaps, have had–except that I maybe sensed in you those perceptions, that subversive honesty, that had to be shunned.
Anyway, Laura, here’s a poem I sometimes, in my cups, tried to recite when students gathered to read inspirational poetry:
PROVIDE, PROVIDE
The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag
Was once the beauty Abishag,
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.
Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.
Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where noboody can call you crone.
Some have relied on what they knew,
Others on being simply true.
What worked for them might work for you.
No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard
Or keeps the end from being hard.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
Robert Frost
It wasn’t a great success but was useful for breaking up gatherings that had gone on too long.
For those who do understand, and understand a whole bunch better than I can yet, I feel a gratitude I didn’t even know I could feel. Life Person, I read your catalogue with amazement–I guess that determination to be unique dies hard (if it ever does). I do not yet understand that there are positive possibilities, that it is possible to be grateful for seeing why I need to know those things about myself.
Having been so much lower than “life” for so long, I suppose it will be a long tough climb up to that level, but actually it helps a lot to have an example of that possibility being realized by those who for sure went through it all and came back to say, “I only have escaped alone to tell you…”
378 Another Name
“Have you ever seen somebody getting better on anti depressants or bipolar medications?”
Yes, and it is a battle to get a correct diagnosis and the right medications. Please do not comment on the mental health system which is indeed flawed as it is to large a subject to go into.
But Let me repeat yes, I know, personally many individuals who only have anything resembling a decent life because of medications.
If you are addressing this to those in the Fellowship that are taking medications that is a different situation.
373 Alice E
I find it very difficult to have any kind of reasonable dialog in this format. The physical limitations require I have several windows open. sometimes I use a word processer. It becomes a complex enough task that it is sufficent denying force for me to for go posting. If I put off reading the blog for a day or two just catching up is time consuming. I also find it hard to go back and find post’s as often I can’t remember the number.
]
I have a group called stillpoint on yahoo groups to discuss the 4th way ideas. For other discussions there is the Greater Fellowship. I copied and posted your research on the Law of three and Law of seven there. On the Greater Fellowship there is a forum to discuss the Law of 3 and the law of 7 as well as the enneagram. I hope you will participate there. I think it a better forum than this.
Your idea of using the enneagram to address the different triads is an interesting one but I need to think about it in more depth. The enneagram shows both the inner connections and the outer path of development through time of a process. Different triads can be part of one process.
I checked out your site and hope to get a chance to look at it more closely. I have done some analysis of sonnets from the perspective of the 4th way. I consider them objective works which contain much information on triads and processes.
and 374 Peter
I do not wish to post more on the 12 steps a Google search will reveal a wealth of on line material. I have a group called stillpoint on yahoo and in the archives I have many essay’s on the relationship of AA and the 4th way. It is a more appropriate setting for the topic. Also I am working on a book called “The Enneagram of Recovery” which connects the ideas of the 6 processes, triads and the enneagram to the 12 steps.
387 bruce
“We all work in a mental institution, goodness”.
from what i’ve seen, some of the responses on this blog are proof of that. i will say that there is an abundance of interesting stuff here.
sheik; leave fat boy in the conversation, it’s only wirds.
Brain police
I cannot continue a reasonable discussion on the blog anything too complex and I become too easily confused. I try to read and respond in a general way. For specifics there is e-mail at scottduncan@frys.com
my 4th way discussion group
stillpoint at yahoo groups and the greater fellowship under Duncan Shockley. The format in all of these makes it much easier to find a post if I allow time to pass.
That is I can read an e-mail and get around to answering withing several days and that seems to be a better time span. On the blog if I cannot respond quickly I just generally don’t.
388 Abigail
One opinion is that it is unfortunate that the experience of conscience is taken as a negative experience. Shame and revulsion are correct emotions in regard to the FOF.
Conscience is the emotional aspect of consciousness, if it is functioning it means you have been successful in developing a certain level of consciousness, individuality and will whether because of or in spite of the experience of the Fellowship.
Certainly the existence of conscience is not a comfort in the this is normal sense of something that allows us to sleep comfortably but in terms of inner development it is a significant indication of a real penetration of and a growth of essence.
There is something worse than experiencing waves of emotion and that is to be dull and dead. To feel is to be, to feel intensely is to be intensely.
To feel regret about ones past is objectively a positive emotion because we have all been mechanical , all been insensitive to others and all made severe mistakes, perhaps not something to be indulged too long but never the less a correct and objective view of reality. Also it does not last that long.
Yes, you were a fool, so what aren’t we all?
What is the point?
I mean from one perspective isn’t what you are experiencing
“How could I be so asleep?”
“Why did it take so long to awaken?”
I am not saying anything against the experience you are having but there is a place for gratitude and acceptance too.
Be grateful for the air and the light which you did not create nor earn and the very body, thoughts and feelings that are loaned to us. Accept that everything is exactly as it needs to be and there has not nor will ever be any other possibility than to be present to this moment as it is with all its connections to the past and the unknowable future.
Recall Rilkes admonition and allow the future to slowly enter and reveal itself to you.
Is it painful, difficult does it penetrate to the core and make you question everything about yourself and your past?
Congratulations you have won the prize.
Isn’t that what you wanted to be awake, to experience reality?
to Alice E.
I was inspired by your research to do a search of my e-book of “Beelzebub’s Tale” for “Heptaparaparshinokh” Gurdjieff’s word for the law of 7. There are 87 references and I have not the time to read through let alone collect them. It does however indicate the importance he placed on the idea and the number of different ways he included it in his writing.
395 a present student
wow
393 a fomer student
now that was the answer I was looking for
MIND CONTROL CULTS
BLACK HEBREWS
MY LOVE IS YOUR CULT
“My relative is totally different person since she joined almost four years ago, but talking to her hasn’t worked. They have completely won her over.
“Almost every member I spoke to requested my mobile number so that they could help me in my search for “spiritual enlightenment.”
She stormed: “That was no kingdom of God, it was a place where your mind was controlled.”
http://www.rickross.com/groups/black_hebrews.html
DARONDA BLEVINS EDUCATION CENTER AND MULTI-AGE COMMUNITY
PERSONAL STORY OF FORMER MEMBER
They included Daronda speaking in tongues, interpreting the Holy Spirits words, and casting out demons. There were demons for everything imaginable – from car problems to someone who simply did not like Daronda. If a person were frustrated, angry, sad or depressed, it was attributed to demonic activity.
One day a few weeks after I moved in the three of us girls were told by Daronda that we could no longer read any fiction books because they let the demon of fantasy in. WE could read instructional books only. A short time following that we were informed that any type of card game
was evil, and that other games could be played only with great discretion. A few weeks later television too was prohibited. Not long after that, all music except Christian was not allowed.
During all the time leading up to this point, subtle hints were dropped by Daronda as well as by B. and D. that the only way to ever get well was to cut all contact with family members and old friends.
Daronda would tell the same stories over and over again about what trouble she would have to go through when either of the girls decided to see their families. She said that their families made them emotional basket cases, unable to function in society. I began to know that I too, would be asked to cut ties with family and friends.
Daronda was very good at finding what things us kids did not like about our parents and magnifying it to the Nth degree. With everyone of us it was different, but the basic solution was the same – stay away from them or they would destroy us.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/daronda.html
HOLY ORDER OF MANS
LETTER FROM PSYCHIATRIST
A psychologically unstable person might experience schizoid and paranoid patterns of development. And even those who have a prior history of general emotional stability tend to become paranoid through the processes over a period of time. The most frequently encountered symptom in those effected by such mind control techniques is that of fear and/or deep paranoia.
This often results in a further withdrawal from the formerly familiar world of family, friends, institutions, and social environments. The recovery of a person from these effects varies depending on the amount of involvement, the techniques used, and the degree of withdrawal that
has taken place.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/hom.html
GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND LACEY HAWKINS
TO make a long story short, I became a victim of mind-control. I submitted completely to Lacy Hawkins’ leadership and teaching in order to attain this perfection and the reward of divine reign.
For years I attended meetings designed to capture new recruits. Someone from a job, a neighbor, or even a stranger who expressed that they were “looking for something more out of life” were approached. Recruits would be invited to a house gathering where at least a half dozen other dedicated members would tell their story of how their unpleasant and trouble-filled life was changed triumphantly after coming to GENERAL ASSEMBLY CHURCH. Each meeting would last for several hours, usually mentally draining the recruit. And by the end of the meeting usually the recruits felt they needed to attend the next church service. When arriving at the church, recruits would be seated by the person who invited them, they were unsuspecting targets. The service would be directed at winning them into the group.
There was no such thing as 10% income contribution. The average member contribution was $300 per month. Besides money we had to give a lot of our time to the church. The three weekly services, that had about 95% attendance, totaled to about 16 hours/weekly. Then we were placed on
teams to perform free labor such as cleaning,cooking,child-care.
The men in the group did more strenuous tasks such as landscaping,building and re-modeling the church’s and it’s apartment building.
Lacy Hawkins also used free labor of members to add hundreds of square feet to his Berkeley home. He and his wife had members who housecleaned and cooked for them, he even had personal chauffeur and “go for’s.” Many members have given him and his wife expensive gifts.
Members commonly include Hawkins and his organization in their wills and life insurance policies.
We had to seek counsel from the leadership for selecting a marriage
partner, for pursuing a career or higher education. We had to have
counsel with HAWKINS even before purchasing a car or home. We had to
have his approval before leaving town on a vacation or job trip. He
called it “having a covering.” Inadherence to his counsel brought sure
reprimand.
We were told that submission and obedience on our part was required
for our souls, that they were looking out for our souls.
After seven years, my marriage ended. My husband saw the fallacy and
mind controlling tactics that were being used and refused to continue
with the movement. He became quarrelsome and aggressive with me. I
divorced him and remained with the group for two more years.
Marriage or any intimate relationship outside of the group is
forbidden. (termed “Damnable.”) Doing so would mean disfellowship.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/lacey_hawkins/lacey_hawkins2.htm
BORN IN ZION
CULT BUSTER WARNS FAMILIES
l”It is dangerous, it is based on erroneous thinking, it goes to
extremes and it misinterprets what the Bible teaches.” He claimed
Carol Balizet was not medically qualified and was not a theologian.
“She has no real expertise and yet these people are accepting what she
says without question,” he said.
“Even sceptical husbands are being influenced by their wives. I don’t
think people are questioning it enough and they are not seeing the
dangers.”
http://www.rickross.com/reference/zion/zion2.html
ORDER OF CHRIST SOPHIA
A FORMER MEMBER OF THE ORDER OF CHRIST/SOPHIA SPEAKS OUT
As a former member of The Order of Christ/Sophia, I feel compelled to
share with others what my experience within this group entailed.
It is my opinion, having been a member for quite some time, that The
Order of Christ/Sophia is a destructive cult.
While the organization appears to be harmless to newcomers, the
further involved people become, the more likely they are to experience
a great amount of stress psychologically and physically.
The Order of Christ/Sophia describes itself as a “mystical school”
offering classes and individual counseling to those who choose to
become a “student.”
However, it is my observation that members did not really just simply
choose to become students, but were instead manipulated into taking
classes and becoming deeply involved.
This manipulation often comes in the form of guilt, shame and other
coercive persuasion techniques, such as group pressure and trance
induction through “meditation.”
Retreats, workshops and classes also appear to utilize classic thought
reform techniques to break down the potential member.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/bowes/bowes2.html
383 vera.mente: “what is Advaita?”
It’s a spiritual teaching perhaps most purely described by Nisargadatta in his book “I Am That”. Current teachers are eg Adyashanti, John Wheeler, Tony Parsons. To a number of us who recently left the FOF it’s perceived as being the real, simple truth, the final stage after the FOF prep school.
regards, RN
338, 362, 375 and 400 are newly moderated.
As to the Fat Boy situation. After re-reading our little interaction I think that it wasn’t fair of me to ban him. Since the beginning I have been trying to keep my ego and pride out of this discussion (and especially the moderation) but this time I failed. Fat Boy is free to post here again.
By the way, Margie’s post (338) comes from the same computer as Fat Boy’s posts. Whether they are the same person or whether they are two different people using the same computer I do not know.
338 margie
If you don’t see a difference in the “context” in the use of the various “words” then there’s not much to defend. I see a vast difference.
It got to the point where there was little being said except fuck you and shut the fuck up. Like a tantrum. Nobody complained about Fat Boy’s use of expletives until it started to border on mindlessness.
402
“By the way, Margie’s post (338) comes from the same computer as Fat Boy’s posts.”
My God Fat Boy, are you living with a female ex-student?
379 Elena
Quite simple. For me the suggestion to ban FB felt unfair. I cant help it.
You can find some more words at #375.
innin
Fat Boy
Wherever you are. From one angle (I hate that phrase) you have done what no other FOF defender/ justifier has had the balls to do. You have shown a bunch of strangers YOU, who you are, where you are, what you think. That’s to be respected and encouraged.
Much of what you have shown was not intentional, but necessary to the discussion. You have some serious stuff to work on, now. It’s better to pull out the stuff and slam it down on the table, as you have done, rather than obscure it behind school acts. But I think one thing that is important to note is RB’s propensity to exploit boys’ areas of weakness, regardless of what they are of how profound, illustrates and underlines the extreme criminality of what RB’s doing.
There are others who have been damaged more, and some less. Some are dead. I’m not going to discuss why they’re dead.
I say this to help, you are presently an example of the damage that’s being done on a mass scale. You are the only one to come here and lay it out. This is a very good thing.
406
“You are the only one to come here and lay it out. This is a very good thing.”
Of current members (not counting wives)., that I know of.
For those interested, “July 1970” is now online:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheEsotericHistoryArchive_613
Compliments of Ice Ice Satin Satire Solicitations
______________________________________
Rinnnnnng! Rinnnnng! Rinnnnng!
‘Hello’
Dorian ~ ‘Robert would like to know How long is it?’
Student ~ How long is what?
Dorian ~ ‘You know, your Willie.’
Student ~ ‘Oh, Willy, he’s about sixteen inches.’
Dorian ~ ‘Ah, just a sec…..’ (fumbles phone, drops it in Robert’s ‘chips & dip’, gives Robert the measurement, Robert lunges for the phone, licking off the sour cream and bits of chips, then answers, crunching and talking simultaneously…)
Robert ~ ‘Hello Dear, is that really the length of Willy?’
Student ~ ‘Well, yes Robert, sixteen inches, I would say.’
Robert ~ ‘Oh my goodness Goodness, I believe you’ll ‘fit in’ just fine at Isis as a new minister; I’ll have Dorian send YOU a plane ticket right away.’
Student ~ ‘But, my wife, she’s…’ (Robert cuts him off and says ~)
Robert ~ ‘No buts dear, ‘But’ is inner considering; and C-Influence wishes your immortal soul to hatch here at Isis, you may be the school’s next Man #5… see you tomorrow and don’t forget Willie, I’d like to meet him too.’
Swooooooch Swoooooooch Swooooooch
Plane lands, Student arrives at Galleria front door at approximately 3AM (coincidentally the original ‘Witching Hour of time’s gone past. Student dials Robert’s personal cell phone number and says ~)
Student ~ ‘Robert, I am here at the front door with my Willie.’
Zooooooom Zoooooooom Zoooooooom
Robert jumps from bed, tumbling several ‘others’ off it, races across the library butt naked, picks up long-legged-momentum, too fast, tries to stop, skids across the Galleria floor, buckling the silk carpets, uprooting the poinsettias from their $30,000 dollar antique Chinese Hand-painted 17th Century pots, wisps by the front door grabbing the handle still trying to stop himself, it pops off, clutching it he goes tumbling backwards through the long corridor heading for the kitchen, just as he’s about to make it to the kitchen door, the adjacent door opens and deflects his sorta-cartwheeling body downstairs, hurling down the stairs, he lands with a thud in front of Mihai and Dorian’s bedroom door; Dorian opens the door and smacks Robert in the forehead. Robert stands, a tiny bump filled with ruby colored blood begins to form on his forehead, between his eyes, Dorian says nothing, giving Robert that same ‘Quizzical, Why aren’t you me yet look’ he gives everyone who seems ‘out of line’.
Robert ~ ‘Oh, this is a shock; goodness Goodness, he’s here, at the front door, Willie! Willie! Willie, the sixteen inches of wordless breaths, he’s here; so get your asses moving, brew some coffee, crank out the movies, where’s the V-influence? Let’s go, come on, this is ‘THE’ long be, come on…’
Robert stumbles to the front door, panting, sweating, limping a bit, dizzy and completely flabbergasted at the intensity of the prescribed moment, opens the door to his own reactionary version of what some have termed George Bush’s campaign on terror’s ‘SHOCK & AWE’… A man with a baby in his arms.
Robert ~ ‘What’s this? What’s that? Who are you? Where’s Willie?’
Student ~ ‘Robert, this is Willie or William, which ever you’d wish to call him, he’s my new baby boy.’
Robert ~ ‘Ebbbeeee, geebie, boood edooday erasss etumiool hummm mitoo frittttisss mutt mutt bafflllletwies’
Dorian ~ ‘Ah, just a sec Robert I’ll get Kevin B. on the line to key that.’
_____________________________________________
Worm Regurds
Persistent lurker that I am, I’ve been impressed over the last several days with the blog’s innate ability to regulate and renew itself amidst a host of irritating and almost debilitating cross-currents.
The precious thread of egalitarianism, real concern, discovery, revelation, wish for transformation, and hope re-asserts itself yet again.
Thanks to the Sheik and all you dedicated posters who hold to that thread!
Sheik, I am glad you decided to let Fat Boy “in” if he wishes.
I hope he comes back.
For some reason I felt sympathy for Fat Boy, I don’t know. Like he was wondering, asking, trying to understand something and buffering at the same time. I just had this feeling reading some of his posts.
(Unlike Howard Carter , also known as Nich_la_s – there were no doubts or any possibility for discussion there, only lifeless drone talk..)
Dear Abigail, #391
Reading your posts evokes birth pangs for me, as I sense the journey that you are embarking upon. Many of us here on the blog have been peeling back the layers of conditioning, features, and illusions for years, and the journey within to understand ourselves and the experience of having been embedded in a cult just becomes deeper and more multi-dimensional as time passes. I still go through periods of doubt and depression and I left over ten years ago, but I have come to see the difficult times as my real teacher, and I feel much less fear.
I just finished reading a new translation of Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet” by Stephen Mitchell and letter number eight seems to be written precisely for anyone in your state of self doubt and inner turmoil. Rilke’s combination of tenderness and confidence in the wisdom of life itself caresses the heart and soul.
Here is a short excerpt: “Don’t observe yourself too closely. Don’t be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame (that is: morality) at your past, which naturally has a share in everything that now meets you.”
So, why not get a copy of the book, curl up in a big a chair or bed with a cup of tea or hot chocolate, and let his words of love and redemption penetrate deep into your core.
Wishing you the very best.
-Nancy G
402 Sheik you said:
As to the Fat Boy situation. After re-reading our little interaction I think that it wasn’t fair of me to ban him. Since the beginning I have been trying to keep my ego and pride out of this discussion (and especially the moderation) but this time I failed. Fat Boy is free to post here again.
Sheik,
I like you very much! You are the perfect being to hold this blog. We are lucky to have found you.
Two Friends
Golden, everyone would agree, maybe even add magical.
Two friends transformed and transforming each and every one of us. Looking down the long table, children of children, friends, so many friends. The food made you quiver; the wine, still gasping.
But more than that, so much more, essentially more, all that is more than that. Looking down the long table, light and joy. Elbows on table, leaning forward, so forward, gazing eye to eye, heart to heart. It may have seemed like chit chat or chatter, but wasn’t like that.
It was connection, pure and simple. The unspoken, the silent understanding that few people on this earth understand, but each and everyone of us do. The forever connection.
But look what is happening. Words bounced around, the profound, the frivolous, and everything in between. Each and every one engaged, listening, sharing, laughing, accepting.
How long have we known each other? How many years, decades? Why have I never seen your beauty, your brilliance, your warmth, your compassion, your humanity, until this moment.
What made me so blind?
Glad to see the light
Cake
409
Cheer leaders and pom poms doing their thing
Re: A former student 393/395, and everyone else!
You are right. It’s very hard to follow a particular discussion/topic in this format. Since this blog is dedicated primarily to discussing the fof, and Greater Fellowship is dedicated primarily to connecting with old friends, in or out of the fof, I have decided to form a network primarily devoted to discussing the Work. (Please understand it is NOT meant as competition for other forums!)
Should anyone be interested in substantial fourth way discussions, please visit and join:
http://whatisthework.ning.com/
This network is open to every person interested in the Work, and should be particularly relevant for those fourth way students who are not participating in formal organizations and are seeking a way to activate their first and second lines (to begin with).
Joining and posting on Ning are technically very easy.
The network will be public until the 1st of October: this means anyone can join & view without invitation!
After October 1st, 2007, the network will be available only to members; membership will remain possible at request and by invitation. (This to protect the private/profile info and personal observations and experiences posted by members.)
I truly hope this network will become your best and favorite shock! :)
Cake, this is so beautiful.
I wish I was too at this table…
I can relate to what you’re saying.
If something brings you to New York – please email or call us here!
My info is on GF.
Much love
Looking for Innernaut, #362:
I’ve been away for the last 2 weeks, and I haven’t sent any email during that time. So if you received something from “innernaut” during that time, it was probably spam. But since I don’t know who you are, the situation is a little odd. This anonymity thing gets weird sometimes.
#294 Abigail
“Hello. I haven’t posted for a long time, but I check in and read a couple of times a week. Or more. It helps some, but I’d like to hear more about how people who have been in the Fellowship are finding ways to forgive themselves. I find myself so permeated with rage and self hatred for abdicating my life for 30 years that I can’t seem to figure out how pick up the threads of being human, of finding some joy once in a while in how beautiful the world is. I know it still is, but I can’t get there.”
Dear Abigail,
I put off responding to you because I am still far from having answered your questions for myself. One thing is certain: there’s no “silver bullet.” No quick, simple sound bite that will take away the pain you are feeling.
My own state these days is similar to what it felt like in the months following a divorce (something I have some “being” in). For many months it’s difficult to remember how the marriage really was. In part, the recent, mostly bitter memories tend to eclipse everything else, and the happier times become hidden, or else suspect, like a mirage. I used to have trouble even remembering the facial features of my ex-wife, what we talked about in those simple quiet moments, doing the dishes or taking a drive to town. Everything disappears within the awful shadow of a necessarily destructive movement of fate.
Because of experiencing grief through divorce or the death of a beloved friend, I have learned to place hope in the healing effect of time. With time I can look back and regain the more complete memory, both the tears and the smiles, and recognize that for the most part there was no one to blame. Things were the way they had to be, and not one day less or more than they had to be that way. Everyone involved simply played their part, flawed yes, yet blameless.
This is the way it is with matters of destiny. And I believe that like marriage and childbirth and death, our experience with the Fellowship of Friends was something unavoidable, fated, from beginning to end.
But as we know, the Fellowship was not a marriage, and there IS blame that needs to be apportioned here. There is a man who part knowingly, part through his monumental delusion, did harm to us and to many of our friends. I do not blame myself for believing this man. He was very good at what he did. As evidenced by this discussion, thousands of others were fooled, and fooled as we were I feel I am in good company.
So the only remaining question regarding Robert Earl Burton is whether any or all of us can do something now to stop him. Not for vindication (at least this is not my own motivation), but to help the ones left behind and the ones not yet in. I am not sure if there is such a way, beyond the awareness-raising power of this forum, but I have been exploring the options at hand. Regardless of success, trying at least to take some action is helping me move on. For some, telling their stories seems to help. For others, sarcasm, rage or downright silliness helps. And for some, a new system like Advaita appears to be a new lifeline. Many of these responses are playing out in me as well. It is a process. It happens over time, and there is no shortcut.
But Abigail, why would you hate yourself? You did nothing wrong, and if you stayed for 30 years you must have been receiving something during all that time that satisfied some essential need in you on some level. Not everything in the FOF flowed from Robert Burton after all. There were (and still are) wonderful people there who gave us love and stimulated our inner world. And regardless of all the debate here about the Fourth Way vs. other systems of spiritual development, for me at least there were many great lessons I learned about myself by committing to the ideas and disciplines of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, not to mention the many other great spiritual leaders, thinkers and poets we studied and absorbed into our being. There was the literature, the music, the lifestyle. There was Lincoln, Rilke, Buddha, Montaigne, Shakespeare. Mostly we read them without an official interpreter looking over our shoulder. (At least until the keys came.) Mostly we made them our own, on our own terms.
And yes, there was the dark side that we explained away by repeating to ourselves “the i’s are not real, the i’s are not real” and moved beyond by “bridging intervals” and “doing 2nd line”…until a day of inescapable certainty came when we realized we had to plunge into the interval instead of building yet one more artificial, unsustainable structure to allow us to move beyond the bold nakedness of WHAT IS in fact a cult: Robert Burton’s perverse religious prison colony, his Fellowship of Friends.
Yet even in a prison one can learn things that may prove useful later.
This time of internally processing it all is rare, fragile, beyond value. It is where growth starts, like a seed sprouting, underground. In the beginning darkness is required, and being alone. It is all about finding one’s own core and letting it do what it is fated to do. Was always fated to do. It is without choice really. Growing is the only option at hand. You were always meant to arrive here. It is your time now. Let yourself be. The joy will find you. Just let it.
With love to you Abigail, and to all my friends,
joseph.granados@gmail.com
391 Abigail
“I guess that determination to be unique dies hard (if it ever does).”
This seems to me a very important realization, Abigail–one of many that come only after paying a price. The greater our determination to maintain the illusion of uniqueness, the higher the price to be free of it. This, I believe, is just an extension of the fundamental illusion that we exist as separate beings, one that is virtually impossible to see through when we are in the Fellowship.
Many of us joined the Fellowship imagining that awakening was a process of acquisition and accretion, essentially similar to acquiring wealth. We imagined we could pay for our spiritual “gains” by investing in “self-remembering,” doing “three lines of work,” etc., and thereby buy a “soul.” We imagined we would survive this process, emerging as Abigail, the Conscious Being (and if our model was RB, we imagined ourselves expensively dressed, surrounded by beautiful objects and sycophants, and pretending to be humble while devoting the rest of our days to stimulating our various membranes). After all, didn’t all of the supposed “conscious beings” continue to exist as individual, albeit as disembodied, spirits, floating overhead, manipulating license plates for dues-paying Fellowship members?
The Fellowship could not but reinforce this sense of Abigailness-possessed-by-hands-grab-gimme, since it is led by an extraordinarily acquisitive, self-absorbed individual who designed a teaching that both reflects his weaknesses and appealed to those same weaknesses in us.
One of its great weaknesses has always been its blindness to the significance of a genuine sense of caring about anything other than oneself. Every great tradition emphasizes the critical, fundamental significance of compassion for others, yet people in the Fellowship were taught to regard all of their experiences through the veil of what’s-in-it-for-me. Again, if we accepted RB as a model, how could we possibly learn otherwise? As now seems painfully obvious, there is othing “spiritual,” or beneficial in any meaningful way, in imagining that the entire population of mankind not presently current with their teaching payments is worthless at best. Even the feeble “second and third lines of work” were simply thinly-veiled “first line”; people “did” them because they believed they would personally benefit–acquire more awakening points. It was, for the most part, an act–and eventually the chickens have to come home to roost.
I bring this up, Abigail, because I have found there is no cure for the rage and self-hatred–even rage and self-hatred fueled in part by outrage at the suffering in which we have been complicit–to be found in approaches that reinforce the sense of uniqueness and and individual self. Whatever else we may do–and I found wisdom in every post here in response to your original one–we must turn our gaze away from our obsessive self-absorption, and our thought- and emotion-created “problems,” and find ways to serve others, for no purpose that can be articulated or justified; it is what we were put here to do. The sufferings of humankind are so enormous that juxtaposing them with the image of a person imagining himself to be “spiritual” while stuffing himself with gourmet food and guzzling wine while acquiring “impressions” and “moments of presence,” will, and should, provoke a sense of shame, if not insanity. But that scenario is only an exaggerated form of the universal human condition; we are all carrying a sense of shame, of self-hatred, because we are all essentially selfish in the face of others’ suffering. It is by losing ourselves in trying to relieve some of that suffering that we are redeemed.
The real tragedy would be if were to come to this realization too late to be able to find an opportunity to serve others. So we are extremely fortunate.
Dear unoanimo:
I am taking your advice, hitching a ride to Burning Man, and I’m bringing the pants to torch.
I’ll catch up with y’all when I return…I’m going off-grid.
My love to everyone!
376 Alice E.
Perhaps we could develop an enneagram with the triangle labeled according to the triad of Regeneration – 3rd force on top (at point 9), 2nd force at point 3, and 1st force at point 6. Would this be correct? Would this help us better understand triads and octaves, and the nature of the shocks required? I don’t know how you see the AA 12 step program: as regeneration [3-2-1] or as healing [2-3-1]?
A difficulty in the study of the 6 processes and that of triads is that different triads occur within other processes. I don’t know if there is a general law I.E. that is a specific order of triads in a complete octave of regeneration, healing, refinement, growth, destruction or corruption.
However the suggestion is a valid one and useful to think about.
re: 419 joseph
wow! you’ve always been a difficult act to follow. (said with a chuckle).
nevertheless…
for abigail and others who struggle,
leaving the fof was the most difficult thing i have done in this life (to date). before leaving, the sea of uncertainty kept me from action for too long, but i did jump into the unknown, without a safety net. at first i lived on skid-row. to say i found a way out is taking too much credit… ‘fate’ it seems, intended other things for me… (i do believe in the direction of angels – some might call that ‘magical thinking’ but thinking is magic. without the loving support of angels i would not be here to tell my story. marcia sophia came to me at some point during the dire circumstances described, she has been with me ever since, for more than 20 winters. but visions of angels might be beside the point, i will not digress further in that direction. when leaving the fof, the ‘normal’ support provided by community falls away and this was for me the major source of pain and difficulty. all those years ago, if i had the sort of support offered here by the gf network, things would have been much different for me. it is difficult finding this website now because to contribute in any meaningful way means opening wounds that have long been scarred over.
#420 Life Person
Thank you Life Person.
That post could easily have been addressed to us all.
420 Life Person
Amen
#383 Daily Card that was real funny.
#409 Unoanimo that was real funny too.
They say laughing is good medicine. Thanks to you both for the double dose.
To quote from#419 Joseph G. “Yet even in prison one can learn that may prove useful later”.
Didn’t Ouspensky say that a person can become conscious in a prison cell if they remember themselves, dont inner consider and (forgot the other)?
Which reminds me Unoanimo. I was expecting a letter from prison before now. I read in the newspaper that the state jails were emptied of prisoners because of hurricane Dean.
The quality of recent posts has inspired me to offer my own special contribution to the Journey Forth to Isis celebrations currently taking place.
I have resolved to host a lovely blog-event honoring the great Isis, Goddess of Fertility and Motherhood and Feminine Archetype for Creation, The One Who is All, Light-Giver of Heaven, Mother of the Gods, Lady of the Words of Power, Moon Shining Over the Sea, She Who Knows How To Make Right Use of the Heart, underworld Mistress of the House of Life (BTW, can someone explain to me Robert’s rationale for misusing her powerful name?). I was thinking of calling it “Reclaiming the Inner Goddess” or maybe “Good girls go to Heaven, bad girls go Everywhere”. I’m still undecided and open to suggestions.
From today until September 2nd I will be posting a special series of musical clips celebrating female beauty, strength, intelligence, resiliency, humor and creativity. I am most hopeful that the boys will enjoy this too. It is above all a journey inside ourselves, where sounds and images become inspiration to the magic of the Present.
One of the aims that I’d like to share with you is that of helping you, thanks to my close working connection with the Great DJ in the Sky, to use You Tube and I Tunes in a more personal and creative way.
Please join the beautiful sights and sounds in an environment of cybernetic freedom and sharing. Remember that this event is free but do hesitate to contact me to actively take part in the octave: any help you could give will not be appreciated, as music is the one field where I am most identified with my very own subjective opinions.
The Valley Spirit never dies. It is called the Mysterious Female. And the doorway of the Mysterious Female Is the base from which Heaven and Earth spring. It is there within us all the time. Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.
Lao Tzu. The Tao Te Ching.
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=AJc64xncBt4&mode=related&search=
The moon is out. I’m gonna go bathe in a seaside cavern.
Sorry I misquoted the quote from #419 Joseph G. “Yet even in prison one can learn THINGS that may prove useful later”.
In the Fellowship of Friends PRISON they wouldnt, couldnt or didnt study the Enneagram because the Warden didnt want to. That “tool” would have been useful for some of the inmates/convicts?
The following excerpts are from the transcript of the PBS documentary, “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple.”
At one point several years into my stay in the Fellowship of Friends, I realized that I was in a “cult” — but for some unknown reason or reasons (in addition to my own stupidity), I continued for several more years. I believed that our cult was different. Robert Burton was different. We were different. The “flaws” (one of the weakest words in the history of the Fellowship) could be overlooked.
Well, certainly there are many differences — many experiences and friendships that we wouldn’t have found elsewhere. Also, I believe in my heart that nothing approximating the horror of Jonestown will ever occur in the FOF.
But can we be sure that the worst has already occurred? Is it really “negative imagination” to ask that question? Or is a sound concern given all that we have learned about the Fellowship and about other cults?
As Brain Police, Brainwashed, and others seem to be pointing out here, there are striking similarities. That’s worth a look before we claim that we were different — that we are unique.
Best wishes to all.
==========================
“Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple” (aired in 2006 on PBS)
Deborah Layton, Peoples Temple Member, Author, Seductive Poison: Nobody joins a cult. Nobody joins something they think is going to hurt them. You join a religious organization, you join a political movement, and you join with people that you really like.
——————————————
Grace Stoen, Peoples Temple Member: Peoples Temple truly had the potential to be something big and powerful and great, and yet for whatever reason, Jim took the other road.
Jackie Speier, Aide to Congressman Leo Ryan: On the night of the 17th, it was still a vibrant community. I would never have imagined that 24 hours later, they would all be dead.
——————————————
Garrett Lambrev, Peoples Temple Member: The Peoples Temple services, they had life, they had soul, they had power. We were alive in those services.
Claire Janaro, Peoples Temple Member: I would be up jumping in the balcony and clapping my hands. If you came in as a stranger and didn’t know anything about the politics, you were thinking you were entering an old-time religion service.
——————————————
Deborah Layton, Peoples Temple Member, Author, Seductive Poison: Every single person felt that they had a purpose there and that they were exceptionally special. And that is how he brought so many young college kids in, so many older black women in, so many people from diverse backgrounds who realized that there was something bigger than themselves that they needed to be involved in — and that Jim Jones offered that.
——————————————
Jim Jones Jr., Peoples Temple Member: And he was kind of left to his own devices. Kind of the kid who ran wild in the street, you know what I mean? Listen, he was in a dysfunctional family. We got a nice name for it now. But when you live in a dysfunctional family, you think it’s normal.
——————————————
John R. Hall, Sociologist: Jim Jones started out on the revival preaching circuit, learning the ropes of being a preacher. And once he started doing that, it became clear that he could get a following.
——————————————
Eugene Cordell, Relative of Peoples Temple Member: We had some people that disagreed with Jimmy. They got up in the audience and they said they disagreed with him. They did not like this integration part of the services. We did ask people to leave the church one night because of that.
——————————————
Rebecca Moore, Relative of Peoples Temple Member: California is perceived to be a very progressive state. This would be the place to implement the dream of racial equality. Not Indianapolis, which seems hopeless, but California, which seems to be the Promised Land.
Fielding McGehee, Relative of Peoples Temple Member: He chose Ukiah in northern California — about 90 miles north of San Francisco — because there was an article in Esquire Magazine that said that Ukiah was one of the nine places in the world that in the event of thermonuclear attack, people would survive.
On-screen text: Ukiah, 1965-1974
——————————————
Joyce Shaw-Houston, Peoples Temple Member: The focus of Jim’s message was taken from the Bible, where Jesus in his earliest days told people to sell all things and have all things in common.
Jim Jones (archival): Jesus Christ had the most revolutionary teachings to be said, in the sense that he said to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take in the stranger, administer to those who are widows and afflicted in their suffering. And we feel that no one really tried Christianity too effectively in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Deborah Layton, Peoples Temple Member, Author, Seductive Poison: The membership increased substantially as he procured more and more Greyhound buses and fixed them up, and every summer he began this cross-country tour.
Claire Janaro, Peoples Temple Member: The purpose of the bus trips was to spread Jim’s beliefs about socialism and the world, and how we can live a better life and about an integrated lifestyle. But behind that, I think it was to gather more members for the Temple.
——————————————
Deborah Layton, Peoples Temple Member, Author, Seductive Poison: As older people joined, it took a year or so and he’d convince the people that he was doing so much in the community and so why not rather than just tithe your twenty percent, why not sell your home, give the money to the church? And that is what people began to do.
——————————————
John R. Hall, Sociologist: They were giving their life’s money and savings to the church, but in exchange, the church was agreeing to take care of them in the community, not just in a nursing home.
Neva Sly Hargrave, Peoples Temple Member: Well it got to the point where there were so many duties in the Temple that some people had to become full time. So when you were full-time Temple, you worked about twenty hours a day.
——————————————
Hue Fortson Jr., Peoples Temple Member: Being in an environment where you’re constantly up, you’re constantly busy, and you’re made to feel guilty if you take too many luxuries like sleeping — you tend to not really think for yourself. And I did allow Jones to think for me because I figured that he had the better plan. I gave my rights up to him. As many others did.
——————————————
Tim Carter, Peoples Temple Member: I had been in the Temple for just a few months. I was sent backstage in Los Angeles to — to get something for somebody, I don’t remember what. And Jones happened to be coming out of his room and he said, “Hi Tim, how are you doing? How is it going? How do you like everything so far?” And, “Oh, I like it a lot.” And, “you know, it’s really cool.” I don’t remember exactly.
And he reached up and kind of patted the back of my neck, and he said, “I’ll [expletive] you in the ass if you want.” And I just kind of stammered, “No.” You know, “No.” And he said, “Well, you know, if you ever want that, that’s okay, just let me know and we’ll do that.”
——————————————
Deborah Layton, Peoples Temple Member, Author, Seductive Poison: What he explained to each of us, and in sermons, was that sexual relationships were very selfish and they took away from the focus of the church — and that was to help others. Jim was not celibate. Nobody knew that until perhaps it was their time to find out. What he spoke from the pulpit wasn’t what he did behind the scenes.
Hue Fortson Jr., Peoples Temple Member: I remember one night, one of the brothers had stood up and said, “You know, I think everybody that wants Father to [expletive] them in the butt, you need to take an enema first.” I’m telling you the truth man, I’m telling you the truth. And then the question went on, “Well, how many of you in here have had him to do that?” And whether they were lying or just following suit, hands of the men just went up around the room.
And I’m sitting there petrified because I’m like, “Is this what it’s leading to, that I’m supposed to get to?” And I’m thinking, “hmmm.” But I played it off like, “Okay, I’m being cool. Okay, if that’s where they at, that’s not where I’m at.” Because I’m thinking, “My wife — I’m happy with my wife. With this sleep I’m not getting, I’m not getting enough anyway.”
Grace Stoen, Peoples Temple Member: One of the powerful things that Jim used, to keep us to not think, was that we were never really allowed to speak with one another. I’d look around and I’d say, “Am I the only one that feels this way?” I learned, eventually, not to say anything to anyone.
——————————————
On-screen text: San Francisco, 1974-1977
——————————————
Vernon Gosney, Peoples Temple Member: Jim Jones represented the Peoples Temple as a progressive movement that was threatened. That there were outside forces who didn’t want us to do what we were doing. And it was the government. The government was infiltrating and wiretapping and trying to kill people or assassinate people. That’s what was happening.
Hue Fortson Jr., Peoples Temple Member: He was always paranoid that someone was going to get in and try to kill him — that they had two people that had dedicated their lives, that they were going to jump in front of Jones and take the bullet, kind of like the secret service so to speak.
Neva Sly Hargrave, Peoples Temple Member: Jim started changing a lot in the seventies. He was taking drugs. I think he said it was his kidneys at the time. And he was getting more and more paranoid. Incredibly paranoid.
Vernon Gosney, Peoples Temple Member: There was always threats. Always, always, always, always threats. They were there. They were just about to try to destroy us if we weren’t always viligant [sic] about our movement.
——————————————
Laura Johnston Kohl, Peoples Temple Member: December of ’75, ninety of us went by plane, into Guyana, and saw where we were building the community there.
——————————————
Tim Carter, Peoples Temple Member: What I saw that creation as being was building a city where we could move and raise our children, outside of the oppression and the racism of the United States of America.
Mike Touchette, Peoples Temple Member: When I first went into Jonestown, it was just a footpath in the rainforest. We had Indians in front of us with machetes, and we had Indians behind us with machetes. Three-hundred miles into the jungle, we literally built a city in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of nowhere.
——————————————
Jim Jones (archival): Now, will each of you give a very fond embrace, a salutary kiss of greeting to your neighbor — and let’s fill this atmosphere with warmth and love.
Laura Johnston Kohl, Peoples Temple Member: We thought of ourselves as one big family that did handle our own discipline. I was in a lot of the meetings where people were spanked or beaten, and I was slapped once, also in a public meeting.
——————————————
Joyce Shaw-Houston, Peoples Temple Member: It’s kind of like when you get married and you have this ideal. And you’re, you know, you’re in love and then — you know, the honeymoon wears off and reality sets in. And most people, once the going gets rough, don’t jump out immediately.
——————————————
Tim Carter, Peoples Temple Member: I have a conscious memory of sitting there, thinking to myself, “This is wrong.” And I didn’t do a damned thing to stand up and say, “This is wrong.”
Jordan Vilchez, Peoples Temple Member: It’s like a child in a dysfunctional family. On a certain level, it’s normal, you know? I just kind of took everything in stride.
Hue Fortson Jr., Peoples Temple Member: But then we felt like we had gotten involved and gotten in so deep that it was actually no way out.
Deborah Layton, Peoples Temple Member, Author, Seductive Poison: I had traveled on Bus Seven, which was Jim’s bus. And he sat down next to me. And I was sitting there and I thought, “That’s weird — it smells like alcohol next to me.” And he leaned over and he said, “Do you know what you do to me?” He had informed me that I was to come in — on Bus Seven, there was a room in the back for just him. He had books. He had a desk. He had a bed.
When everyone got off the bus at the rest stop, I went into his little room and I sat there and waited for him. And finally he opened the door, and without any talk or anything, he just pulled down his pants and — and had sex with me. And as I lay there frightened, not sure what to do, and as I shivered, he’d say to me, “This is for you. I’m doing this for you, Debbie.”
——————————————
On-screen text: Jonestown, 1977-1978
——————————————
Tim Carter, Peoples Temple Member (archival): I have never been so totally happy or fulfilled in my life. I can’t begin to describe it. You could sit here and talk all day long and no words could describe the peace, the beauty, the sense of accomplishment and responsibility and camaraderie that’s here. It’s overwhelming, it really is. You can’t describe it.
——————————————
Relative of Peoples Temple Member (archival): I think that Jim Jones took his group down there because he was afraid to face the publicity and answer the questions here in this country. I don’t think that he feels confident having people talk to their relatives. I think the only way he can survive and sustain what he started is to isolate all his followers from this country and from their families.
Marshall Kilduff, Journalist: The Concerned Relatives were the ex-members who wanted other family members, still in the church, to know they could leave. They wanted them to feel that there was an outside world — that Jones was wrong about telling people they could never leave the church, and that they would be treated badly in the real world.
Rebecca Moore, Relative of Peoples Temple Member: The Concerned Relatives prompted FCC investigation of Peoples Temple. They organized letter-writing campaigns to public officials, to members of Congress. They were incredibly effective in mobilizing government and media interest in Peoples Temple.
Former Peoples Temple Member (archival): He was talking integration. He was talking helping people. He was talking better this and better that.
Male Reporter (archival): What about now? What’s your impression now?
Former Peoples Temple Member (archival): My impression now — that those are fronts for him. I think he’s gone crazy.
——————————————
Deborah Layton, Peoples Temple Member, Author, Seductive Poison: Every night, at some point, his voice would come over the loudspeaker and he’d say, “I’m sending somebody out tonight, somebody you know, somebody you trust and they’re going to act like they want to leave. But this is a loyalty test and you need to turn them in.”
Vernon Gosney, Peoples Temple Member: A father would turn in a son. A husband would turn in a wife. A small child would turn in a parent. There was no freedom to express to one another what was going on, because everything was suspect. The most forbidden thing to express was to leave.
——————————————
Vernon Gosney, Peoples Temple Member: Jim Jones came to talk to me and the first thing he said was, “Don’t say anything to the reporters. They’re all liars.” The last words I heard from Jim Jones was, “I just want you to know that you can come back to Jonestown and visit your son any time you want.”
——————————————
Jackie Speier, Aide to Congressman Leo Ryan: More people wanted to leave. And then Jim Jones started to make pleas to people, saying, “You can’t leave. You’re my people. Why do you want to leave?”
——————————————
Narrator (anonymous letter, archival): “To whomever finds this note. Collect all the tapes, all the writing, all the history. The story of this movement, this action, must be examined over and over. We did not want this kind of ending. We wanted to live, to shine, to bring light to a world that is dying for a little bit of love.”
======================================
The complete transcript for this documentary can be found at pbs.org. The film aired in 2006.
420 Life Person.
Nice post!
Seems to me that compassion for others is not something we can assume by an effort of will or something – it flows naturally from the awareness that we are not as separate from other people as we have been programmed to think we are. If our own sense of individuality fades we see how connected we are.
Robert thinks he is a Goddess
Love Malcolm
Said Bob with open delight,
“My pubic hair’s perfectly white”,
Cross-legg’d, like a swami
For to ‘hide the salami’,
“I look like a goddess alright”
Life Person, I very much enjoyed your post. Joseph, I liked your post too, especially the ending.
Thank you guys!
‘Robert’s Practical Insights’ with Mihai
GRAND PAVILION – MONDAY AUGUST 27th at 6PM
“The aim of this informal gathering is to reveal the pronounced practical element of Robert’ teaching and his way of working with students. The event will be comprised of a collection of some of Robert’s most practical advice and teaching anecdotes that do not usually appear in the teaching events.” Mihai
Everybody is welcome and there is no charge. See you there!
________________________________________________
See you there! Hey and it’s free!!!
Dorian,
Too bad Robert Burton does not allow you to finish your University degree studies in Psychology; he’d be a Pulitzer PhD term paper prize for you (for) sure… there’s still time though, in the meantime tell Mehai I said ~
‘Yo! Chest hairs and gold are only skin deep.’
______________________________
:.)
Whalerider (421) ~
Throw on a gallon of gasoline for me, my friend, enjoy! *
*I know you will.
:.)
Joseph G and Life Person,
Amen to what each of you say. I am in awe of your eloquence and rhetorical force. Bravo!
Hello Sheik,
Please don’t post my last post if there’s still time to retrieve it.
This stuff happened in another large spiritual community in Oregon. Compare this to our Beloved Teacher’s shameless sexual abuses and make your own conclusions.
Dear Community,
It is possible that you have already heard about a heartbreaking disclosure within our community.
On Sunday, October 1, 2006, E., founder of the L. Foundation and School revealed to the entire Board of Directors that he breached the sanctity of the teacher/student relationship by initiating an intimate relationship with one of his students, who is also a teacher in the School. This relationship lasted for three years.
What was initially seen as a matter between adults is now recognized to be a betrayal of the teacher/student relationship and an abuse of power. A trust with the larger community also has been broken. This is an important revelation as real harm is being experienced by the student and is being fully acknowledged. The repercussions of this betrayal are reverberating in ways that were never imagined, but are very painful.
E. takes full responsibility for his actions and the harm he has caused. In response, he is willingly stepping down from teaching immediately.
Message from E. to his students:
My teacher said, “If you move it will bite you.” I moved and it has bitten. Four years ago, I initiated a sexual relationship with a student that lasted for three years.
I betrayed myself, the teaching and my community.
I also caused great harm to those that I love the most in this world.
I can no longer teach as long as the harmful consequences of my movement remain.
The wound of the pain that I have caused will be with me for at least as long as this body lasts.
I am so deeply sorry for it all.
In surrender and love
E.
NOW, COULD YOU IMAGINE ROBERT EVER STEPPING DOWN FROM TEACHING AND PUBLICLY APOLOGIZING FOR ALL THE HARM HE HAD CAUSED TO HIS STUDENTS – NOT ONE, BUT HUNDREDS OF THEM?
Talking about true humility and conscience!
Per 2b’s 429 Jonestown post, I would have never believed that I could write the following. But, I now believe that the Fellowship could have a very bad ending. Here are some recent thoughts.
It seems to me ominous that Robert Burton has recently moved away from the fourth way teachings and literature. It leaves the Fellowship of Friends MUCH less anchored. The bizarre and even ridiculous interpretations seem to me at least debased if not ominous. The reduced lack of personal restraint by Robert Burton appears to me decadent and ominous.
Robert is a spiritual criminal. But now he seems to have lost even the little restraint that existed in the past. In the world of psychological profiling this accelerating untoward and destructive (self-destructive) behavior would be seen as a dangerous and portentous sign.
Also, it may be that the fetid smell of his breath is not due to recent sexual activity but rather to serious illness or to powerful medication. He has had a long history of oral fungal infections, apart from other maladies that attend promiscuous homosexuals. These infections can be “innocent” or indicators of serious underlying and even terminal disease.
A sociopath with nothing to lose is cause to be wary.
Harold W. once calculated that every year about 25% of the Fellowship of Friends left and about 25% joined (tilted one way or another depending on growth or decline) – that figure has held relatively true over a long time. Given the sunlight that this blog and its progeny represent, it’s hard to imagine that 25% will ever join again. And it is likely that 25%+ per year will leave.
At some point in the rapid decline of enrollment as accentuated by the minimal-paying nature of many of the remaining students, the form of the Fellowship of Friends will necessarily be forced to radically change. It will likely become more decentralized and more hidden.
And that will be perhaps the most ominous sign. I think that this could and probably will occur within a couple of years — fully apart from any lawsuits or regulatory pressures.
In my mind, seriously for the first time on a bigger scale, I am beginning to believe that the Fellowship of Friends may be in the process of becoming dangerous to the lives of its remaining members.
Members and families still in the Fellowship of Friends ought to strongly consider these recent changes and those which may necessarily follow as bad signs. Omens of not fully known origin that one’s instinctive center ought to be paying attention to. And take appropriate precautions.
437 ~ Purchasing Awakening
Feeling “deeply sorry for it all” has nothing to do with Conscience or Humility; go figure, billions of humiliated apologies go unnoticed everyday by conscience, who, as the mind senses that the apology is ‘enough for now’, is still a buried treasure, so to be buried some more by another apology from having made the same mistake a 4437th time in another way or form of ‘capture naiveté and release danger’;
something Robert Burton has been doing for 37 years, making the same ‘mistake’, self-polarizing himself with other people’s little stories and feeding off even smaller responses in the light of his little story’s revelations (from both + and – sides: see, ego never looses, he’s either a blood dripping martyr or a celibate hard-on saint; the people (and their acts) give him this affirmative ‘power’)
If Robert Burton apologized and stepped down as a teacher, this would change nothing within Robert Burton’s being, nor make any real fundamental change in the fourth dimensional ‘messes’ he’s tipped off the Nut Tree dining table and onto the floor;
yet, it would certainly turn some heads, that’s for sure, now, the question is, how to turn the rest of the body and to get it walking, not crawling, towards graduating from wish and the blowing out of birthday candles (why not leave them burning) (?)
Apologizing though is a form of magic, it has the psychic, penetrating force to either be used for feeding off of light (like a cancer) or being the ‘cancer’ or ‘light’ with a conscious SPACE in between,
conscious enough to know better than to have the two in the same room together and unconscious.
It’s not the demons, it’s how we handle them; how far one allows one’s present being circumstance to let out the leech and for what.
Such a ‘demon-stration’ by Robert Burton would be just the beginning of a long and very precise-hazardous journey of silent and profound unfolding, a sort of solo-redemption, a non publicized ‘burning at the stake’ of the pain body ego…
Yes, “humilty and conscience!” though not “true”, for, IMO, true humilty and conscience does not feed upon the prerequisite of having to make a mistake in order to manifest and grow…
After all, is it not Robert Burton who believes that all this old and new ‘friction’ he cranks out every day and night is “material from the gods’ for his students to transform;
and while they are ‘transforming’, conscience and the humility that supersedes the conscious recognition of exactly how much of it (conscience) actually DOES flows into and from our daily life’s living/becoming, goes unchecked, unused, unbuilt,
because Robert Burton’s followers are too busy keeping themselves ‘unfinished Men #4’ so to remain his ‘students’ or waiting for him to call them some higher number, that they themselves can only utter from the caverns and blinding sunshine of humility and conscience…
True humilty and conscience cannot be built on aftermath alone, there’s a deeper picture to paint, then burn…
Thank you for your posting and the spark.
_________________________________________
Love to you Purchasing Awakening
Hello Sheik,
I seem to be loosing the posts, one last night was better lost but If I could recover the one from this evening I would like to, if possible, and some help to see what’s going on. Thank you.
Elena ~
Try purchasing from Staples ‘Norton 360’ install it on your computer; you may have a ‘bug’ fooling around in there, from you know where…
:.)
This was recently posted on the Sheik’s other blog, thanks to his valiant comrade, the Monochromatic knight.
Terror Management Theory attempts to describe a significant motivator behind human action. It arouse from various academic traditions but is mostly familiar to students of social psychology. The basic thesis is that as humans our primary biological imperative, aside from passing on our genetic material, is to stay alive. And as everyone knows, there are countless unforeseen circumstances in which our existence can come to an abrupt end. It is precisely this which most likely differentiates us from other animals, our awareness of our impending death. I say “most likely differentiates us from other animals” because this has not been entirely proven true. What can be confirmed experientially however, is the overwhelming anxiety generated from this awareness of death.
Otto Rank, Norman Brown, and Ernst Becker posited that humans, ingeniously but unconsciously solved this dilemma by developing cultural world views: “commonly held beliefs about reality that serve to reduce the potentially overwhelming terror resulting from the awareness of death”. All cultures provide meaning by offering a creation myth, a blue print for acceptable behavior on earth, and a promise of immortality either symbolically or literally. Individuals thus become participants in a world of meaning and gain emotional stability in the face of death.
As readers of this blog may know: “All cultural world views are ultimately shared fictions, in the sense that none of them is likely to be literally true, and their existence is generally sustained by social consensus. When everyone around us believes the same thing we can be confident of the voracity of our beliefs”. Good old social proof.
This may not be entirely news for many but the following was certainly something I somewhat knew but never considered in its entirety. “When we encounter people with different beliefs, this poses a challenge to our death-denying belief system, which is why people are generally quite uncomfortable around (and hostile toward) those who are different.” Religious and political conflicts may be much more than disagreements on how one should live their life and more a coping mechanism for death anxiety. Suddenly the state of the world gains a whole new dimension.
“Additionally, because no symbolic cultural construction can actually overcome the physical reality of death, residual anxiety is unconsciously projected unto such groups as individuals, designating them as scapegoats: all encompassing repositories of evil, the eradication of which would make earth as it is in heaven. We therefore typically respond to people with different beliefs by berating them, trying to convert them to our system of beliefs, or just killing them and in so doing asserting that “my God (or political-economic system) is better than ours and we’ll kick your ass to prove it.”
Quotations from Psychology and Consumer Culture
Laura (442) ~
Thank you for that posting; it reminded me of the entirety of “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson”, though most profoundly this quotation from the book ~
“The sole means now for the saving of the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant again into their presences a new organ, an organ like Kundabuffer, but this time of such properties that every one of these unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as of the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests.
Only such a sensation and such a cognizance can now destroy the egoism completely crystallized in them that has swallowed up the whole of their Essence and also that tendency to hate others which flows from it—the tendency, namely, which engenders all those mutual relationships existing there, which serve as the chief cause of all their abnormalities unbecoming to three-brained beings and maleficent for them themselves and for the whole of the Universe.”
______________________________________________
Another bit of ‘light beaming upon hallowed ground proof’ of how it is that Robert Burton and The Fellowship of Friends abandoned their Holy Parents (G., O., and R.C.)… adopting paradise and moon theories as their excuse not to graduate, nor to go outside of Oregon House’s ‘fly zone’ to feed, cloth, love and assist in mending the 7 billion stranded passengers belonging to one of this solar systems greatest plane wrecks, better known as “Lucifer’s Fall, Flight 666”.
Keep sucking those dicks Robert Burton; practice for licking white, in broad daylight, the bones of the dead, as your putrid breath molds and paints the haunts belonging to the edges, the narrow thoroughfares, where only newly plagued rodents can squeeze through, giving birth privately upon the cushioning provided by heaps of embroidered handkerchiefs, snatched by the quickest of them from the obituaries nightstands, to a legion of scurrying desperatenesses, diseases, disembodiments and immortal, scentless daisies for your lapels.
__________________________________
l.t.y.a.
______________________________________________
Dear Elena (#19-440 or thereabouts),
I’m sorry, for you and for us, that you are losing posts. Here is my solution; I write all my posts over a few paragraphs long in a word–processing program, tell it to auto–save every 5 minutes, then cut-and-paste the completed posts to the blog. So, I always have a backup, and since I backup my hard drive with another hard drive (and important stuff like my website on yet another hard drive and on CDs), it is really hard to permanently lose more than five minutes of work. Hard drives are cheap!
Warm regards to you,
Ames
Dear Laura (#19-442 or thereabouts),
That is a great article.
I have to add that most of the anxiety about death is artificially produced by the professional intermediaries and interpreters, that is, the priest class.
Someone who feels himself (it’s usually a him, isn’t it?) to be “called”, or whatever, to become a priest and thus insert themselves between people and God is, on the face of it, mentally ill. It also shows a very low form of spiritual activity, in my opinion, if they see God as external, which is the only way the priest class can claim the benefits of being go–betweens, and so gain ascendancy over a population.
So much for sleeping priests; natural law demands that they must be produced to satisfy a sleeping population. Those, who “should know better”, who understand, to any degree, that there can be nothing between ourselves and the godhead within, because we are That, are simply criminals if they take advantage of cultural norms for their own advantage.
It is no small irony that it is ‘blasphemy’ to the sleeping priests if anyone claims that we can contact our own godhead without intermediaries—and for most of history up to the present, and in most parts of the world, such claims were punishable by death. True blasphemy, in my opinion, is when someone like Burton sets himself or herself up as a teacher or guru, and then claims to be an exclusive and vital intermediary between their students and the godhead. That they are committing this crime targeting those few people who have started to recognize and are trying to escape the cultural hypnosis is revolting beyond words.
Again, one important difference between true teachers and false is that true teachers remind seekers of the godhead within, while false teachers use fear or infatuation to make prisoners of those who seek their advice.
There are literally worlds of difference between fearing death and being aware that death is not only inevitable, but the necessary contrast and counterpoint to life. Those who use fear of death to demean and reduce the experience of this life are spiritually poverty–stricken. Recognize them by their promise of ‘rewards’ to come and their claims of our present unworthiness. In contrast, those who remind us of our mortality, that our only capital is time, that our only ‘duty’ is to plunge into life in all it’s abundance and juiciness and live it fully, to en–joy ourselves exactly as we are, as unique and precious aspects of the godhead, serve us well.
With love to you all,
Ames
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
-Edward R. Murrow
“With pride we see that one man remains beyond all criticism, that is the Führer. This is because everyone feels and knows: he is always right, and he will always be right. The National Socialism of all of us is anchored in uncritical loyalty, in the surrender to the Führer that does not ask for the why in individual cases, in the silent execution of his orders. We believe that the Führer is obeying a higher call to fashion German history. There can be no criticism of this belief.”
-Rudolf Hess
“The School is moving at lightening speed. C Influence continually reveals new knowledge. The level of Robert’s Teaching becomes ever more distilled and objective.
Our Teacher underlines the importance for each of us to be as closely connected to this sacred Teaching as possible. He has listed as one of our highest priorities the viewing of the Teaching Events on DVD.”
“It is clearly evident that Robert’s efforts, his ability to respond to the wishes of Influence C, continues to bring our sacred School to new levels of being. Our efforts to return to the moment are sustained by the objective knowledge being transmitted by our Teacher.”
“Robert’s Teaching is a true miracle in it’s focus, clarity and scale. We are truly blessed to have this opportunity to view his meetings and dinners.”
“We have the highest material that the gods ever released to help man promote presence.
Love, Robert”
“We believe that the Führer is obeying a higher call to fashion German history. There can be no criticism of this belief.”
“No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”
-Edward R. Murrow
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Thank you Ames, so very much! Even if I just remembered to copy them before I send them I would not loose them so easily but I’ve been hiring and borrowing computers for the past three months and at a dollar for four minutes sometimes, it gets hard to even spell check but still, can’t help looking for the North in this blog compass.
On the subject of death, thanking the posts from both you and Laura, I would like to add that it is only our imaginary limit what does not allow us to see that the negativity we’ve adhered to the word and concept of death is determined only by our “fixation” on life, “crystalization” would also be a good word. If we could realize that living is consistently dying or dying is consistently living then we would be able to actualize more clearly the fact that one is as much the expression of the other. They are not oppossites as we tend to conceive them, death is not even the other side of the coin of life, it is more like the inner side of the coin of life. One could not even take the pocket out of ones pants if it weren’t for the fact that there is an inside side to take out and that inside is an ever consistent law in matter that is but a sweet analogy of the fact that life and death are as much a part of each other as the inside and outside of one’s pockets.
On the tightrope of presence a human being walks were the two worlds meet, although it is only one world within the human being. It is just that the mind has difficulty on the tightrope!
Another of the difficulties is that the more we are in our heart and not our mind, the more we distance each other from the sweet meadow of “death” or rather the “realm of the spirit” and when we are too much in our head and not in our heart, we distance each other from the sweet meadow of life. The head needs to come to death without fear and the heart needs to come to life with immense love.
Besides head and heart is the power of sex. Like the eyes, sex is pure death or pure life, what ever you prefer to call it but they are the same thing. It allows the head and the heart to channel it like gas in a car but it fixes that channeling and you tend towards a corrupted dead end or an ever flowing source of life. It is the tightrope.
Presence is the act of allowing death to state itself in life or allowing the spiritual to actualize itself in matter. It is spiritualizing matter and materializing the spirit. Presence is that dialogue between them and in our every day lives it manifests in the carefulness, the tenderness, the firmness too, with which we interact with the world. The world is as much a sculptor of our being as our being is a sculptor of the world, for the world and I are also just another beautiful, (sometimes a bit intense!), dialogue. But if we were really accurate, we would know that it is all a monologue, many notes from one singer or a note from a huge choir in the Absolute’s being.
All these has of course been said more beautifully and with more knowledge from so many other people but this is how I can share it with you, with whom I’ve been wishing to share for so long.
Cake–414
Cake, this is so beautiful.
I wish I was too at this table…
I can relate to what you’re saying……….Ditto
Come on down, South of the border, down Mexico way!
Mi casa es tu casa y mi suegra’s tambien!
An especially good time would be after the November workshop in San Antonio. I can help with the plans.
Yes, the Gerd should make it this time.
Un ptit coup c’est agreable.
Un gros coup, ca rend l’esprit malade……
A bientot!
re: 446 through 449
i’ve recently picked up a book called POLITICAL PONEROLOGY subtitled a ‘a science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes” by A.M. LOBACZEWSKI who lived in nazi occupied poland, he uses a lot of jargon reflecting his background as a clinical psychologist which might put some people off… the historical scope and commentary reflects on the current trends in world politics but there are many connections between the subject at hand, here in this blog (mind control fof style) and the subject matter of this book, at least in the context of the last few postings.
The first manuscript of this book went into the fire five minutes before the arrival of the secret police in Communist Poland. The second copy, reassembled painfully by scientists working under impossible conditions of repression, was sent via a courier to the Vatican. Its receipt was never acknowledged, no word was ever heard from the courier – the manuscript and all the valuable data was lost. The third copy was produced after one of the scientists working on the project escaped to America in the 1980s. Zbigniew Brzezinski suppressed it. Political Ponerology: The scientific study of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes was forged in the crucible of the very subject it studies. Scientists living under an oppressive regime decide to study it clinically, to study the founders and supporters of an evil regime to determine what common factor is at play in the rise and propagation of man’s inhumanity to man. Shocking in its clinically spare descriptions of the true nature of evil, poignant in the more literary passages where the author reveals the suffering experienced by the researchers who were contaminated or destroyed by the disease they were studying, this is a book that should be required reading by every citizen of every country that claims a moral or humanistic foundation. For it is a certainty that morality and humanism cannot long withstand the predations of Evil. Knowledge of its nature, how it creates its networks and spreads, how insidious is its guileful approach, is the only antidote.
“It is a mistake to regard the fear of death as the most extreme fear. I find a dozen other types to be more poignant, such as: the fear of inability to protect a cherished dependent. Fear of disesteem. Fear of noisome contact. Fear of being made afraid.”
Kokor Hekkus
Ames Gilbert, in #445, wrote:
“I have to add that most of the anxiety about death is artificially produced by the professional intermediaries and interpreters, that is, the priest class.
Someone who feels himself (it’s usually a him, isn’t it?) to be “called”, or whatever, to become a priest and thus insert themselves between people and God is, on the face of it, mentally ill. It also shows a very low form of spiritual activity, in my opinion, if they see God as external, which is the only way the priest class can claim the benefits of being go–betweens, and so gain ascendancy over a population.”
What is the difference between a priest as you describe him, and George Gurdjieff, whose system purportedly must be followed to avoid being “eaten by the moon” at death? Or, when followed correctly, rewards one with a soul which, once created, will be a single entity unto itself, free to cruise the universe? I’m not sure how much difference there is in the end between ordinary religion and the 4th Way in this regard, as they both have large areas of unverifiable knowledge, which we all have learned from books written by people long dead, whom none of us ever met. Or from 4th Way “priests” with no direct connection to the originators. Any talk of what happens after death seems rooted squarely in imagination, be it based in religion or on the 4th Way, as no one that I have met has any convincing idea what happens when we die. Given that, couldn’t both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky be accused, though not so flagrantly as Burton, for funding their lifestyles by playing on this same fear of death and oblivion? What is the difference between “creating an astral body” and saving one’s immortal soul?
I can agree with you to some extent about the nature of priests in acting as self-appointed intermediaries between humans and God, but I would be wary of painting all religion with such a broad brush. My wife attended a Presbyterian seminary while I was a FOF student, and many of my assumptions about religion and ministry were shattered as my ignorance was replaced with “being.” Protestant denominations were founded essentially on Martin Luther’s protest of Catholicism’s stance of having priests being essential intermediaries, as you say — he insisted on the individual’s right to have a personal relationship with God, and on the church as a “priesthood of all believers.”
As you so eloquently put it, “those who remind us of our mortality, that our only capital is time, that our only ‘duty’ is to plunge into life in all it’s abundance and juiciness and live it fully, to enjoy ourselves exactly as we are, as unique and precious aspects of the godhead, serve us well”– describes very well some of my best experiences in the relatively liberal churches I have, with some regularity, attended most of my life.
I have met some very remarkable people in the Presbyterian church, both members and ministers. Most ministers have little pretense as to their specialness. And there are many members who routinely work harder to make the world a better place than most of us here on the blog ever will. Is this “mechanical goodness”? Maybe. But these days, that label strikes me as a convenient excuse for not thinking about anybody but ourselves.
One more thing. You said, “So much for sleeping priests; natural law demands that they must be produced to satisfy a sleeping population.” I find this statement oddly disappointing. It has a false ring to it, and not up to the high standard you have set for yourself with your previous posts. It sounds like second-hand, automatic FOF prejudice.
Before I joined the school, I saw people as people. While I was a member, I saw them as “sleeping machines.” In the years since I have left, I have re-discovered the pleasure in seeing them as people again. In fact, even as a member, I remember being shamed at times by my own small behavior in the face of a “life person’s” higher action. So much so that I often had to find a way to “buffer” the experience and explain it away. It was too humbling to bear. Now I am thankful at the generosity of lessons that come, not from an elite 2,000, but from everyone around me.
Thanks for listening.
Elena, ‘ton, you are Awesome
“It’s very common for the victims to understand a system better than the people who are holding the stick.”
-Noam Chomsky
…………………………………….
“To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.”
-Noam Chomsky
# 2 in a series of posts joining the Journey Forth to Isis celebrations.
give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it’s time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
and clear the air
get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else’s desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever
Ani Di Franco
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=3dkOU1SQcsE
re: 456 2b thanks for the noam, he is brilliant.
re: 457 laura, thanks for the utube… ani rocks!
re: 458
re: 457
or i should say in this case
ani is da bomb!
In case anyone needs a reminder of the kind of subversion of “the teaching” that greatly helped lead to the loss of 500 members (and counting) –
Journey Forth ’05 propaganda:
Initial Package: “Don’t be afraid to take the first step…”
20 July: “Four weeks from now, in a historic moment for our School, up to 1000 students will have the opportunity to be the words we speak, and experience the power and beauty of worlds 12 and 6, in the company of our beloved Teacher. Register today…”
27 July: “…Don’t let the king of clubs fool you into relinquishing this opportunity. Register today…”
01 August: “One cannot promote and prolong presence with the Teacher and one thousand other students at Isis without first making the decision to come. The problem is we think we have time. Register today…”
12 August: “The king of clubs will tighten it’s grip if you don’t loosen it…choose to support the steward rather than the crocodile…Register Today”
And a quick lesson in capitulation:
At the Director’s conference 2001, Girard opened the conference at the Prytaneon, and made the following statements referring to the new form of the School:
“We are living in dangerous times …”
“There is the risk of the School providing too much first force for the students…”
On July 27, 2005 Girard wrote these words in support of the Journey Forth event:
“It is not just the events — the ballet, the play, the meetings, receptions, dinners and so on. Nor is it the need to provide the money…. if you are struggling with ‘I’s that wish to limit your participation in ‘Journey Forth By Day’, I would suggest that
you examine them closely to see what parts of the machine they represent. Those are parts that will not awaken, and one strengthens them by listening to them.”
Lest we forget,
EmbraceThis
(Sheik- trying to post this again!)
Dearest Sheik,
The Douglas Rushkoff video on your personal blog is astounding.
A must for everyone blogging here on the fof forum.
Thank you!
Alice E. #376
I think you’d LOVE this video. Especially the signs on the door behind Mr. Rushkoff.
Alice, I don’t want to get into a catfight with you about synchronicity… What to say? There’s been too much written by too many on the phenomenon. I’ve listed some of my favorite writers who have lots of letters after their surnames to satisfy even the most voracious appetite for academic rigor.
I was stung by the sarcasm in your comment. Many of us who traveled and worked closely with RB were seduced into the fof by his co-opting of c-influence. He showed us how to see it and, yes, it sounds like he’s gone a bit crackers these days given his 30+ years of sheltered existence surrounded by sycophants.
Look Alice, it seems like you are a lover of Shakespeare so perhaps you’ll get a kick out of Peter Brook’s autobiography Threads of Time. In it he chronicles his first encounter as a young artist with the ideas of Gurdjieff and his experiences of synchronicity, which lead him to become one of the most respected interpreters of Shakespeare in the last 50 years.
Or as Mr. Rushkoff might put it in the vernacular of our tribe:
NOT CHOPPED LIVER.
………………
“Reason stops breathlessly, where faith begins!”
Talking with Angels: Budaliget 1943 (transcribed by Gitta Mallasz)
Love to all wondering, wandering and woundering souls,
Shelley
Fragments
1
(Beginning of the marriage; husband and wife have agreed that it it’s the higher right for him to stay in the Galleria (the Teacher’s home) for a while)
Student (Teacher’s male friend): I don’t know why you object… the sex is really not ‘pleasant’
Wife of student: It’s just that…
Student (Teacher’s male friend): I mean imagine yourself having to do it with a very fat old lady…
Wife of student: Perhaps you could just stop and be a normal student?
Student (Teacher’s male friend): Well the idea is that this will accelerate the process.
Wife of student: Yes… but…
Student (Teacher’s male friend): I mean it’s awful; he covers his whole mouth and the lower part of his face with K-Y…
2
Wife of student (nervously): What did Robert say when you told him that I didn’t like… you know… your having sex with him?
Student (Teacher’s male friend): He paused briefly, looked surprised, and said “Oh this is her formatory mind, her king of clubs and her feminine dominance, everybody has them…
Wife of student: Oh…
3
Student (Teacher’s male friend): Every morning Robert drops in to the library where I sleep and… Well I’ve found a way to avoid this; I just set my alarm earlier and earlier and clear out of there as quick as I can…
Wife of student: Oh…
4
(Few months after end of marriage)
Student (Teacher’s male friend): I’ve got some news (clears throat) I’ve got Hepatitis B…
Ex-wife of student: What’s that?
Student (Teacher’s male friend): Well it’s a liver disease, like hepatitis A which you get from food… my eyes are yellow and I feel tired.
Ex-wife of student: How is it transmitted?
Student (Teacher’s male friend): Normally through sex… but this is a real mystery.
Ex-wife of student: Couldn’t you have got it from Robert?
Student (Teacher’s male friend): Oh no, that’s not possible, you wouldn’t understand… Umm… You’ll have to have a blood test, and then take a course of medication for a few months… just in case…. Yes. The good thing is that I don’t have to have sex with him at the moment: at least not as long as I’m in quarantine!
451 Elena
There are small usb memory sticks called flash drives available for about $15 to $20 that while small have plenty of space ( 1gb and up) for masses of word documents. I used one while in school and could carry all my files with me and print out documents on the school system.
460 is newly moderated.
As to the lost posts, I don’t know what to say. Nothing is coming up in moderation or my spam filter – there is no sight of Elena’s posts. There is one other person who has contacted me via e-mail who is suffering from the same problem as Elena, her posts are mysteriously disappearing.
In theory, this shouldn’t be possible. In practice the blog doesn’t do what it’s supposed to from time to time. If a virus is at fault on the poster’s side, I would recommend using an anti-virus program, of which there are many, some very good ones for free (why pay for it if it comes for free).
If the problem persists I’ll try contacting wordpress to see if the issue can be somehow resolved.
461 is newly moderated (found and restored).
Okay, I have found out where the issue is and it should be fine from now on. Some of your comments may still not appear straight away (even if you have been posting for some time) but I know how to find them now and re-post them here. I am afraid that Elena’s, 2b’s and Laura’s comments were lost but it won’t happen again. Things should be back to normal sooner rather than later.
Shelley: On synchronicity. About two days before the Knight posted that Douglas Rushkoff article on Animam Recro, I started reading a book of Rushkoff’s called Persuasion. I have never read any of his work before and neither the Knight nor me were aware of each other’s area of study at the time. I forgot to mention that at the time I was in London while the Knight was in Prague (and we haven’t seen each other in a year).
EmbraceThis, #460, wrote:
“On July 27, 2005 Girard wrote these words in support of the Journey Forth event:
“It is not just the events — the ballet, the play, the meetings, receptions, dinners and so on. Nor is it the need to provide the money…. if you are struggling with ‘I’s that wish to limit your participation in ‘Journey Forth By Day’, I would suggest that
you examine them closely to see what parts of the machine they represent. Those are parts that will not awaken, and one strengthens them by listening to them.””
This is exactly the kind of heavy-handed, manipulative drivel that would send me into paroxysms of guilt back in my sincere-student days. His newsletter back then was just full of this kind of stuff — his “Fellowship Forum” — also known sarcastically as the “Full-of-Shit Bore-‘Um.”
Dear Shelley M. (461)
I’m so sorry I didn’t express myself more clearly… I assure you there was no sarcasm meant!! In fact – and this proves how right you were about rb’s pernicious influence, how he can make us doubt ourselves – I wanted to give an example of synchronicity that happened to me (the fact that one evening, out of the blue, I started talking to my hubsand about my Work-dreams, and the next day, also out of the blue, I came across a retelling of such a dream by someone on this blog)… but I didn’t feel quite certain that it actually w-a-s synchronicity, so I just said it with a question mark, like””let everyone make up his/her own mind if there was something in the air or not”…
I’ll have a look at that video. And thanks a lot for the Peter Brook recommendation!
454 Innernaut
“What is the difference between a priest as you describe him, and George Gurdjieff, whose system purportedly must be followed to avoid being “eaten by the moon” at death? Or, when followed correctly, rewards one with a soul which, once created, will be a single entity unto itself, free to cruise the universe? I’m not sure how much difference there is in the end between ordinary religion and the 4th Way in this regard, as they both have large areas of unverifiable knowledge, which we all have learned from books written by people long dead, whom none of us ever met. Or from 4th Way “priests” with no direct connection to the originators”
This is a normal example of thinking without relativity. Thinking with relativity is based on relationships. What determines whether something is right action is not an arbitrary labal but the process involved. Gurdjieff was clear in his approach to teaching that what he was doing was trying to guide others in developing their own understanding and being. You do not include this in your discussion and also don’t include the idea that Gurdjieff actually did what he taught. You seem to imply that any teacher of esotericism is de facto a false teacher just by being one. Is this the question whether it is possible for there to be such a thing as a real teacher of “esotericism” whether beings like The Christ, The Buddha and others were divine messengers or deluded individuals?
In regard to Gurdjieff you do not mention the most important “fact”.
Most of all You do not mention self remembering. .
The real question is not whether the system is any different than many other approaches or whether the authors of the “4th way” material were presenting useful information or even if it leads one closer to an experience of reality it is whether you ever actually were a student of “the system”. and the “4th way”.
The first law as taught by Gurdjieff was and is believe nothing verify everything. If you, me, or any one else and this is a particular observation in relation to the FOF failed to follow this principal you were not a student of the 4th way. It is exactly at this point of accepting unproven theories on faith that the FOF deviated from the 4th way. The FOF cloaked itself in the language of the 4th way, marketed itself as a 4th way school and sought justifications in the literature for the forms that it took but fails in the key definition of the 4th way.
How then can the higher states that so many experienced be explained? Was it and is it mass hypnotism, mass psychosis or is it simply that real efforts on the part of many sincere individuals did produce real results. It is also a simple fact nothing is all of anything. Simply by having so many sincere students over such an extended period the FOF would produce some good results..
In reading the blog I have read posts from any number of former members who have associated some distorted interpretation of the original ideas as they understood them in the FOF with “the system”. By associating their own imagination of what was meant by “the system” with the FOF and following this rather oblique thought process arrived at the idea that it is time to put aside the study of the system and move on.
Some do what I think of as “change deck chairs on the Titanic” and seek a new approach that they can then misinterpret, some find new Avatars, new languages or some merely give up the idea of inner development altogether.
The key to the system is self remembering. If any one who is confused about and have not had clear experiences of this state there is not and never was any reason to try and study the 4th way. Everything in the system is designed to be applicable to someone who can and does work at remembering themselves. The key verification of self remembering is sleep. This should not be a negative observation but a positive uplifting realization. We are not the weak, misled unfortunate mechanical creatures that the FOF taught us as part of mind control but simply asleep and the answer is our own consciousness.
. However any of us get there, what ever the process we go through that is all it is, knowing ourselves, accepting ourselves, being ourselves. The FOF lied about negative emotions as it helped develop and maintain a negative attitude towards oneself and ones efforts.
On a larger scale.
Distortion enters the ideas as soon as someone who cannot remember themselves begins talking and imitating the conversations of those that do. This is true on a small scale and a large scale. Through out history it is those who sincerely believe in some teacher and are unable to verify and realize for themselves the inner teaching that begin the inevitable distortions as they try to explain what they do not know.
Walt Whitman so clearly described the emotional state of any one who has penetrated self remembering.
Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,
That maybe reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That maybe identity beyond the grave
is a beautiful fable only,
When the subtle air, the impalpable,
the sense that words and reason
hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom,
I am silent, I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances
or that of identity
beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me
This somewhat explains that it is the experience of the state itself and not any description of it that is real. One of the single most ongoing difficulties in writing of or speaking of higher states is that what experiences the state can never communicate to others the quality of the experience. We are all limited by the framework of our language and communication skills. We are limited by the actual mechanics of our machine. We communicate through the lower or mechanical parts of centers. We are limited by our conceptual framework and training.
What you say may be true for you but it is not my truth. I joined the Fellowship of Friends in pursuit of self remembering. Nothing more, not friendship, community or any other thing except perhaps knowledge. I did learn new ideas and learn some techniques that helped strengthen the ability to experience higher states while in the Fellowship. In that sense I got what I paid for.
Nothing has lead me to believe that the cosmology and theories are wrong they are at least as credible as any others and as science continues to explore ever more detailed areas it constantly reveals more similarities. Note I do not claim the ideas of “the system” as a proven objective fact whether or not I might believe this myself but a useful theoretical framework and working hypothesis.
EmbraceThis, #460, wrote:
“On July 27, 2005 Girard wrote these words in support of the Journey Forth event:
“It is not just the events — the ballet, the play, the meetings, receptions, dinners and so on. Nor is it the need to provide the money…. if you are struggling with ‘I’s that wish to limit your participation in ‘Journey Forth By Day’, I would suggest that
you examine them closely to see what parts of the machine they represent. Those are parts that will not awaken, and one strengthens them by listening to them.””
This is the kind of distorted thinking that is so typical of the Fellowship of Friends. There is no part of the machine that awakens. As the Fellowship likes to say “consciousness is not functions” you can be just as conscious watching Dr. Phil, bowling or using the toilet as at a Fellowship Function if not more.
#460 Embrace this:
Add to the items in your post the appalling Infomercial filmed at Isis and cirulated to the centers promoting the event. Interviews with students like Edith M., Eliza T., Judith G., etc. smugly promoting this shameless commercializaion of spirituality. That did it for many. Not to mention the meeting in the town hall with Alison F. and Edith M. subtly “strong arming” the membership to suppport this money grubbing scheme. It was disgusting.
Anna 463:
“Ex-wife of student: Couldn’t you have got it from Robert?
Student (Teacher’s male friend): Oh no, that’s not possible, you wouldn’t understand…”
Your story is very vivid and real, obviously true. Many of us had exchanges of this kind with Robert’s friends. Now it seems absolutely unbelievable that we could even half accept such a response without running screaming from the room.
For someone who left the Fellowship decades ago, there’s been a steady process through the blog of understanding the extent to which the Fellowship to which I once belonged has changed. The seeds of everything I’ve read about were all there–the sex, the money-grubbing, the spiritual materialism, the invocation of the fantastic as revealed wisdom. I still can’t know what it’s like on a day to day basis to be a current FoF member, but the ham-fisted efforts to extract money for every conceivable event through implicit threats of eternal damnation–ugh. I might not have liked to pay a winery donation no matter how nicely printed the request, but I could process it, I could understand it. What appears to be the current situation isn’t just a difference in quantity, but in the whole tone of the experience. How, and why, do current members put up with it?
There was always elitism in the Fellowship–if you had money, or an artistic talent, or could contribute something else RB valued, you were always favored in some way. RB always had his confidants, the people he’d have quiet little exchanges with, out of the hearing of the hoi polloi, with one hand cradling his opposite elbow, the other hand poised beneath his nodding chin. But those who were outside this circle weren’t treated as worthless, just rank and file drones.
Some people’s angles were always given more weight than others’, but anyone could raise his hand and, sooner or later, get called upon at a meeting. RB always offered unverifiable pabulum as inspired truth, but it was a simple, if simpleminded, cosmology, not literally absurd claims that anything of which there are six must refer to the sequence (of which RB, despite his exalted consciousness, somehow remained completely ignorant for 35 years).
Thousands of us saw serious flaws years ago that compelled us to leave, but even setting aside the sex, which seems to have progressed from the merely repulsive to the ghastly surreal, what passes today for a “conscious school” appears to be a repressive, autocratic, cheesy embarassment that teaches through flash cards. At best.
In the early 80’s, I recall a flyer being passed around from some exmembers–a protoblog–with references to frogs in a pot being oblivious to the heat being raised gradually until the frog boiled without ever having tried to jump out. I can only assume that the changes have occurred so slowly that those who’ve been around for many years haven’t noticed that the beautiful facade has rotted through.
Some people say that Robert spreads sexually transmitted diseases
Love Malcolm
Bob once had a young lad from Mauritius,
and told him “that last shag was delicious” ….
“But next time you cum”
“Can u not cum up me bum”
“Cos that scab on your knob is suspicious!”
I’d like to just take a moment to send appreciation to Daily Card for his often riotous “limericks.” Awesome.
JoelF
Appall-o.
Just went past FOF property for first time in two decades. The name should change back to Appall-o. The brass monkeys on the pedestals were, uhmm, uhh, … impressive.
The entrance looks like a parking kiosk for a Vegas Casino. Are there plans to charge admission to the park?
It was sad, however to see the barren former-vineyard terraces.
339 former student
Dear Graduates
“it is Maurice Nicoll who first wrote about the “Work-Octave” as such in more detail. There are 3 chapters on the Work-Octave in vol. 3 of the Psychological Commentaries (pp. 1074-1083)
In the first chapter he states the first 3 notes:
Do: evaluation of the Work-ideas.
Re: the application of the Work-ideas to oneself.”
[note above, the idiot is mistakenly assuming that he is replying to something I wrote. I didn’t.]
Perhaps this is why your theorizing can be so irritating. Perhaps it is the emotional perception that one who directs all their energy to theorizing about others is not processing the ideas internally and not going past the initial Do.
******************
I understand that you are at something of a disadvantage due to the mental illness and the alcoholism, not to mention being mildly retarded, but try to comprehend that you are posting idiotic gibberish to this blog that no one pays much attention to because you are a fucking moron. You are not a genius, what you write here about the Fourth Way and all the other random subjects that visit your rattling little brain is incoherent though- trash pouring out of the jack-hole of your diseased skull. Use that one last functioning brain cell you’ve got left to see yourself as you actually are and then shut the fuck up.
Meanwhile enjoy the moon.
(reposted because I left out a couple of letters and because I think this bears repeating)
339 a former student
Dear Graduates
“it is Maurice Nicoll who first wrote about the “Work-Octave” as such in more detail. There are 3 chapters on the Work-Octave in vol. 3 of the Psychological Commentaries (pp. 1074-1083)
In the first chapter he states the first 3 notes:
Do: evaluation of the Work-ideas.
Re: the application of the Work-ideas to oneself.”
[note above, the idiot is mistakenly assuming that he is replying to something I wrote. I didn’t.]
Perhaps this is why your theorizing can be so irritating. Perhaps it is the emotional perception that one who directs all their energy to theorizing about others is not processing the ideas internally and not going past the initial Do.
******************
I understand that you are at something of a disadvantage due to the mental illness and the alcoholism, not to mention being mildly retarded, but try to comprehend that you are posting idiotic gibberish to this blog that no one pays much attention to because you are a fucking moron. You are not a genius, what you write here about the Fourth Way and all the other random subjects that visit your rattling little brain is incoherent thought-trash pouring out of the jack-hole of your diseased skull. Use that one last functioning brain cell you’ve got left to see yourself as you actually are and then shut the fuck up.
Meanwhile enjoy the moon.
Anna (462) ~
Reading this post, I sense that there’s something in you that’s moved beyond the brave, into solace-necessity, into a sort of self rotor tiller redemption, yet, quiet, no attention-getting sparks as you till the garden at night, simply, labor to bring the earth-spirit you wear to another sort of plant-able stage… Whatever are your seeds, may Hafiz’s & your tears bring them to unfurling upon the breezes.
______________________________________________
l.t.y.a.
Graduates ~
If a touch, that you knew for certain was god’s hand, came to rest upon your face, were to ‘accidentally’ bring an eyelash to scratch your retina, would you bite off god’s forefinger for having ‘done’ this to you?
475 & 476 Graduates
Brutal.
Re: Graduates 475/476
First of all, in 339 A former student was not at all assuming he was replying to something you wrote! He put that quote in to let you know of the two first notes of the Work-octave, as an introduction to his message that you seemed in your early posts not to have passed the Do level.
Second of all, I for one do pay attention to what A former student writes. This is not your blog only.
Third of all, if A former student may have been somewhat blunt in the directness of his photograph to you, your venom-spitting reaction shows that he was probably right.
Do you not think Mr. Ouspensky would be thoroughly ashamed of your rudeness?
Why not show that you are better than A former student thought? Your latest posts only show you at your worst.
I have this night confirmed that Ronald McDonald is the Anti-Christ of a good woman’s/man’s grocery list.
476 Graduates wrote
‘I understand that you are at something of a disadvantage due to the mental illness and the alcoholism, not to mention being mildly retarded, but try to comprehend that you are posting idiotic gibberish to this blog that no one pays much attention to because you are a fucking moron. You are not a genius, what you write here about the Fourth Way and all the other random subjects that visit your rattling little brain is incoherent thought-trash pouring out of the jack-hole of your diseased skull. Use that one last functioning brain cell you’ve got left to see yourself as you actually are and then shut the fuck up.
Meanwhile enjoy the moon.’
Thank you Greg
I assume you spent the last several days research and crafting this response.
What is the aim? To hurt, injure, insult, wound?
Why ? Does this in some way make you better?
I will repeat that the work is about oneself, it is not outside oneself. No matter how many essay’s you write on subjects like negativity the inability to apply the concepts to oneself means there is no work. Theory without practice ,words without being, this is called lying and it is not an indication of an inner development.
I had given up beating a dead horse but I thought it was worth the effort to give you a chance to expose how you put into practice the words you so easily spew. I am amazed at how you can take a situation in which all you have to do is nothing and turn around and piss all over your own feet until it stinkes.
Are you at all ashamed of your own being or lack of it?
Or do you even see the contradictions?
There are those who have not encountered your blundering pontifications on other forums who actually were treating you with respect. On a certain level I was happy for you. It is so obvious you are crying out for someone to listen to you. Apparently be accepted and listened to and being treated with respect is not what you want. Similarly there were those who missed your earlier example of low and base personal comments.
What I find interesting is that you are not even as smart as the Big Bobbo and don’t know when and how to keep quite.
So much for the reasonable tone you had been establishing.
re: daily card, the limericks are terrific, excuse the pun but “keep it up.”
re: postings 445, 454 and others…
The Tyranny of Faith –
What are they feeling? What do they believe? Why are they there? (I don’t need to remind many of you here reading this that we were once “they”).
We tend to assume we all know the answers to these questions, more or less clearly. We also assume that those participating in the event also know the answers.
Granted, the participants know why they are there. They are moved by emotions rooted in their faith, and they have reasons relating to their deepest, most cherished beliefs concerning God, humanity, and the world. The strength of their faith does not incline them—nor does it permit them—to put any of these factors in question. At a moment such as this, faith prevails. Faith leads. Faith decides how people will act by a power all its own.
Faith may be defined as the power invested in beliefs, but, more precisely, the power invested in unquestioned beliefs. It could as well be said: the power derived from unquestioned beliefs. The strength of faith consists in its not being questioned, challenged, doubted. Once it is put in doubt, faith weakens. Hence, the beliefs associated with faith must remain unquestioned for faith to stand.
The dynamic of faith is extremely difficult to grasp, because faith seems to have an almost magical ability to grant power to those who give power to it. This dynamic has been called the placebo effect. It works with many things, from medicines to mantras. The efficacy of a placebo inheres in a feedback loop: it gives power to those who give it power. For instance, taking the Host at Mass gives power to those who give it power. To those who give it no power, it is ineffectual.
However, the placebo effect does not consist just in this two-way exchange. There is a trick involved: the returning power of the placebo (be it an object, such as the Host, or an idea, such as grace, or a person such as rb) appears to be independent of the power granted to it in the first place. The feedback is effective, and tends to quell any doubting or critical observation, because the way it works tends to conceal the true nature of this exchange: giving away power to get power. Those who receive the placebo, believing in the independent power of it, get back far more through their faith than they give. Or so it appears.
But the operation of faith here is deceiving. We are not yet at the core dynamic of the placebo effect. There is another layer of dissimulation at work. The placebo effect makes it appear as if believers get more than they give (first level of dissimilation), but in reality believers may be giving more than they get (the second, deeper level of dissimilation). The placebo effect is wonderful, and really works, otherwise there would not be so many deeply religious people in the world, but what goes without notice is the investment that must be made to get a convincing return.
It has been said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little faith can also be dangerous. The old adage suggests that knowledge becomes safer as it increases. Unlike knowledge, faith can become even more dangerous as it increases. Its hidden dynamic makes it almost impossible for the faithful to see what they are giving in return for the boost they get from their beliefs. And the bigger the boost of faith, the more must given. It could happen that believers give away what is most precious in their humanity, that which lives in the unsounded depths of human potential, without knowing what they are losing, or even that they are losing anything at all. The returning effect of faith, the boost, fills the void inside, but never fills it completely, for the power rendered to the placebo always exceeds the power that comes back from it. The second dissimulation, hiding what is given away, conceals the huge inegality that makes the exchange work so effectively. The inability to see this double-dissimulating dynamic, and measure its toll upon the human spirit, is the immense, unspeakable tragedy of human faith.
The Abrahamic religions have existed since 600 BCE (Judaism, founded on the codification of the Torah under King Josiah), 33 CE (Christianity, founded on the fable of the god-man, Jesus Christ) and 600 CE (Islam, founded on a book attributed to a male “prophet” whose authority exceeds all others), and humanity may not be getting any better for them. The trajectory of these 2600 years is one long jagged plunge into terror and destruction. Whatever good has been achieved in the name of these religions (and may well have been achieved without them, if we believe in the basic goodness of humanity – more below) has been massively overruled by the behavioral insanity demonstrated through the ages by believers, behavior that is now culminating in the threat of a global holocaust, eagerly awaited, and perhaps deliberately precipitated, but a great number of the faithful.
Things in the world stand today as they have for a long time already: the most violent, threatening developments on the planet are driven by religious beliefs. The worst hatred confronting humanity is, and always has been, “sectarian” hatred. Why?
One explanation is: Abrahamic religion is the supreme expression of patriarchy, and patriarchy, by definition, is a program of control by covert psychological coercion and overt violence. Patriarchy has been called dominator culture or domination culture. Discussing this term in an interview for The Sun Magazine, Marshall Rosenberg closely relates the act of domination to “salvationism.” He uses this term in the context of research conducted by Milton Rokeach:
Rosenberg: Social psychologist Milton Rokeach did some research on religious practitioners in the seven major religions. He looked at people who very seriously followed their religion and compared them to people in the same population who had no religious orientation at all. He wanted to find out which group was more compassionate. The results were the same in all the major religions: the nonreligious were more compassionate. (“Beyond Good & Evil: Marshall Rosenberg On Creating a Nonviolent World,” in The Sun, Issue 326, February 2003. Rosenberg is an author, and founder and director of the Center for Nonvolent Communication: http://www.cnvc.org.) The Sun inverviewer remarks, “The idea that we are evil and must become holy implies moralistic judgment.” Rosenberg replies: “Oh, amazing judgment! Rokeach calls that judgmental group the Salvationists.”
Judgment is a basic element in the salvationist program. Jehovah judges, Christ judges, Allah judges. All the creeds are unanimous on this point. Bear in mind that “You are judged by God” is a human statement, made by men who claim to be emissaries of the judgmental father-son deities. This assertion that God judges us exemplifies the tactic of the Abrahamic religions: a man tells us what God wants of us. Presumably, the man who speaks in this way has been previously briefed by God. That is an issue of faith. Patriarchial religion demands that we believe the men who speak for God, that we take them on their word, which is God’s word. And consistent with the violence inherent to patriarchy, the word of God is threatening, menacing. God judges you, so you must do this and that in order to be well judged, to get good marks, to have your soul saved by the very entity who threatens to condemn it. The threat tactic is very effective in setting up a social control program.
Millions of people submit to this tactic. Bear in mind, however, that submission is gained from an early age, when the believer-to-be is weak and impressionable. The tactic is applied within families, exerted on children before they can even speak, and enforced in all kinds of ways. No choice is involved in adopting the belief that God rewards those who obey His rules as defined by the men like rb. Children have this belief laid into them long before they can question or protest it. Later in life dissent is nearly impossible. The die is cast.
Walter Kaufmann proposed the term “prudential morality” for the kind of behavior that results from threat tactics: people act kindly toward others because it is prudent to do so, because it increases the odds they will be saved and rewarded, rather than damned and punished. In The Faith of a Heretic, he makes the observation that “the notion of a deed done for its own sake is unknown in the Old Testament.” Everything is done prudentially, as a means to an end. The universal end, the transcendent purpose of doing good, is the eternal salvation of the soul of the doer. It takes faith to act morally, because prudential action assumes that its reward comes in another world, through the agency of an invisible spiritual power, whose existence must be taken on faith.
Kaufmann is one of the rare few who has the courage to argue that morality is possible without coercion, without the prudential ethics policy. This argument is regarded with deep suspicion by people of strong faith, because religious people consider that irreligious people are, by definition, immoral. The belief that there is no morality without a religious framework (divine commands, reward and punishment for the soul) is a classic example of the placebo effect: the more you believe there can be no morality without religion, the more potent religion becomes in your life. Kaufmann would observe that in holding this belief, the individual is giving away their power of moral choice, rooted in the essential goodness of human nature. But as we have seen, the hidden dynamic of faith makes it almost impossible for the believers to see what they are giving away to their faith. Or even that they are giving anything away at all.
Perversely Overwhelmed
In the extortionist framework of patriarchal religion, human action has no authenticity apart from the framework of redemption, human kindness has no value except as a means to an end. A deed done for its own sake, for the pleasure of seeing someone benefit, and, indeed, for the sheer pleasure of performing it, is not forbidden, but it is assumed that we are unlikely to perform such a deed, left to our basic inclinations. To act morally we must go against our natural inclinations, for they will never lead us to do good. The belief hidden in this view of human nature is that we are innately corrupt. Therefore, prudential morality appeals to those who believe they are corrupt. Or, to peer through yet another lay of dissimulation, who have been made to believe they are corrupt.
Patriarchal authorities insist that we need the redemption because we are corrupt. But what if we are corrupted by needing the Redeemer?
The redeemer complex is the set of beliefs that provides the theological basis of the salvationism common to the patriarchal religions. Many beliefs cluster in this complex, but two are primal and essential: the belief that the suffering of the Redeemer atones for human sin, and the belief that the Redeemer is an immortal, superhuman being. Thus, the Redeemer serves a dual purpose: he insures us that our suffering is meaningful, or will be rewarded or compensated, and he presents an ideal for the world to follow. The ideal (or idol, if you will) is superhuman, and giving credence to the superhuman model of humanity seems to return a terrific boost of faith.
But what is more productive and sane, in human terms: living up to a possible ideal, or to an impossible (i.e., superhuman) one? It is difficult for believers in the redeemer complex to formulate this question. Why? Because the placebo effect operates at a terrific return on the superhuman model: give power to it, and you get or seem to get a lot more back, an enormous return. The belief that human suffering is somehow connected to the suffering of a divine being is probably the most powerful placebo known to humankind. But if the above analysis of the dynamics of faith is true, what has to be given away to get this kind of return?
What if adopting a superhuman model for humanity requires the inner surrender of our humanity? The terrible truth is, it might really be that simple.
They may also be there because they have surrendered something deep in their own humanity, and the aching emptiness so produced acts like a reverse vaccuum, sucking them into the collective wave of experience. Faith can reward us generously for what it takes away from us by stealth, through our feat of self-deception.
Does it sound arrogant to propose that they are deluding themselves in their religious beliefs? Perhaps it does, but the suggestion is not original. Almost two thousand years ago, people in the ancient world who witnessed the rise of the redeemer complex were deeply critical of the what they saw, and deeply concerned about how the salvationist belief-system would affect humanity:
“Those who become enmeshed with the authorities [of the salvationist system] shall become their prisoners, due to their lack of perception. On the guileless, good and pure among you, the authorities will impose a deathlike burden, a kingdom of enslavement for those who expect Christ to restore them. And they will praise those who allow the propagation of falsehood… They will cling to the name of a mere dead man, Jesus, thinking they will become pure. They will become greatly defiled and will fall into the name of error, and under the power of evil, cunning agents and diverse dogmas, they will be perversely overwhelmed. ” (From The Apocalypse of Peter, VII, 3.74, Nag Hammadi Codices.)
The people who viewed the emergent religion of Christianity, and its Jewish precedent, the Abrahamic religion of the Torah, in this manner were called gnostokoi, “those who know about divine things.” They were branded as heretics, persecuted, driven underground, and, in some cases, murdered by the converts to the new religion with its message of peace, tolerance and divine love (if you believe that was its message).
Heresy derives from a Greek word meaning “able to choose.” A heretic is “one who embraces heresy,” but heresy is not a preset body of doctrines comparable to the orthodox doctrines it opposes. Heresy is an alternative way of looking at issues that are defined, once and for all, in unchallenged beliefs and doctrinal and dogmatic propositions set forth as the sole truth by self-defined groups or institutions. In all cases of patristic religious extortion, the tradition of orthodoxy relies on a story, a sacred narrative about how certain men, at a certain time and place, received instructions from the Creator God. Whatever does not fit into this story is condemned as heresy. In 425 CE heresy was declared by Roman authorities a crime punishable by death. That law has never been rescinded.
But the Gnostics, as those heretics are now known, challenged male spiritual authority head on. They confronted patriarchy on its deepest terrain, the spiritual control strategy of salvationism. This is not a message of divine truth, they protested, it is a sick, self-consoling deception of the human soul, and the pretext for brutal political ideology.
Christian religion is associated with brotherly love, forgiveness, and acts of altruism. Gnostics did not protest against any of these attributes, but it was also obvious to them that Christians did not have a monopoly here. What they rejected specifically was the redeemer complex, a theological system which they, as specialists in divine matters, were well qualified to analyse and refute.
Once joined to the fold of the faithful, they are rarely left free to consider the choice of looking elsewhere. Almost without exception, conversion occurs under huge psychological pressure and persuasion. Threats to authority and means splintering the institution into factions. Those who receive their convictions via family, culture, and race, remain ardently attached to their faith because it gives them identity and solidarity, and because they are not presented with viable alternatives. Adoption of religious beliefs happens without a critical quest for truth, but the beliefs so adopted come to be regarded as absolutely true.
Evil and Ignorance
I am certain they would find it difficult to admit that they stand in judgement of me, and of themselves… Perhaps they would argue, “No, we do not judge, we cannot. It is God who judges.” But this is more self-serving dissimulation. Those young, vibrant people are condemned to judge by their belief in their own corruption, their “fallen state” in theological terms. They have judged themselves under the coercion of beliefs imposed on them, which they now regard as their most cherished convictions. Patriarchy must first corrupt those it would claim to save through the redeemer complex, because an uncorrupted person would immediately and instinctively reject the idea of redemption.
Like all other adherents to the Salvationist creeds, they hold their beliefs to be true, but not because they discovered truth in them through the act of searching and questioning, and then embraced the truth so found. Having received their beliefs under coercion and without choice, they came to regard them as true after the fact. They embrace rb, yes, with all the innocent passion in their hearts, imagine how terrible and humiliating it is to realize that the beliefs they hold so dear are false, deceptive, and harmful.
Yet the most liberating thing that could happen to them, perhaps, would be to realize that they do not really believe, after all, what they have been told to believe. The strength of their faith depends on ignorance, on their not knowing how they acquired their faith. The strength does not reside in the faith itself, but it seems to. That is the intrinsic treachery of faith.
Gnostics taught that “ignorance is the mother of all evil.” The heretical teachings in the Gospel of Philip say:
“So long as the root of evil is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes…. As for ourselves, let each one dig down for the root of evil, and let each one of us pluck it out of our own heart, sieze it at the root. It will be plucked out if we recognize it. But if we are ignorant of it, it takes root in us and produces its fruit in our hearts. It masters us. We are its slave. It takes us captive, to make us do what we do not want, and what we do not want to do, it makes us do. But it is only powerful in this way as long as we do not recognize it.”
Gnostics were transcendental humanists who believed that evil is not sin, not a failing in us, not an inherent flaw, but the corruption of our divine potential to know, discriminate, and choose. Evil is our own doing, as patriarchy is our own program. But we do evil out of ignorance, not because we have an innate drive to evil. This, at least, is what Gnostics taught. And it is what most Pagans in the ancient world believed.
To ignore how we acquire faith is a terrible act of abdication that undermines our humanity, even though the faith we embrace seems to enforce and enhance it. The placebo effect again. The tyranny of faith is worst where it binds us to this, the ultimate act of self-betrayal.
Imagination Denied
Ever since the faux-convert Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion, patriarchy has used the redeemer complex to implement control and repression. Among the things it represses most forcefully is the power of imagination. Theodore Roszak has pointed out the salvationist system of Christian faith favors history over myth and, in doing so, supports the repression of human imagination. In Where the Wasteland Ends, he says “there occurred with the advent of Christianity a deep shift of consciousness which has severely damaged the mythopoeic powers [of humankind]” (p. 132). The image of one supreme male divinity is deeply conflictual for our species, yet it suits patriarchal domination to a T. One must wonder if Roman fascist ideology merely merged with salvationism—a marriage of convenience at one historical moment—or if the two systems were not made for each other from the outset.
The result of repressing human imagination is an epidemic of make-believe and pretending. Evidence of this pathology is widespread in our global culture—the media, entertainment, escape from reality via the internet and an array of other channel. The power of imagination cannot be entirely repressed, so it manifests in grotesque ways. In the realm of religious imagination, the image of a crucified man become the emblem of divine love. Is this not a grotesque twist?
Religious Freedom
Gnostic heretics have been compared to Romantics of the European movement, visionaries who called for religious experience without rules, doctrines, priests, or institutions. In a book on Romantic attitudes, The Vision of the Voyage, Robert Combs wrote:
Unquestioned beliefs are the real authorities of a culture. Therefore, if an individual can express what is undeniably real to him without invoking an authority beyond his own experience, he is transcending the belief systems of his culture
Neil Evernden, who quotes Combs in his book The Natural Alien, says that the Romantics “challenged not only conventional beliefs but the very processs of formulating beliefs.” He suggests that if we were able to do what the Romantics proposed, we could have deep and genuine religious experience “without translating it into the abstractions of the dominant social paradigm.” That would be true religious freedom: not belonging to whatever faith you choose, but having religious experience without the framework of institutional faith of any kind.
I submit that the above definition — faith is the power invested in, and derived from, unquestioned beliefs — is fair and can be used in an open, honest discussion of what salvationist religion really is, and what it actually does to human beings, by contrast to what believers may believe it does, or like to pretend it does. Once it begins to be doubted and put into question, faith immediately weakens and soon is no longer worthy to be called faith. It has become compromised. It must remain unquestioned to be effective. The purest kind of faith does not question the beliefs that are embraced by the faithful. The Koran opens: “This book is not to be doubted.” There are over a billion faithful Muslims in the world, and it’s no great wonder why. If their faith is based on a document that demands not to be doubted even before you read a single line, then the faith of the adherents is assured, isn’t it?
The double dissimulation of the placebo effect must not be analyzed or exposed, or faith will be plucked out at its root, and the ignorance that makes it possible will dissolve, the fabric of pretending that embellishes faith will disintegrate.
But this will not happen easily. To argue against faith is like using a peashooter against a cruise missile. Religion is a smart weapon, the oldest and most reliable weapon in the arsenal of dominator culture.
Rosenberg: Look at how families are structured: the parents claim always to know what’s right and set the rules for everybody else’s benefit. Look at our schools. Look at our workplaces. Look at our government, our religions. At all levels, you have authorities who impose their will on other people, claiming that it’s for everybody’s well-being. They use punishment and reward as the basic strategy for getting what they want. That’s what I mean by domination culture.
But even if this is so, and and even in religion, if domination is the rule of order, with all the good things that people derive from religious faith, how can anyone in their right mind criticize it?
I have no intention to dismiss, demean, or belittle the experience of the people there, but I would point out that they are experiencing what they have been told to experience, based on what they have been told to believe, without questioning their beliefs or asking how they acquired them, from whom, and why. Paradoxically, by challenging what they believe, I may be more on their side they they realize.To speak like a Gnostic (or like the Gnostically minded R. D. Laing, who made this observation years ago), I would warn them that their capacity to have their own experience can be destroyed. That is precisely how domination succeeds: by alienating us from our own deepest resources, our precious spiritual birthright, human potential. And I would propose that the critique of redeemer theology formulated by Gnostics is sane and plausible on three counts:
First, it is valid to observe that people ignore how they acquire their beliefs.
Second, it is valid to observe that the glorification of suffering enshrined in the redeemer complex is patriarchy’s legitimation of the suffering it inflicts. In other words, the ideology of salvation is the operative pretext for the setting up and maintaining the victim-perpetrator bond.
And third, perhaps most decisively at all, it is valid to assume that all the good done in the name of religion could as well have been done without it—but only if we grant that human nature is inherently good. This is the dealbreaker. If we do not or cannot grant that humans, left to their own deepest inclinations, will do good and act in a kind and caring manner, then it is worth considering if our view of humanity has not been corrupted by the supreme patriarchal ploy, the ruse of redemption. Faith in humanity does not require a redeemer, but faith in corrupted humanity does. This is the spiritual entrapment the Gnostic teachers wished to expose, and for that intention they were annihilated.
If it is possible to admit that the corruption of humanity is a judgment that comes from corrupted humans, and serves an insidious program of spiritual and social control, having nothing to do with genuine religious experience, then the reign of the patriarchs may have an ending, after all. It is not the death of a patriarch we need to celebrate on this tormented planet, but the death of patriarchy itself.
Graduates and Former Student,
May we please not use this forum for personal fights?
If you wish you can very easily send each other insulting messages using your personal pages on GF (which I know you both are members of.)
Here it is only taking valuable space, is inappropriate and is not of interest to anyone except you two.
I would suggest to fellow bloggers not to waste time responding to “Graduates”. He brings down the whole tone and purpose of this discussion and justifies the allegations of current members that the blog is “just negativity”.
There are so many sincere, constructive, revealing, generous and heartfelt contributions from others. Don’t feed this kind of thread by engaging with him.
475/6 Graduates.
That’s as low as the blog has yet sunk – sad!
Just ignore him Duncan.
regards, RN
482 a former student
I will repeat that the work is about oneself, it is not outside oneself.
**********
“Completed transmutation, that is to say, the formation of the ‘astral body,’ is possible only in a healthy, normally functioning organism. In a sick, or a perverted, or a crippled organism, no transmutation is possible.” -George Gurdjieff
“We are interested in people who are in normal circumstances, and they themselves must be normal, with ordinary possibilities of learning, understanding and so on.” -Peter Ouspensky
You are a mildly retarded alcoholic mentally ill jabbering fool, so shut the fuck up about the work already. You are not part of it due to your abnormalities.
A former student, #468:
A couple of points.
On the one hand, you remind me that Gurdjieff said, “verify everything,” and then you say “Gurdjieff actually did what he taught.” Did you know him, or were you his student? All we have is written accounts, so really any talk about what he was like is imagination. We like to think he was “being the words,” but who knows?
In terms of self-remembering, yes, I was thinking of that when I wrote my post, and wondered if anyone would point out my omission. Personally, I had grasped the concept and had put it into practice, if sporadically, well before joining the Fellowship of Friends. Due to my typical self-doubt, even though I immediately saw the effect self-remembering had on my perception, I thought there must be more to it that I didn’t understand. That doubt was banished after the first prospective student meeting. I don’t question its ability to change one’s state, but I do question everything else that is supposed to result from it — a soul, astral body, “Man Number 5,” etc. I have seen no evidence of these things, so while I value raising my awareness, I try not to be in imagination about what may or may not be happening beyond that.
As to whether I was a “real” student of the 4th Way, I think you are right that I wasn’t, if being a real student meant not accepting the unverified. I realized this was occurring within the first week after joining, when I agreed to give up self-will in countless ways (there were lots of exercises and tasks back then) to a teacher I had never met. This seemed to me to be massively at odds with the idea of verification, and was just one among many things that one was required to do to remain a student — to “go along to get along.” There was lots of pressure to conform, and little time to take stock of what was actually happening.
Ultimately, I also joined with the sole aim of increasing my ability to remember myself, and, like you, I guess I got what I paid for in that respect. But I also got an enormous amount of negative baggage that I was not prepared for. In the end, however, I saw that this baggage was, in many ways, my own weaknesses that had been exposed — the nature of the school increased them until I could not help but see them. The irony is that the most pernicious weaknesses were things I had thought of as strengths, as part of “true personality” — a lunatic devotion to a cult, guilt at not making enough efforts, the vanity of being “chosen,” the even greater vanity of wanting to become a “conscious being” — a spiritual rock-star where everyone would finally recognize my greatness. When I realized that the only part of me that wanted to continue in the school was this collection of pathology, I left. But it has taken many years of peeling back the layers to expose and recognize all of those misguided features.
You said: “The key verification of self remembering is sleep. This should not be a negative observation but a positive uplifting realization. We are not the weak, misled unfortunate mechanical creatures that the FOF taught us as part of mind control but simply asleep and the answer is our own consciousness.” I wish someone had been able to convey this to me while I was a student. Thanks to people like Girard with their visions of hellfire for the sleeping machines, I gradually felt more and more worthless.
Finally, you wrote:
“The real question is not whether the system is any different than many other approaches or whether the authors of the “4th way” material were presenting useful information or even if it leads one closer to an experience of reality it is whether you ever actually were a student of “the system”. and the “4th way”.”
I was going to comment on this, but instead decided to let it stand.
wow! what a weird heavy nazi vibe. I wonder if these outbursts happen spontaneously or if people intentionally pump themselves up to get there …
anyway, thanks Shelley, I followed the Douglas Rushkoff trail and it was sooo interesting. It also led me to a wild ride through some very fascinating and mind challenging blog discussions. As if I wasn’t spending enough time on the internet already!
I have to add that I also consider myself a mildly retarded jabbering fool, otherwise I wouldn’t be here discussing my personal nonsensical experiences with the Fellowship of Foo.
So I guess I am not part of the right crew either.
What a relief!
Well, I guess that leaves me out, because I aint healthy.
However, I still like to read other people’s ‘stuff’ about Fourth Way ideas.
I had a friend once who didnt go the Fourth Way totally. Only as ‘reference material’. He started out with est and went here and there. I think he has found a home with ADVAITA.
One day while leaving my house I pointed to my collection of ‘Fourth Way’ books and specifically Maurice Nicoll’s ‘stuff’
and said to him, “I wish I could understand those books”. He said, “something inside of you does understand”.
Looking at who I see, I hope so.
Former student
I appreciate your articles.
You probably know the song ‘he baby’ from J.J. Cale:
“he baby, it’s your time now”
“he baby, you made it somehow”
“don’t let nobody, come and bring you down”
In friendship,
Peter
Re: post 489
arthur wrote:
“Well, I guess that leaves me out, because I aint healthy.”
I remember being at a dinner with Robert when a student asked, “What are the signs that Juan is progressing in the work?”
Robert’s list:
1. Juan puts Juan’s life into the school and not the school in Juan’s life.
2. Juan does not express negative emotions.
There were three or four, maybe even five others, but I had tuned out by that time. What kind of student was I? A black cloud descended over my thinking and emotions. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I was not what Bob would call a good student (I think this dinner was at around my 10 year mark). Bob kept yammering on while I had the following epiphanies:
Shit, I express negativety on a regular basis, but only to my life-person wife and folks that I work with, never to other students. Am I not making the proper efforts? Am I not making progress? What about these “states” I experience?
I am not about to put my life in the school. The school is a part of my life; it can be no other way.
Well, I guess that leaves me out. “No consciousness for you!”
Still stuck around for five more years, though, trying to figure it out.
487 Innernaut
You bring out many excellent points.
“In terms of self-remembering, yes, I was thinking of that when I wrote my post, and wondered if anyone would point out my omission. Personally, I had grasped the concept and had put it into practice, if sporadically, well before joining the Fellowship of Friends. Due to my typical self-doubt, even though I immediately saw the effect self-remembering had on my perception, I thought there must be more to it that I didn’t understand.”
I have not heard it said better. Somehow the FOF fed this self doubt and convinced many who did have real experiences of self remembering that Robert and not there own conscience should be the guide of what is good and useful. Just how this worked I cannot say because Robert certainly talked up self remembering. Neither he nor the FOF as a whole provided space for individuality to blossom.
“As to whether I was a “real” student of the 4th Way, I think you are right that I wasn’t, if being a real student meant not accepting the unverified. I realized this was occurring within the first week after joining, when I agreed to give up self-will in countless ways (there were lots of exercises and tasks back then) to a teacher I had never met. This seemed to me to be massively at odds with the idea of verification, and was just one among many things that one was required to do to remain a student — to “go along to get along.” There was lots of pressure to conform, and little time to take stock of what was actually happening.”
Yes, that is what I meant, not just you, but I and everyone else who accepted unverifiable approaches and “went along with the program”. In retrospect it does seem that there were few choices. Go along or leave. Accept the whole as a package deal Robert’s consciousness, the idea of a Conscious school, the prophecies etc. and there was always just enough good stuff that it was possible to justify it to oneself.
In relation to my statement
“The real question is not whether the system is any different than many other approaches or whether the authors of the “4th way” material were presenting useful information or even if it leads one closer to an experience of reality it is whether you ever actually were a student of “the system”. and the “4th way”
It is not well written it should say something like
I or we need to ask ourselves whether what we experienced in the FOF is actually a part of the “work” and whether the ideas used were “the system”. This is important in regards to the idea of “moving on” from the system.
It does not seem unreasonable that it is also appropriate to revisit the ideas as presented by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and salvage what is possible for ourselves out of them. As has happened so often maybe it is useful to go to the beginning and start again. That is with self remembering and what one can verify for oneself.
On another subject, I notice there is still an assumption in some posts that the moon has some sort of negative influence on us. But does it?
For me, the thought processes in verifying the moon’s influence went something like this (it’s similar to the way most verifications of FoF dogma were made):
Wow, I feel really weird today….(checks moon card)…oh, it’s a moon in a couple of days, that explains it.
(A few days later) Wow, I feell really weird today…(checks moon card)…gosh, we’re right in between moon phases, must be something else, ah yes, it’s August, must be meteor showers.
(A few weeks later) Wow, I feell really weird today…(checks moon card)…gosh, we’re right in between moon phases, must be something else, it’s not August, must be solar flares.
And so on.
It’s a great example of how the mind fits reality into fictitious preconceived patterns.
This is especially true when you’re surrounded by people who believe the same fictions. I’ve many times been at conversations at ApolloD in which students said they were having a hard time and it wasn’t a moon. Invariably some other cosmological explanation would be produced.
This can be applied to many other FoF dogmas: RB is conscious, making efforts to be present leads to awakening, expressing negative emotions is bad, etc., etc.
There’s no need for these mental constructs at all. I look out the window, see the full moon. It’s beautiful. That’s all there is to it.
492 a former student
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I am in complete agreement with everything you wrote there. In particular:
“It does not seem unreasonable that it is also appropriate to revisit the ideas as presented by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and salvage what is possible for ourselves out of them. As has happened so often maybe it is useful to go to the beginning and start again. That is with self remembering and what one can verify for oneself.”
Well said. This was my aim when I left the school. To begin again, with no assumptions. It has led to some very interesting places, many of which turned everything on its head.
Thanks again.
493 Rhino Neal
I wrote a very similar post early on in the blog. It resulted from my observations over the years when I totally lost track of the moon phases. One thing I mentioned concerned the urban myth that was presented as fact during prospective student meetings — that police notice an increase in crime during the moon phases. This has become such accepted wisdom that someone finally conducted a scientific study — and found no correlation between increases in crime and the phase of the moon.
Gregory Goodwin wrote
“You are a mildly retarded alcoholic mentally ill jabbering fool, so shut the fuck up about the work already. You are not part of it due to your abnormalities.”
Dear Greg
Thank you again.
There is nothing I can say that shows your inner process or lack there of as much as this.
I am deeply hurt, so you are successful, at least for a brief period. You seem to be trying to shame me as if that is possible. You need to read some other books and learn a little “life” psychology around shamed based ideas and healing. Try “Bradshaw on the family”, Maybe if you directed some of your efforts towards yourself you would feel better.Oh that’s right that’s what started this your approach to the 4th way as something outside oneself.
It is actually an embarrassment that the one person most strongly orientated towards the study of “the system” is also a lunatic. I find myself wanting to distance myself from the ideas and find a new approach. Not that the ideas themselves seem less useful but there has been so much distortion in the Fellowship and now Gregory as Graduates has developed such an arrogant unbendable and formatory exposition that I am embarrassed for him and by association for myself.
Sorry Janna, I cannot resist baiting the beast.
It is as I wrote earlier entirely something of his creation. Unlike you I find this very valuable.
There have been some who think that Gregory’s ponderous intellectualism’s actually mean something. It only takes a small nudge for him to reveal how deeply these ideas have penetrated and helped improve his being.
This is a useful process
If for no other reason than to compare how Gregory’s steady steam of theory corresponds to Girard and the similar idea of a split development.
Unlike others I have known of Gregory Goodwin for a number of years. He is infamous through out whatever Internet community there is in relation to “the 4th way”. Infamous for being evicted from every group he has ever participated on including the FOF.
I have intentionally or not ‘stepped on the corns” of any number of individuals within the blog. In most cases I have found it elicits a positive response in terms of causing someone to clarify their ideas or position.
What arguments I will have are usually about words. Something I consider acceptable in this format as it is all words.
Gregory has some imaginary idea of himself as the new Robert Burton and while I think most of us have had enough of that to last a lifetime it is a positive thing to show how shallow the “work” actually is in this prospective conscious man and new teacher.
Consider if it had been possible for someone to have done this with Robert 35 years ago it may have spared a generation of magnetic centers a good deal of misdirection.
Of course then the would be no blog and no Gregory Goodwin to kick around.
Here is a link to a site with weekly updates on the celestial influences on our planet: http://www.celestialweather.com/
On a different note, I’ve been thinking that the non expression of negative emotions has in the fof been deformed. The buffer is that if one is not obviously expression an ‘EMOTION’ then it is not negative.
The act of INTENTIONAL IGNORANCE is one of the most vicious, damaging and hellish expressions of negativity! It is frigid passive and can be used as some sort of shield. Since there is no obvious expression of hot emotion then the expresser of intentional ignorance can claim they are not expressing negative emotions. It is the favorite negative expression of the fof and is insidious. It takes incredible courage to overcome and anyone who can (IMO) is going deep and transforming something terribly human.
former student 496
I am deeply hurt, so you are successful, at least for a brief period.
***********
Good, maybe it will help you think about how much space your demented machine is taking here and curb your impulse to educate the world on the subject of esoteric work.
If that doesn’t work try a hand full of valium and a gallon of vodka.
i don’t know if my previous post is lost or what… maybe it is too lengthy and is filtered out as a result (?) i’ll try it again here in shorter installments.
re: daily card, the limericks are terrific, excuse the pun… “keep it up.”
re: 445 ames and response 454 (or thereabouts)…
The Tyranny of Faith –
What are they feeling? What do they believe? Why are they there? (I don’t need to remind many of the bloggers here that we were once “they”) and so we tend to assume we all know the answers to these questions, more or less clearly. We also might assume that those participating in the fof know the answers.
Granted, the participants know why they are there. They are moved by emotions rooted in their faith, and they have reasons relating to their deepest, most cherished beliefs concerning God, humanity, and the world. The strength of their faith does not incline them—nor does it permit them—to put any of these factors in question. At a moment such as this, faith prevails. Faith leads. Faith decides how people will act by a power all its own.
Faith may be defined as the power invested in beliefs, but, more precisely, the power invested in unquestioned beliefs. It could as well be said: the power derived from unquestioned beliefs. The strength of faith consists in its not being questioned, challenged, doubted. Once it is put in doubt, faith weakens. Hence, the beliefs associated with faith must remain unquestions for faith to stand.
The dynamic of faith is extremely difficult to grasp, because faith seems to have an almost magical ability to grant power to those who give power to it. This dynamic has been called the placebo effect. It works with many things, from medicines to mantras. The efficacy of a placebo inheres in a feedback loop: it gives power to those who give it power. For instance, taking the Host at Mass gives power to those who give it power. To those who give it no power, it is ineffectual.
However, the placebo effect does not consist just in this two-way exchange. There is a trick involved: the returning power of the placebo (be it an object, such as the Host, or an idea, such as grace, or a person such as rb) appears to be independent of the power granted to it in the first place. The feedback is effective, and tends to quell any doubting or critical observation, because the way it works tends to conceal the true nature of this exchange: giving away power to get power. Those who receive the placebo, believing in the independent power of it, get back far more through their faith than they give. Or so it appears.
But the operation of faith here is deceiving. We are not yet at the core dynamic of the placebo effect. There is another layer of dissimulation at work. The placebo effect makes it appear as if believers get more than they give (first level of dissimilation), but in reality believers may be giving more than they get (the second, deeper level of dissimilation). The placebo effect is wonderful, and really works, otherwise there would not be so many deeply religious people in the world, but what goes without notice is the investment that must be made to get a convincing return.
It has been said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little faith can also be dangerous. The old adage suggests that knowledge becomes safer as it increases. Unlike knowledge, faith can become even more dangerous as it increases. Its hidden dynamic makes it almost impossible for the faithful to see what they are giving in return for the boost they get from their beliefs. And the bigger the boost of faith, the more must given. It could happen that believers give away what is most precious in their humanity, that which lives in the unsounded depths of human potential, without knowing what they are losing, or even that they are losing anything at all. The returning effect of faith, the boost, fills the void inside, but never fills it completely, for the power rendered to the placebo always exceeds the power that comes back from it. The second dissimulation, hiding what is given away, conceals the huge inegality that makes the exchange work so effectively. The inability to see this double-dissimulating dynamic, and measure its toll upon the human spirit, is the immense, unspeakable tragedy of human faith.
continued from 499
Prudential Morality
The Abrahamic religions have existed since 600 BCE (Judaism, founded on the codification of the Torah under King Josiah), 33 CE (Christianity, founded on the fable of the god-man, Jesus Christ) and 600 CE (Islam, founded on a book attributed to a male “prophet” whose authority exceeds all others), and humanity may not be getting any better for them. The trajectory of these 2600 years is one long jagged plunge into terror and destruction. Whatever good has been achieved in the name of these religions (and may well have been achieved without them, if we believe in the basic goodness of humanity – more below) has been massively overruled by the behavioral insanity demonstrated through the ages by believers, behavior that is now culminating in the threat of a global holocaust, eagerly awaited, and perhaps deliberately precipitated, but a great number of the faithful.
Things in the world stand today as they have for a long time already: the most violent, threatening developments on the planet are driven by religious beliefs. The worst hatred confronting humanity is, and always has been, “sectarian” hatred. Why?
One explanation is: Abrahamic religion is the supreme expression of patriarchy, and patriarchy, by definition, is a program of control by covert psychological coercion and overt violence. Patriarchy has been called dominator culture or domination culture. Discussing this term in an interview for The Sun Magazine, Marshall Rosenberg closely relates the act of domination to “salvationism.” He uses this term in the context of research conducted by Milton Rokeach:
Rosenberg: Social psychologist Milton Rokeach did some research on religious practitioners in the seven major religions. He looked at people who very seriously followed their religion and compared them to people in the same population who had no religious orientation at all. He wanted to find out which group was more compassionate. The results were the same in all the major religions: the nonreligious were more compassionate. (“Beyond Good & Evil: Marshall Rosenberg On Creating a Nonviolent World,” in The Sun, Issue 326, February 2003. Rosenberg is an author, and founder and director of the Center for Nonvolent Communication: http://www.cnvc.org.) The Sun inverviewer remarks, “The idea that we are evil and must become holy implies moralistic judgment.” Rosenberg replies: “Oh, amazing judgment! Rokeach calls that judgmental group the Salvationists.”
Judgment is a basic element in the salvationist program. Jehovah judges, Christ judges, Allah judges,rb and thin inner circle judge. All the creeds are unanimous on this point. Bear in mind that “You are judged by God” is a human statement, made by men who claim to be emissaries of the judgmental father-son deities. This assertion that God judges us exemplifies the tactic of the Abrahamic religions: a man tells us what God wants of us. Presumably, the man who speaks in this way has been previously briefed by God. That is an issue of faith. Patriarchial religion demands that we believe the men who speak for God, that we take them on their word, which is God’s word. And consistent with the violence inherent to patriarchy, the word of God is threatening, menacing. God judges you, so you must do this and that in order to be well judged, to get good marks, to have your soul saved by the very entity who threatens to condemn it. The threat tactic is very effective in setting up a social control program.
Millions of people submit to this tactic. Bear in mind, however, that submission is gained from an early age, when the believer-to-be is weak and impressionable. The tactic is applied within families, exerted on children before they can even speak, and enforced in all kinds of ways. No choice is involved in adopting the belief that God rewards those who obey His rules as defined by the men like rb. Children have this belief laid into them long before they can question or protest it. Later in life dissent is nearly impossible. The die is cast.
Walter Kaufmann proposed the term “prudential morality” for the kind of behavior that results from threat tactics: people act kindly toward others because it is prudent to do so, because it increases the odds they will be saved and rewarded, rather than damned and punished. In The Faith of a Heretic, he makes the observation that “the notion of a deed done for its own sake is unknown in the Old Testament.” Everything is done prudentially, as a means to an end. The universal end, the transcendent purpose of doing good, is the eternal salvation of the soul of the doer. It takes faith to act morally, because prudential action assumes that its reward comes in another world, through the agency of an invisible spiritual power, whose existence must be taken on faith.
Kaufmann is one of the rare few who has the courage to argue that morality is possible without coercion, without the prudential ethics policy. This argument is regarded with deep suspicion by people of strong faith, because religious people consider that irreligious people are, by definition, immoral. The belief that there is no morality without a religious framework (divine commands, reward and punishment for the soul) is a classic example of the placebo effect: the more you believe there can be no morality without religion, the more potent religion becomes in your life. Kaufmann would observe that in holding this belief, the individual is giving away their power of moral choice, rooted in the essential goodness of human nature. But as we have seen, the hidden dynamic of faith makes it almost impossible for the believers to see what they are giving away to their faith. Or even that they are giving anything away at all.
cont. from 500
Perversely Overwhelmed
In the extortionist framework of patriarchal religion, human action has no authenticity apart from the framework of redemption, human kindness has no value except as a means to an end. A deed done for its own sake, for the pleasure of seeing someone benefit, and, indeed, for the sheer pleasure of performing it, is not forbidden, but it is assumed that we are unlikely to perform such a deed, left to our basic inclinations. To act morally we must go against our natural inclinations, for they will never lead us to do good. The belief hidden in this view of human nature is that we are innately corrupt. Therefore, prudential morality appeals to those who believe they are corrupt. Or, to peer through yet another lay of dissimulation, who have been made to believe they are corrupt.
Patriarchal authorities insist that we need the redemption because we are corrupt. But what if we are corrupted by needing the Redeemer?
The redeemer complex is the set of beliefs that provides the theological basis of the salvationism common to the patriarchal religions. Many beliefs cluster in this complex, but two are primal and essential: the belief that the suffering of the Redeemer atones for human sin, and the belief that the Redeemer is an immortal, superhuman being. Thus, the Redeemer serves a dual purpose: he insures us that our suffering is meaningful, or will be rewarded or compensated, and he presents an ideal for the world to follow. The ideal (or idol, if you will) is superhuman, and giving credence to the superhuman model of humanity seems to return a terrific boost of faith.
But what is more productive and sane, in human terms: living up to a possible ideal, or to an impossible (i.e., superhuman) one? It is difficult for believers in the redeemer complex to formulate this question. Why? Because the placebo effect operates at a terrific return on the superhuman model: give power to it, and you get or seem to get a lot more back, an enormous return. The belief that human suffering is somehow connected to the suffering of a divine being is probably the most powerful placebo known to humankind. But if the above analysis of the dynamics of faith is true, what has to be given away to get this kind of return?
What if adopting a superhuman model for humanity requires the inner surrender of our humanity? The terrible truth is, it might really be that simple.
They may also be there because they have surrendered something deep in their own humanity, and the aching emptiness so produced acts like a reverse vaccuum, sucking them into the collective wave of experience. Faith can reward us generously for what it takes away from us by stealth, through our feat of self-deception.
Does it sound arrogant to propose that they are deluding themselves in their religious beliefs? Perhaps it does, but the suggestion is not original. Almost two thousand years ago, people in the ancient world who witnessed the rise of the redeemer complex were deeply critical of the what they saw, and deeply concerned about how the salvationist belief-system would affect humanity:
“Those who become enmeshed with the authorities [of the salvationist system] shall become their prisoners, due to their lack of perception. On the guileless, good and pure among you, the authorities will impose a deathlike burden, a kingdom of enslavement for those who expect Christ to restore them. And they will praise those who allow the propagation of falsehood… They will cling to the name of a mere dead man, Jesus, thinking they will become pure. They will become greatly defiled and will fall into the name of error, and under the power of evil, cunning agents and diverse dogmas, they will be perversely overwhelmed. ” (From The Apocalypse of Peter, VII, 3.74, Nag Hammadi Codices.)
The people who viewed the emergent religion of Christianity, and its Jewish precedent, the Abrahamic religion of the Torah, in this manner were called gnostokoi, “those who know about divine things.” They were branded as heretics, persecuted, driven underground, and, in some cases, murdered by the converts to the new religion with its message of peace, tolerance and divine love (if you believe that was its message).
The Gnostic Protest
Heresy derives from a Greek word meaning “able to choose.” A heretic is “one who embraces heresy,” but heresy is not a preset body of doctrines comparable to the orthodox doctrines it opposes. Heresy is an alternative way of looking at issues that are defined, once and for all, in unchallenged beliefs and doctrinal and dogmatic propositions set forth as the sole truth by self-defined groups or institutions. In all cases of patristic religious extortion, the tradition of orthodoxy relies on a story, a sacred narrative about how certain men, at a certain time and place, received instructions from the Creator God. Whatever does not fit into this story is condemned as heresy. In 425 CE heresy was declared by Roman authorities a crime punishable by death. That law has never been rescinded.
But the Gnostics, as those heretics are now known, challenged male spiritual authority head on. They confronted patriarchy on its deepest terrain, the spiritual control strategy of salvationism. This is not a message of divine truth, they protested, it is a sick, self-consoling deception of the human soul, and the pretext for brutal political ideology.
Christian religion is associated with brotherly love, forgiveness, and acts of altruism. Gnostics did not protest against any of these attributes, but it was also obvious to them that Christians did not have a monopoly here. What they rejected specifically was the redeemer complex, a theological system which they, as specialists in divine matters, were well qualified to analyse and refute.
Once joined to the fold of the faithful, they are rarely left free to consider the choice of looking elsewhere. Almost without exception, conversion occurs under huge psychological pressure and persuasion. Threats to authority and means splintering the institution into factions. Those who receive their convictions via family, culture, and race, remain ardently attached to their faith because it gives them identity and solidarity, and because they are not presented with viable alternatives. Adoption of religious beliefs happens without a critical quest for truth, but the beliefs so adopted come to be regarded as absolutely true.
cont. from previous post
Evil and Ignorance
I am certain they would find it difficult to admit that they stand in judgement of me, and of themselves… Perhaps they would argue, “No, we do not judge, we cannot. It is God who judges.” But this is more self-serving dissimulation. Those young, vibrant people are condemned to judge by their belief in their own corruption, their “fallen state” in theological terms. They have judged themselves under the coercion of beliefs imposed on them, which they now regard as their most cherished convictions. Patriarchy must first corrupt those it would claim to save through the redeemer complex, because an uncorrupted person would immediately and instinctively reject the idea of redemption.
Like all other adherents to the Salvationist creeds, they hold their beliefs to be true, but not because they discovered truth in them through the act of searching and questioning, and then embraced the truth so found. Having received their beliefs under coercion and without choice, they came to regard them as true after the fact. They embrace rb, yes, with all the innocent passion in their hearts, imagine how terrible and humiliating it is to realize that the beliefs they hold so dear are false, deceptive, and harmful.
Yet the most liberating thing that could happen to them, perhaps, would be to realize that they do not really believe, after all, what they have been told to believe. The strength of their faith depends on ignorance, on their not knowing how they acquired their faith. The strength does not reside in the faith itself, but it seems to. That is the intrinsic treachery of faith.
Gnostics taught that “ignorance is the mother of all evil.” The heretical teachings in the Gospel of Philip say:
“So long as the root of evil is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes…. As for ourselves, let each one dig down for the root of evil, and let each one of us pluck it out of our own heart, sieze it at the root. It will be plucked out if we recognize it. But if we are ignorant of it, it takes root in us and produces its fruit in our hearts. It masters us. We are its slave. It takes us captive, to make us do what we do not want, and what we do not want to do, it makes us do. But it is only powerful in this way as long as we do not recognize it.”
Gnostics were transcendental humanists who believed that evil is not sin, not a failing in us, not an inherent flaw, but the corruption of our divine potential to know, discriminate, and choose. Evil is our own doing, as patriarchy is our own program. But we do evil out of ignorance, not because we have an innate drive to evil. This, at least, is what Gnostics taught. And it is what most Pagans in the ancient world believed.
To ignore how we acquire faith is a terrible act of abdication that undermines our humanity, even though the faith we embrace seems to enforce and enhance it. The placebo effect again. The tyranny of faith is worst where it binds us to this, the ultimate act of self-betrayal.
Imagination Denied
Ever since the faux-convert Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion, patriarchy has used the redeemer complex to implement control and repression. Among the things it represses most forcefully is the power of imagination. Theodore Roszak has pointed out the salvationist system of Christian faith favors history over myth and, in doing so, supports the repression of human imagination. In Where the Wasteland Ends, he says “there occurred with the advent of Christianity a deep shift of consciousness which has severely damaged the mythopoeic powers [of humankind]” (p. 132). The image of one supreme male divinity is deeply conflictual for our species, yet it suits patriarchal domination to a T. One must wonder if Roman fascist ideology merely merged with salvationism—a marriage of convenience at one historical moment—or if the two systems were not made for each other from the outset.
The result of repressing human imagination is an epidemic of make-believe and pretending. Evidence of this pathology is widespread in our global culture—the media, entertainment, escape from reality via the internet and an array of other channel. The power of imagination cannot be entirely repressed, so it manifests in grotesque ways. In the realm of religious imagination, the image of a crucified man become the emblem of divine love. Is this not a grotesque twist?
Religious Freedom
Gnostic heretics have been compared to Romantics of the European movement, visionaries who called for religious experience without rules, doctrines, priests, or institutions. In a book on Romantic attitudes, The Vision of the Voyage, Robert Combs wrote:
Unquestioned beliefs are the real authorities of a culture. Therefore, if an individual can express what is undeniably real to him without invoking an authority beyond his own experience, he is transcending the belief systems of his culture
Neil Evernden, who quotes Combs in his book The Natural Alien, says that the Romantics “challenged not only conventional beliefs but the very processs of formulating beliefs.” He suggests that if we were able to do what the Romantics proposed, we could have deep and genuine religious experience “without translating it into the abstractions of the dominant social paradigm.” That would be true religious freedom: not belonging to whatever faith you choose, but having religious experience without the framework of institutional faith of any kind.
I submit that the above definition — faith is the power invested in, and derived from, unquestioned beliefs — is fair and can be used in an open, honest discussion of what salvationist religion really is, and what it actually does to human beings, by contrast to what believers may believe it does, or like to pretend it does. Once it begins to be doubted and put into question, faith immediately weakens and soon is no longer worthy to be called faith. It has become compromised. It must remain unquestioned to be effective. The purest kind of faith does not question the beliefs that are embraced by the faithful. The Koran opens: “This book is not to be doubted.” There are over a billion faithful Muslims in the world, and it’s no great wonder why. If their faith is based on a document that demands not to be doubted even before you read a single line, then the faith of the adherents is assured, isn’t it?
The double dissimulation of the placebo effect must not be analyzed or exposed, or faith will be plucked out at its root, and the ignorance that makes it possible will dissolve, the fabric of pretending that embellishes faith will disintegrate.
But this will not happen easily. To argue against faith is like using a peashooter against a cruise missile. Religion is a smart weapon, the oldest and most reliable weapon in the arsenal of dominator culture.
Rosenberg: Look at how families are structured: the parents claim always to know what’s right and set the rules for everybody else’s benefit. Look at our schools. Look at our workplaces. Look at our government, our religions. At all levels, you have authorities who impose their will on other people, claiming that it’s for everybody’s well-being. They use punishment and reward as the basic strategy for getting what they want. That’s what I mean by domination culture.
But even if this is so, and and even in religion, if domination is the rule of order, with all the good things that people derive from religious faith, how can anyone in their right mind criticize it?
I have no intention to dismiss, demean, or belittle the experience of the people there, but I would point out that they are experiencing what they have been told to experience, based on what they have been told to believe, without questioning their beliefs or asking how they acquired them, from whom, and why. Paradoxically, by challenging what they believe, I may be more on their side they they realize.To speak like a Gnostic (or like the Gnostically minded R. D. Laing, who made this observation years ago), I would warn them that their capacity to have their own experience can be destroyed. That is precisely how domination succeeds: by alienating us from our own deepest resources, our precious spiritual birthright, human potential. And I would propose that the critique of redeemer theology formulated by Gnostics is sane and plausible on three counts:
First, it is valid to observe that people ignore how they acquire their beliefs.
Second, it is valid to observe that the glorification of suffering enshrined in the redeemer complex is patriarchy’s legitimation of the suffering it inflicts. In other words, the ideology of salvation is the operative pretext for the setting up and maintaining the victim-perpetrator bond.
And third, perhaps most decisively at all, it is valid to assume that all the good done in the name of religion could as well have been done without it—but only if we grant that human nature is inherently good. This is the dealbreaker. If we do not or cannot grant that humans, left to their own deepest inclinations, will do good and act in a kind and caring manner, then it is worth considering if our view of humanity has not been corrupted by the supreme patriarchal ploy, the ruse of redemption. Faith in humanity does not require a redeemer, but faith in corrupted humanity does. This is the spiritual entrapment the Gnostic teachers wished to expose, and for that intention they were annihilated.
If it is possible to admit that the corruption of humanity is a judgment that comes from corrupted humans, and serves an insidious program of spiritual and social control, having nothing to do with genuine religious experience, then the reign of the patriarchs may have an ending, after all. It is not the death of a patriarch we need to celebrate on this tormented planet, but the death of patriarchy itself.
money lost, little lost,
honor lost, much lost,
pluck lost, all lost…
From the same website as ‘ton’s 499 is this paragraph, which relates back to my 420, and Rhino’s 430:
“In the extortionist framework of patriarchal religion, human action has no authenticity apart from the framework of redemption, human kindness has no value except as a means to an end. A deed done for its own sake, for the pleasure of seeing someone benefit, and, indeed, for the sheer pleasure of performing it, is not forbidden, but it is assumed that we are unlikely to perform such a deed, left to our basic inclinations. To act morally we must go against our natural inclinations, for they will never lead us to do good. The belief hidden in this view of human nature is that we are innately corrupt. Therefore, prudential morality appeals to those who believe they are corrupt. Or, to peer through yet another lay of dissimulation, who have been made to believe they are corrupt.”
(re my 502) I see ‘ton beat me to it, in his 500.
“We are very close to Paradise – closer than we have ever been…”
Love, Robert
I wonder what’s the point of saying something like this to students.
This kind of statement reminds me of Jim Jones cult.
Yeah, we are so close to Paradise – let’s just get there already. Have some cyanide, dear.
http://fofgraduates.wordpress.com/2007/06/08/graduates-of-the-fellowship-of-friends/
Our Teacher is on Christ’s Ladder. As he becomes a Man #8 he has to follow Christ’s play.
Robert loves not only his students but the whole mankind. He is suffering for humanity his whole life transforming mankind’s sleep into sacred Presence which he shares with his students.
Do not believe your judgment I’s. Gods gave Robert his lustful and greedy essence not as a punishment, but as a reward for his obedience and humility..
It is only through humiliation and suffering a man is capable of awakening and achieving eternal life in Celestial City of Paradise.
486, 498
Portrait of a man trapped in his own nightmare.
“Those who seek the kingdom of God together will perish alone and those who seek the kingdom of God alone will find it together.”
old gnostic proverb
501 ‘ton
“I have no intention to dismiss, demean, or belittle the experience of the people there, but I would point out that they are experiencing what they have been told to experience, based on what they have been told to believe, without questioning their beliefs or asking how they acquired them, from whom, and why.”
I don’t want to become the sole apologist for religion on the blog, or anywhere, but in my own experience in the Presbyterian church I attend, many, if not most individuals are very actively involved in questioning their beliefs. Many, including the minister, are in the curious position of not believing in a literal resurrection, but, to quote our minister, view the resurrection as “the transformation to a radically different state of being.”
There has been too much scholarship that has verified that the Bible was written by real people over a long period of time, as opposed to a divine document handed down from on high, for thinking Christians to accept a literal interpretation of the Bible. In fact, the historical record shows the political and social pressures behind much that was written in the Bible, and how it was used to try and shape the fortunes of different Middle Eastern tribes — what we call propaganda today. As someone who grew up Presbyterian, I found this scholarship oddly difficult to accept, even though by then I was a Fellowship student and considered myself not in the least religious. But ingrained beliefs die hard.
At the church I attend, other members struggle with this information and how to square it with the desire to believe in something higher, and something that might motivate them to make things better for those around them. There are thoughtless, true believers too, as there are everywhere. But many people recognize the scientific impossibility of a physical resurrection, and seek to understand the New Testament in particular in a way that supports some personal effort and growth that results in community with others and with something higher. Not to mention the aspects of friendship (I almost wrote “fellowship”), and the positive moral (I can’t think of a better word) environment for children, where they can certainly learn a better example of human interaction than what our crude and violent culture confronts them with.
Of course the excesses of religious zealots have caused some of the world’s greatest ills. I guess I’m just saying that not all of religion’s eggs are in the same basket. That would be “formatory.”
Hello,
I am not posting here since a while, but I really want to thank the Sheik for keeping this blog alive and all of you for your posts.
We like that the Italian blog exists (http://laliberastrada.blogspot.com/).
Recently a translation of a Rhino Neal post has been published which was highly appreciated, as well as several Joseph G’s transaltions, and many other contributions from you …
We just wanted to let you know that it is important to us ..
Love, to all of you.
Re Laura 488 and the Rushkin thing: could you post that link once again? Was that the same thread as the one mentioned earlier about the Sheik’s partner? thx.
502 Life Person: “To act morally we must go against our natural inclinations, for they will never lead us to do good. The belief hidden in this view of human nature is that we are innately corrupt. Therefore, prudential morality appeals to those who believe they are corrupt.”
Or asleep.
cf Burton’s equating of natural inclinations (laughing, gesticulating, etc., etc.) with the “evil” king of clubs, which keeps us asleep.
511 Rhino Neal
Yes, the conflation of identification (sleep) with functions (king of clubs) and morality is a sad perversion of the fourth way system into a religion designed to control, rather than awaken (or, if you will, show people their true nature).
# 2 in a series of posts joining the Journey Forth to Isis celebrations.
‘Cause when love is gone,
there’s always justice.
And when justice is gone,
there’s always force.
And when force is gone,
there’s always Mom.
Laurie Anderson
On a personal note: Laurie was my self-appointed guru when I joined the FoF. I guess one could say I was led astray.
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=0hhm0NHhCBg&mode=related&search=
David 510
http://animamrecro.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/douglas-rushkoff-speaks/
Gregory Goodwin wrote
“You are a mildly retarded alcoholic mentally ill jabbering fool, so shut the fuck up about the work already. You are not part of it due to your abnormalities
498 Graduates
former student 496
I am deeply hurt, so you are successful, at least for a brief period.
***********
Gregory Goodwin wrote
Good, maybe it will help you think about how much space your demented machine is taking here and curb your impulse to educate the world on the subject of esoteric work.
If that doesn’t work try a hand full of valium and a gallon of vodka.
—————————————————————————
I suppose this indicates the crux of the conflict.
Gregory sees himself as a conscious teacher a “Graduate” of esoteric school and the thought that a mere mortal especially a “flawed” one has any esoteric knowledge does not fit in with his world view.
He is an up and coming hassnamus like Robert Burton. Apparently his world view does not include “being the words” or feeling any shame at expressing negativity specifically designed to hurt another as much as possible.
Even the idea that facing and learning to deal with real life situations is an important aspect of esoteric psychology is absent from his view. That is areas like alcoholism, drug addiction and depression. The idea being that because I not only experienced these personally but survived and went on to learn and help others should be something “shameful” .
This is unfortunate as it is clear that he is dealing with some serious shame issues. Also that for many members of the Fellowship of Friends it is difficulties with “normal” psychology that need to be addressed before moving on to esoteric psychology. That it is through these unresolved normal “issues” that we can become enmeshed with and controlled by the tactics of the FOF.
This is particularly true in the context of my dialogue with innernaut of how the FOF used this to manipulate us to accept unverifiable demands and policies.
To some this exchange is an unfortunate corruption and lowering of the blog ( if such a thing is possible) I see it as an opportunity to approach some real issues.
The actual cause of the recent exchange is my observation that many of Gregory’s pompous theories may antagonize others because they come from a place in which the knowledge has not penetrated being and there is no humility.
Nothing I could imagine could illustrate what this means as clearly as this exchange
It seems clear that in spite of the mass and volume of material posted by Greg in regards to the work, what Peter Ouspensky might think, what “the system” means there is no conscience or shame associated with failing to do what he teaches.
Reality check- Let us assume that Greg is 100% correct as to my damaged condition,what is the correct approach of the higher to the lower?
1) berate and demean
2) patiently explain
3) model correct behavior (right action)
.What I consider a trully great mystical and visionary work.
Eidólons Walt Whitman
Etymology: Greek eidOlon — more at IDOL
1 : an unsubstantial image : PHANTOM
2 : IDEAL
Eidolon may refer to:
Eidolon (astral double), a Greek concept of a shade or astral double of a living being
I MET a Seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean Eidólons.
Put in thy chants, said he,
No more the puzzling hour, nor day—
nor segments, parts, put in, 5
Put first before the rest, as light for all,
and entrance-song of all,
That of Eidólons.
Ever the dim beginning;
Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle;
Ever the summit, and the merge at last, (to surely start again,) Eidólons! Eidólons!
Ever the mutable! 10
Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering;
Ever the ateliers, the factories divine, Issuing Eidólons!
Lo! I or you!
Or woman, man, or State, known or unknown,
We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,
But really build Eidólons. 15
The ostent evanescent;
The substance of an artist’s mood,
or savan’s studies long,
Or warrior’s, martyr’s, hero’s toils,
To fashion his Eidólon.
Of every human life,
(The units gather’d, posted—
not a thought, emotion, deed, left out;) 20
The whole, or large or small, summ’d, added up,
In its Eidólon.
The old, old urge;
Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo! newer, higher pinnacles;
From Science and the Modern still impell’d, The old, old urge, Eidólons.
The present, now and here, 25
America’s busy, teeming, intricate whirl,
Of aggregate and segregate, for only thence releasing, To-day’s Eidólons.
These, with the past,
Of vanish’d lands—
of all the reigns of kings across the sea,
Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors’ voyages,
Joining Eidólons. 30
Densities, growth, façades,
Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees,
Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,
Eidólons everlasting.
Exaltè, rapt, extatic,
The visible but their womb of birth, 35
Of orbic tendencies to shape, and shape, and shape,
The mighty Earth-Eidólon.
All space, all time,
(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns,
Swelling, collapsing, ending—
serving their longer, shorter use,)
Fill’d with Eidólons only.
The noiseless myriads! 40
The infinite oceans where the rivers empty!
The separate, countless free identities, like eyesight;
The true realities, Eidólons.
Not this the World,
Nor these the Universes—they the Universes,
Purport and end—ever the permanent life of life,
Eidólons, Eidólons. 45
Beyond thy lectures, learn’d professor,
Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope, observer keen—
beyond all mathematics,
Beyond the doctor’s surgery,
anatomy—beyond the chemist with his chemistry,
The entities of entities, Eidólons.
Unfix’d, yet fix’d;
Ever shall be—ever have been, and are, 50
Sweeping the present to the infinite future,
Eidólons, Eidólons, Eidólons.
The prophet and the bard,
Shall yet maintain themselves—
in higher stages yet,
Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy—
interpret yet to them,
God, and Eidólons.
And thee, My Soul! 55
Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations!
Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet,
Thy mates, Eidólons.
Thy Body permanent,
The Body lurking there within thy Body,
The only purport of the Form thou art—
the real I myself, An image, an Eidólon. 60
Thy very songs, not in thy songs;
No special strains to sing—none for itself;
But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating,
A round, full-orb’d Eidólon.
Robert knows his place in the universe
Love Malcolm
Said Old teacher Bob, ‘I am humble,
And getting too old for a tumble,
But take out your wand,
And I’m still not beyond,
A full hearted attempt at a fumble’
Does this relate to the great Bobbo? Or to all of us?
From the 4th way
Chapter 8 page 192
You must understand that without work, without the system, one can do nothing. If one begins to work, one has a chance. But even in the work there are dangers, for if people think that they can do something and at the same time refuse to work on acquiring control, if they remain theoretical too long and do not realize that no kind of change is possible without big efforts, if they go on putting off these efforts until tomorrow,then this continual hesitation begins to produce an effect and, after some time, there comes a dangerous moment.
It does not come in the beginning, but only if for a long time one goes on without making sufficient efforts or without doing anything seriously.
Then, instead of one, one can become split into two, so that all features and all personalities are divided into two groups— one part useful to the work and helping personal work and another part indifferent or even unfriendly. These two groups can continue to exist side by side, trying not to come up at the same time; one may come in the morning, the other in the afternoon.
This is a real danger, because if two parts begin to form like this, the indifference of one spoils the result of the work of the other and in this way development stops. This second part need not necessarily be bad or antagonistic to the work, but only weak, and weakness and strength cannot grow at the same time. So it is necessary to struggle very quickly and ruthlessly against that, otherwise it may lead to double crystallization.
Q. Would one know if these two groups of personalities were forming in one?A. If one learns to observe oneself, one can find when it begins to happen, and then one must not let it go on for too long, because it will become every day more and more difficult to struggle with it. But it manifests itself differently in different cases.
Q. Is that a case of acquiring a lot of knowledge without understanding?
A. No. Even understanding is possible in such a case, only without action. You see, even knowledge and understanding cannot help if one docs not work on being. If will does not grow at the same time, one can understand and not be able to do anything. If people wait too long without making serious efforts or serious decisions, they may have the beginning of this double crystallization. Then they can get no results in their work, and after a time they may even get wrong results.
512 Life Person: “Yes, the conflation of identification (sleep) with functions (king of clubs) and morality is a sad perversion of the fourth way system into a religion designed to control, rather than awaken (or, if you will, show people their true nature).”
I guess I didn’t explain myself very well in 511. I was responding to “prudential morality appeals to those who believe they are corrupt”, by saying “or asleep”, meaning that this kind of morality appeals to those who believe they are asleep.
Thus, the 4th Way tells us we’re asleep (= corrupt) and we must go against “the machine” ( = our natural inclinations).
In my observation, going against the machine leads precisely nowhere, except maybe to a neurotic anxiety and distrust of oneself and life in general, plus a smug superiority to the rest of the “sleeping” human race (as displayed by eg Graduates and many current FoF students).
Seems to me that the human race is in fact not “asleep”. Seen clearly the average human being is a marvellous, radiant, aware, vital being.
Of course if anyone chooses to interpose the concept that people are asleep, that’s fine too.
475, 484, 509 and 520 are newly moderated.
484 by ‘ton has been posted since in smaller chunks but some of you may perhaps prefer to view it all together.
Graduates (488): It seems to me that your only aim was to hurt, nothing else and nothing more. You are a little child and a pretty mean one at that.
One more thing, Graduates,
In a sick, or a perverted, or a crippled organism, no transmutation is possible.
Do you think that Gurdjieff may have been hinting at something else than the physical body? What about a spiteful hateful little preacher with ego but no compassion? Would he sound sick, perverted, or indeed crippled? Perhaps spiritually, emotionally, and mentally?
Sorry for the triple post. Will be starting a new thread tomorrow, no more coffee breaks while the blog loads (whether that is an advantage or a disadvantage I do not know).
the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion 524
Graduates (488): It seems to me that your only aim was to hurt, nothing else and nothing more. You are a little child and a pretty mean one at that.
************
Why all the empathy for Duncan the mentally ill fatheaded blowhard? What’s wrong with you people, do you really enjoy the asshole’s six posts a day exercise in vanity and stupidity that much? And no less complete with a repressed memory of a blowjob from Bob, does anyone really believe such a conveniently rehearsed plea for sympathy? What universe is this? What I said about pig-face-lard-brain’s constant lecturing on the subject of how to correctly increase your consciousness wasn’t half as brutal as what Bruce said about Fat Boy and yet no one complained for a second in that instance.
Ottoexeto, you are welcome to write to me again.
Shiek,
“Graduates” is worse than “Fat Boy”. I wouldn’t mind a bit if you banned him.
529
Nor I.
Bruce 530
529
Nor I.
***********
You hypocritical piece of crap.
Graduate wrote in 527,
“wasn’t half as brutal as what Bruce said about Fat Boy and yet no one complained for a second in that instance.”
Good point Graduates. We have a very inconsistent and hypicritical crowd here.
And thank you Sheik for reinstating me, I did go to far to prove a point.
What a mooooon!!!
Oh, and thank you to the few of you who asked Sheik to lift the ban. It was emotional to me, really, I mean it.
Unbelievable.
523 Rhino Neal
I think I understood your previous comment, but perhaps we have different perspectives. Or not.
I believe all of creation is marvelous and perfect. I also believe that people, marvelous and perfect though they may be, are also often what I would call identified. Or I could call it unaware of their perfection. Or their personal nonexistence. I believe this identification causes suffering. On one level, it’s all an illusion. Yet it’s a painful illusion. The pain is as it must be, and resisting that pain only causes more pain.
Watching humanity suffer is like watching a friend hit her head against the wall for no good reason at all. Most people continue to suffer, unnecessarily, even after they are told that their suffering is unnecessary, and that they are, in reality, perfect and nothing but universal consciousness and love. Look at Graduates–he is perfect, but he doesn’t believe it, so he causes pain to Duncan and, far more, to himself.
One approach to all of this is to set aside all theory of how to awaken, whether there exists anything that needs to awaken, whether one system or another does or doesn’t “work,” and just try to heal others. After all, if whatever the approach might be “works,” what happens? One comes to finally understand that we are here to try to heal others, so that they, in turn, can do the same with others. So why waste time? We just do it. And not because one thereby will gain something (“prudential morality”), but so we will be in accord with what I believe to be…the purpose of being here.
Problems arise when we demonize the human condition. For me, “sleep” is not a criticism, just part of the universal plan that was designed by that-which-is-infinitely-wise-and-benevolent. Nor is the “king of clubs” “evil.” People who imagine either to be true, and so try to redeem themselves from “sin” by accumulating awakening points to be cashed in at the prize booth, chase their tails and only increase the suffering for all.
We agree, don’t we?
Innernaut #512 : Some time ago in the local newspaper it was reported that a Presbyterian church in San Antonio, Texas had translated the “Lord’s Prayer” from Aramaic to English. I think to be sung.
They interviewed some of the church-singers and I was pleasantly surprised. One said that he had to overcome some beliefs within himself.
The reason for this is because in Aramaic Heaven does not mean place but state. I can’t remember everything but there were lots of other “misinterpretations” going from Aramaic through all the various translations.
Graduates, I don’t personally enjoy lengthy 4th way posts by Scott Duncan. However, I enjoy even less your meaningless and angry attacks on him. And as I recall you are guilty of some very rigid and one-sided 4th way posts too, very much lecturing although not too lengthy.
So isn’t it kinda pot calling the kettle black?
Frankly, I don’t care about 4th way ideas anymore, had enough. But it’s OK if you or anyone else does, just stop competing and fighting with each other! It’s just like it used to be in Russian centers: A competition who would over-self-remember another…
So immature. You guys are how old?
And yes, nice to see you Fat Boy.
Hi Fat Boy. Welcome back. Great to see you return swinging. And of all things, you start off by accusing everyone of hypocrisy and inconsistency. Well I guess you’ve seen plenty of both there “on the inside” too. That is, if you have eyes to see (…and actually I think you do).
Sheik,
The idea of “voting people off the island” does not feel right to me, even if I find these doberman-style attack postings to be just as ugly and unnecessary as anyone else does.
At the end of the day it’s your call, Sheik, since you have shouldered the responsibilty and the effort to keep things going.
I wonder if a compromise might work though. If a poster repeatedly crosses the line in the form of vicious personal attacks, maybe their posts could be moderated more carefully for a “probationary” period of time, and offensive ones disallowed. I realize this creates some extra work, but there only seem to be a handful of usual suspects that cross the line now and then.
Just a thought. As many have said before, I am very grateful for your efforts and accept whatever you decide.
Joseph G
Graduates, Duncan, Fat Boy, how do you want to be helped? Here we are all in the public square, how long do you wish me to watch you punch each other? Is it easier here because we are anonymous?
I don’t care what the back ground of either of your stories is. I am happy to hear them both and Fat Boy too but it would be so much more fun if you talked instead of swearing. Nice to verify the great power of words. But even better to verify the great beauty of words.
The blog is amazing isn’t it? Our features, fears, the urge to participate at no matter the cost, our immense desire to be………..long.
I don’t care if you’ve been asked to leave other blogs or wether you drink and are sick, weren’t we all asked to leave by asking us to pay and not participate? Are you going to blame graduates for repeating the cycle? Or yourself for dealing with it with another drink? It’s not been easy for any one of us here so who are we going to blame for not being able to bare what we’ve been through inside or outside the Fellowship?
Still, we can sit and talk and enjoy the benefit of not having to watch each other break each others head but just the imagination of such a thing in this theater of words and forgive the drama. The real drama is the one we each face when the computer is turned off and we find ourselves with the desire to keep talking, loving, reaching out for each other’s invisible auras. Where is there a public square where one can go and listen to others talk without having to pretend that one is better than one is nor worse? Where it is not the money or the talent or the subject but the opportunity to tell about one’s pains and joys and not, by far not only, the opportunity to rave and insult.
The opportunity is as much yours Graduates, as it is Fat Boy’s and Bruce’s, Duncan’s and mine, who’ve also had my share of ranting. What do you want to make of it? But please, don’t walk away for too long. You are very appreciated here in this corner of the public square.
Arthur 535
THE ARAMAIC PRAYER OF JESUS
as translated from Aramaic by Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz of the Sufi Order of the West
O, Birther of the Cosmos, focus your light within us — make it useful
Create your reign of unity now
Your one desire then acts with ours,
As in all light,
So in all forms,
Grant us what we need each day in bread and insight:
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
As we release the strands we hold of other’s guilt.
Don’t let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will,
The power and the life to do,
The song that beautifies all,
From age to age it renews.
I affirm this with my whole being.
Anybody who has more information regarding the following stories or more accurate information?
Asaaf can’t come back into the country because he had a fake marriage with Elisabetha and the INS discovered this, when he went to Israel with Ainsley to have a wedding celebration?
INS is doing more investigation in Robert Burton and his green card affaires?
Anybody, who has more information for the ones, who prefer to be informed?
A student who still received mail at p.o.box 100, received a letter of an ex student. The letter was opening by A.S working for Abraham G. She received the opened letter back with apologies and the information that opening letters is to protect the fellowship of friends?
Thanks.
FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS
AKA THE FARM, VIA DEL SOL, MOUNT CARMEL AND RENAISSANCE – LEADER
ROBERT EARL BURTON
Robert Burton created Fellowship of Friends to celebrate the intellect
and offer a haven from nuclear holocaust. But claims of a sex scandal
have prompted many members to leave.
They have been led on this journey for 25 years by Robert Earl Burton,
a former schoolteacher who has guided everything from when his
followers bear children to what sort of shoes they wear. Burton tells
members he speaks with 44 angels who watch over his flock–among them
Abraham Lincoln, Plato and Jesus Christ–believers say. Burton also
has predicted that Apollo will be the lone surviving outpost after a
global nuclear holocaust in 2006.
Disillusioned former members say the fellowship is more than just
another California curiosity. A growing number of them–as well as
some academics–call it a cult that entraps its mostly well-educated
members with a false promise of spiritual evolution. A recently ended
lawsuit and accounts from ex-members echo that claim and add another:
Burton, they say, has for years seduced young males in the group.
The suit and similar allegations by other members have spurred dozens
to leave the group. It was brought by a Marin County man who claims
Burton first demanded sex from him at age 17. Troy Buzbee, who had
asked for $5 million in damages, charged that Burton brainwashes
members into a state of “absolute submission,” allowing him to feed a
“voracious appetite for sexual perversion.”
Burton commands an annual salary estimated by the group’s former chief
financial officer at $250,000 or more. Members serve as his bodyguards
and chauffeurs, and one is often assigned to record his observations
for the faithful. Rarely seen around Yuba County, Burton travels
frequently in Europe, where he meets with followers and shops for
collectibles for his stately Louis XVI-style home on the Apollo
grounds.
The fellowship attracts followers who are highly educated and
well-heeled. Believers tithe 10% of their income and make other
“donations” throughout the year, according to the group’s literature.
An average American member gives more than $6,000 annually, the
wealthy much more, said Charles Randall, the fellowship’s former chief
financial officer. He quit the group in 1994 after sending a letter to
a fellowship official expressing disillusionment and advising him that
men felt coerced to join Burton’s “harem.” Randall said the
fellowship’s annual income exceeded $5 million when he left.
Inside the Fellowship
Burton is also regarded by followers as a prophet. When he forecast a
worldwide recession in 1984, believers urgently stockpiled provisions
and weapons. He has predicted that a 1998 earthquake will consume the
West Coast but spare Apollo. As for the 2006 apocalypse, Burton says
Apollo is an “eternal city” that will preserve culture for the ages.
Some ex-believers say now that Burton’s rules and pronouncements were
a distraction, Wirk said, “to keep us from reflecting on what was
really going on.” At the time, however, the members said they followed
Burton faithfully, believing that obedience would accelerate their
spiritual growth.
“When people join these groups, they don’t go in planning to surrender
their critical thinking and personal autonomy to the will of the big
kahuna. But that’s exactly what happens,” said Joel Friedlander, a
fellowship member for 22 years who was editor of Burton’s 1991 book,
“Self-Remembering.”
“The indoctrination is so complete, and the peer pressure so great,
that gradually the old you is replaced by a new you who believes all
the propaganda, including the line that eternal damnation is the price
of getting out.”
Margaret Singer, a professor emeritus of psychology at UC Berkeley and
a cult expert, said the fellowship uses techniques common to many
cults. Veneration of a single living leader, authoritarian structure
and intensive control of members’ lives fit the classic profile, she
said.
“They look for people who are a bit lonely or needy and they shower
them with love, making them feel special,” said Singer, who has
tracked the fellowship and talked with many alumni. “From there, the
control and manipulation happen one step at a time.”
With the fellowship, Singer said, “it’s all centered around giving
money to Burton . . . his personality sets the tone and controls every
little thing the group does.”
Once in the fellowship, members become addicted to the feeling of
belonging to a blessed elite, ex-believers say. Leaving that
behind–especially after large investments of time and money over a
period of many years–takes tremendous will, they say.
“It was terrifying to leave, because you’re trained to view outsiders
as this mass of sleeping humanity with no possibility,” said a Bay
Area woman who spent 20 years as a traveling teacher in the group.
“And when you finally do get out, the fellowship community–95% of all
the people you’ve known for the last 20 years–just drops you. You
feel like you’ve wasted your life and have no place in the world.”
Many ex-members said they were not spurred to leave until allegations
emerged about Burton’s sexual behavior. For years, they said, the
teacher’s alleged conduct was unknown because of strict rules against
gossiping or speaking ill of him. Moreover, they said, Burton claimed
to be celibate, saving his sexual energy for the good of his flock.
Word of the leader’s alleged habits first slipped out in 1984, when
Samuel Sanders–a former member of the fellowship board of
directors–sued the group, claiming fraud and alleging that Burton
used his “god-figure role” to prey sexually upon impressionable young
men. The Sanders suit–which was settled in 1988–led an estimated 100
members to quit.
Psychological trauma
Some members suffered lasting psychological trauma as a result of the sexual encounters, alleged the suit, which was settled out of court after a three-year legal battle.
Van Gaal, who joined the Fellowship in 1985 at its center in Amsterdam, said he was told repeatedly how spiritually enlightened-almost saintly-Burton was.
“I was (also) told that in order to further my personal evolution as fast as possible, I had to give over my will (to Burton), so that something more real could grow within myself.”
He learned that homosexuality among group members was banned, too. But he wasn’t told that Burton personally ignored that rule (which ended in 1993). Or that Burton frequently had sexual relationships with male members of the group.
So he was surprised and confused when Burton seduced him shortly after he moved to the group’s headquarters in 1986, Van Gaal said. He simply covered his face in shame as Burton performed oral sex on him.
“I had never had a homosexual encounter before this,” said Van Gaal. “But he told me it was the wish of C-influence (the group’s term for higher forces, or gods) that I have sex with him.”
Van Gaal subsequently became a night guard at Burton’s home, and the sexual encounters continued- sometimes as often as three times a week-until 1990, he said.
The Fellowship teaches “that you’re supposed to transform suffering and negativity, utilize energy that can ignite through this friction.” Van Gaal explained.
Philosophy supports sex drive
But he gradually came to believe that the philosophy was being used to support Burton’s personal desires for control and sex.
“I was needy for spiritual guidance, and I guess if you’re needy, you re willing to take certain things for granted more than you would if you’re not quite as gullible,” said Van Gaal.
He began resisting Burton’s advances after getting married in 1990, and left the Fellowship last October, he said.
Attorney Goldman said Burton had a consensual sexual relationship with Van Gaal.
“I can’t say how long it lasted or how often it occurred. But there were times when Mr. (Van Gaal) initiated the meetings.” Goldman said.
He pointed out that laws vary from state to state regarding whether sex between a religious leader and a disciple-or a doctor and patient, for that matter-is illegal.
“Mr. Burton has never abused his position of power or trust with a member, either involving a sexual relationship or any other aspect of his teaching,” Goldman added.
However Carl Mautz, a former lawyer for the Fellowship who helped defend the group during Sander’s lawsuit, said Burton’s sexual relationships with members are “an obvious abuse of power.”
Like many other former members of the group, Mautz said he wasn’t offended by Burton’s homosexuality, but by the inherently domineering aspects of a leader having sex with his followers.
Taken advantage of
Not all members of the Fellowship are approached for sex by Burton, Mautz noted. But Johan Van Gaal “was completely taken advantage of.”
In their 1993 book “The Guru Papers,” authors Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad reported that cult leaders often express and consolidate control over their disciples through sex.
“That many discontented and innovative people were unwittingly seduced into submission… indicates the depth of people’s susceptibility to authoritarian control,” they said.
Goldman insisted Burton did not seduce Laurel or Van Gaal, “Sexual relations can arise from mutual attraction,” he said.
In any case as Kramer and Alstad pointed out, most [devotees who study under a specific] spiritual leader-and make that study the focus of their lives-find it difficult to deny the leader anything, even when he or she openly expresses a sexual interest.
Moreover, the ideologies of small religious groups typically discourage any questioning of the leader’s actions, they said.
The Fellowship is no exception.
Members are taught that Burton is a higher being with understanding they do not have, said Mautz.
“People in the Fellowship who aren’t close to Robert act around him the way your ordinary 14-year-old would act around Michael Jordan,” Mautz said.
Members nervous around leader
“They’re nervous. They fumble for words. It’s a totally uneven playing field.”
Joel Friedlander, a former spokesman and board member for the Fellowship who resigned last year, agreed.
“One of the teachings of the Fellowship is that doubts come from the false part of yourself. That’s an effective control mechanism,” he said.
Cynthia Hill, the Fellowship’s director of public relations, insisted that while members strive not to express negative emotions, any topic can be discussed as long as it’s in “a neutral tone of voice.”
And longtime member Colin Lambert said the Fellowship has a teacher-student relationship that is based on established spiritual tradition and is difficult for many Americans, schooled in democratic principles, to understand.
“We do not believe that a teacher has to explain himself to his students,” Lambert said. “But you voluntarily enter this relationship, and take responsibility.”
Such ideas support Burton’s continued leadership and lifestyle. But as Lambert acknowledged, only those who trust the teacher stay in the group. Those who don’t, leave.
Charles Randall, the Fellowship’s former business manager, left last October in the wake of Laurel’s letter.
After 21 years in the group, he said, he came to believe Burton was effectively manipulating the minds as well as the bodies of members through a self-serving philosophy.
“I’m kind of humiliated by the whole thing,” said Randall.
“I thought it was the one true way, but as it turns out, it was just a cult.”
He’s among about 100 members who resigned or were expelled in the aftermath of Laurel’s letter, according to Mautz.
Departures create financial bind
The changes could put financial pressure on the group, Mautz said.
“That’s a huge amount of money” to lose in the form of annual dues, he explained (most members give 10 percent of their income to the group).
In fact, the Fellowship is in default on most of its 1994 property taxes, and owes more than $415,000 in ’94-’95 taxes, penalties and interest. The 1,300 acres owned by the group are valued at nearly $21 million, said a spokesman for the Yuba County assessor’s office.
Hill said the Fellowship will initiate a payment plan later this year to cover taxes in arrears.
“This situation is not unusual for businesses,” she said. “As often occurs with young wineries in particular, cash-flow difficulties may arise as production and sales become equalized.”
Others say that whatever the group’s finances, Burton’s predictions of a catastrophic earthquake followed by nuclear holocaust could lead to a crisis down the road.
Margaret Singer, a professor emeritus of psychology at UC Berkeley who has counseled thousands of former cult members, said both doomsday predictions and mass suicides (which she called mass murders since they are orchestrated by cult leaders) will increase as the end of the millenium nears.
“All these cult ‘prophets’ enjoy reading significance into the change in the millenium,” she said.
Friedlander said he doesn’t think the Fellowship’s doomsday scenario will lead that far.
“But you can’t rule it out,” he said. “‘The Fellowship certainly has the idea of gathering the faithful for the coming holocaust, of creating a self-contained community, and believing that former members are out to get them.”
http://www.rickross.com/groups/fof.html
Hello Vena ~
“I would suggest to fellow bloggers not to waste time responding to “Graduates”. He brings down the whole tone and purpose of this discussion and justifies the allegations of current members that the blog is “just negativity”.
There are so many sincere, constructive, revealing, generous and heartfelt contributions from others. Don’t feed this kind of thread by engaging with him.”
_________________________________________
Thanks Vena, but no thanks; there’s no such thing as “just negativity”, another ‘mummified left over that’s rolled under the refrigerator’ from Robert Burton’s School of Relative Awakening… To me, my responding to Graduates is my business and if I desire to get poetic with the cousins of my own demons, well, that’s my anti-Nancy Regan take on the subject, she’s the one who said “Just say no, to drugs.”
Bruce usually takes care of this sort of stuff pretty quick, where is he anyway? A disco joint this small only needs one bouncer, when there’s two, no one can fit through the door.
:.)
540 ~ More History Needed
Fruits of our labor I would say, hey Graduates could you please pass the roasted apricots and the raspberry coco dip?
Oh, and the watermelon filled with ancient droughts of Gurdjieffian armenyac, the baked apples glazed with a spritz of coconut milk and ground dutch pastry sugar?
Oh, and the stuffed seedless table grapes, containing small swiss chocolate dipped almonds, pecans and cashews?
Thanks
488
“Completed transmutation, that is to say, the formation of the ‘astral body,’ is possible only in a healthy, normally functioning organism. In a sick, or a perverted, or a crippled organism, no transmutation is possible.” -George Gurdjieff
_________________________________________________
This is not true, period.
Gurdjieff had his ‘dog days’ too and please let’s not forget it.
Fatalism is not our business, or is it Graduates?
:’}
520. A former student – thank you for the poem.
539, 535. Xena, Arthur – thank you for the prayer.
525. Sheik, you truly are esoteric.
541 is newly moderated.
As to the moderation issue. I prefer not to ban anyone, banning Fat Boy earlier was a mistake. But then again we do get lots of fakes and aggressors in here who probably will not benefit from the discussion, even though most of the people here are bent on trying to help them open their eyes (is that really going to happen?). I find that these fakes and aggressors can stimulate the discussion in different ways but the brief periods of peace and humour that follow their attacks (as was the case for the past two days) are usually so much more friendly and understanding and nicer to behold.
I wouldn’t mind a voting system where a certain number of votes will result in a warning, a repetition of the vote will mean a ban (temporary or permanent).
Time to turn the page and start afresh:
NEW DISCUSSION