THIS POST HAS BEEN MARKED PRIVATE BY WORDPRESS.COM STAFF IN RESPONSE TO A DMCA COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT NOTICE. Fellowship Of Friends Discussion, Part 73 May 20, 2009
Posted by fofblogmoderator in Uncategorized.trackback
Welcome to the newest addition to the Fellowship of Friends Discussion.
For recent pages from the blog go here
For previous parts of the discussion please click on home and scroll down, or move to the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, or to AnimamRecro for the very beginning. For a more organized reading check out The Fellowship of Friends WikiSpace.
The largest meeting point for former and current members of the Fellowship of Friends is the Greater Fellowship, you can sign up to the Greater Fellowship community and connect with mostly former members of the Fellowship of Friends, as well as: some current members, family members of former/current members, and others interested in the Fourth Way here.
To visit “Pathway To Presence”, the newly created web site for recruiting new members to the Fellowship; http://www.pathwaytopresence.org
For sites in Russian and Italian, click http://fofway.narod.ru/ and http://laliberastrada.blogspot.com/respectively.
To access the Online Petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/djindjin/petition.html
For more information check Rick Ross and Steven Hassan.
This is where you can find the website of the Fellowship of Friends.
If you decide to interact as well as digest, this is where you can start.
And as always (and above else), enjoy and have fun.
At the Moderator’s discretion, excessive abuse, personal attacks, taking up too much space, as well as deliberate attempts to unmask people taking part in the discussion will result in a warning followed by a ban or a leave of absence from the discussion.
Participants require 1 moderated comment before they can start communicating in real-time. (ie. if you are new to the discussion, your comment will appear about 1 day after it has been posted, any subsequent comments will appear instantaneously).
To visit the site created by Unoanimo:http://fellowshipoffriends.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/res-ipsa-loquitur/
Comments
Sorry comments are closed for this entry
Fellowship of Friends - Living Presence Discussion 
Deleted
I tried to open the link being discussed at the end of the last page but it wouldn’t open. What was it?
293. what the…? – May 20, 2009
It´s no longer there.
What was is about?
1/Susan Z
Noisy 2007 withdrawal letter of FOF board member and lawyer David Springfield complaining of his unlawful removal from board by means of secret board meeting in violation of law, expressing alarm that board was engaged in criminal wrongdoing including conspiracy to defraud United States government, private inurement, ineffective rubber-stamp board, etc., etc.
so much wisdom here.
it is not only amazing.
but moreso.
too bad so much time is spent (lost, forever?) bashing burton. true enough, burton “should be” bashed, but consider – there are MORE THAN ENOUGH people around to do that dirty job. it doesn’t really have to include you, though, unless you want to.
consider further, what if all this wisdom here could stay on the one topic that brought everyone here, and to GF – way too infrequent moments of consciousness, “presence”, and a nagging feeling/belief that they could become nearly if not completely permanent… except for one glaring fact, there are simply too many dirty jobs to do, and you can’t help doing them.
I hope someone did a screen grab to send it to the appropriate authorities.
oh well, it says something about the way the Fellowship deals with reality and how many hidden agendas so many have.
It was on immigration issues, financial compliance, Investigation/Monitoring of BLOG/GF/PR, etc., Insurance, Other matters…
I made a print out since I expected the document to fly away as everything that reveals the corrupted nature of the organization.
Hello there! You who are monitoring this BLOG!!!! Nice to see you watching us. Wasting your life away, covering up for the mess other make….Hello!
Oh, there was nothing about being present there. They keep that kind of information for the masses. It is the opium that keeps them pay every single month to stay in the Church.
How sad…
Of course the “students” in charge of monitoring this Blog, do not want current members to read documents like this. They have so much to lose. They dig their heads even deeper in the Californian warm sand…
Man is in Prison (or time-honored methods)
If you were trying to break out of prison do you think the prison library would have viable books on the best escape routes? Would you attend the latest seminars on “Super-duper secret escape routes used by the Ancients”?
“Hey, they’re time-honored methods – that’s gotta make ’em good, doesn’t it?” What do you think, the guards are idiots? You’re in prison, remember? And I’m talking high security here.
You think your cellmate knows a way out? If so, what’s he doing here, much less blabbing it to anybody who shows so much as a passing interest?
Once you’re incarcerated, the authorities try to seem like your best friends. Now – you ARE in prison and the prison is alive! It’s everything you perceive, think and feel. It is Life itself and it’s keeping you down on the farm.
“What a crock! BS! Hogwash!” you say? “I can change anytime I want to if I really wanted to. In fact, I’m in an ongoing pursuit of ways to improve myself!”
Yeah, and you could just up and walk right out of your cell, anytime you want if you just wanted to bad enough – riiiight.
“Well hey, just who are you to insult my living quarters mister smarty pants! I’ll have you know that this is no run of the mill, shabby hoose-gow! Why just look – over here I’ve got my diploma hung up on the wall, and on this wall I’ve got altruistic intentions and good thoughts. Why there’s even a porcelain altar in the corner for my spiritual attainments. Maybe it ain’t finished yet, but this cell ain’t so bad, lemme tell you!”
Life’s ordinary answer to those unhappy with the feel of their prison cell is to redecorate. Why not just go the whole nine yards and get out?
Oh wait, I forgot. You’re not really in some kind of prison, are you? I mean, you look around your head and it’s not like you see some kind of bars or walls or such. Boy, are you dense.
Well, if you aren’t in prison, then do this one little thing for me -it’s a really simple thing – come on, just humor me. Go off by yourself in a nice quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed and sit down and for a full two minutes STOP THOUGHT, don’t think about anything else – zero, zip, nada – just stop all thought!
Hey, it’s only a couple of minutes and it’s not like you won’t start thinking again when you’re done. I promise, you won’t hurt yourself.
“Ahh, what’s the point, I could do that if I really wanted to. That’s so simple it’s not even worth trying.”
Is it? Do it again, then, this time for twenty minutes. It won’t kill you, but maybe you’ll learn something!!
Do you really like your cell that much?
What? What’s that you say? You actually do want to get out? Ahh! that’s a different story. Lemme ask you something then: Can I bring you a cake?
(taken from alt.something some years ago)
Bruce: “I hope someone did a screen grab to send it to the appropriate authorities.”
As of right now, the document is still visible over the internet.
Try this –
http://www.archive.org/details/FofBoardWarning
Re. Panoritsa 06
“Of course the “students” in charge of monitoring this Blog, do not want current members to read documents like this. They have so much to lose. They dig their heads even deeper in the Californian warm sand…“
Come on now, you know students are not allowed to read the blog,
nor the Appeal Democrat……
It was not there earlier when I tried to view it either. Ok it`s worth a 2nd try.
Cheers!
1, 5 & 9 are newly moderated
A favorite “time-honored” method:
Feeling bad, looking to thoughts for a reason for it, and then talking to oneself and others about it, all the while believing it’s gonna do you some good. It inevitably leads to whining, bitching, complaining, and with a “proper education”, psychology, and psychiatry.
This “time-honored” method, is useless, and when a person who claims to be interested in waking up succumbs to the natural tendency, he fools himself. What do you think the notion, “Wake UP!” is all about? It is more about not doing mechanical things, than doing conscious things.
Stop doing all those mechanical things, and what are you left with? ”
“Uh… something worth pursuing??”
14/itswinetime
Tell us: Why are you posting here?
15 Jomo Pinata
You get rid of some of the ‘silly buggers’, then another one comes along. C’est la vie!…..Nigel.
9. itstwinetime,
That’s another one of those profound ironies about the FOF. The inmates are told that locking themselves in a prison (the FOF) will help them escape from prison. If the subject of your cryptic essay is freedom, then it’s probably better if you first acknowledge your own imprisonment. We all had to arrive there at some point.
By the way, there’s an interesting topic above… No use in trying to change it. It won’t go away.
7/8 Panoritsa, 12 Renald
If the blog were properly scrutinised, activities would be started by FOF members, on REB’s command, to stop ‘harmful blog activity’. One of these days, I expect a fire-bomb through my front-door mail-slot…..But don’t worry…..the local fire brigade sent 3 (6′ 6″ tall) Gods around to fix a very sensitive alarm some months back. The motto of the force? “In auxilium divinum”, translated is “With divine help”…..that’s what you get for putting your arse on the line and telling the truth…..Nigel.
“It’s the US versus USSR
Though we more or less are;
These are very difficult
And dangerous times.”
(Chess – Tim Rice, Benny Ulvaeus, Bjorn Andersson)
WOW!
http://www.archive.org/details/FofBoardWarning
Open the PDF
And phew….. look at the names (black)
Et-an Harr-s
R-se Kenne-y
Lin-a Tul-ss-
Way-e Mo-
A-an Schw-rtsber-
Nich-las S-auldin-
itstwinetime:
“Go off by yourself in a nice quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed and sit down and for a full two minutes (and) STOP THOUGHT, don’t think about anything else – zero, zip, nada – just stop all thought! Do it again, then, this time for twenty minutes. It won’t kill you, but maybe you’ll learn something!!”
Go off by yourself in a nice quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed and sit down and for a full two minutes and STOP BREATHING, don’t breathe at all-zero, zip. nada, just stop all breathing! Do it again, then, this time for twenty minutes. It will kill you, but maybe you’ll learn something ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ALIVE, YOU IDIOT!!
Your prison is your unconscious belief that you are somehow not good enough to be in your own power. You bad, bad boy!
Such is life straddling the great divide.
Lucky for you, there is a time honored guru waiting just for you to raise the bar higher than you’ll ever reach in this lifetime; you’ll pay them handsomely to do it and kiss the ground they walk on while they have a gay ‘ole time on your dime because you don’t have the balls to live your own life fully. You’d rather live it through someone else, your own personal Jesus.
Keeeeep posting! And maybe, just maybe you’ll be able to stop cult thoughts for a few minutes at a time…
Cult followers living life in plexiglass bubbles ought to avoid throwing toaster ovens. They bounce back.
Cheers!
In case some missed it, the letter by David Springfield is now displayed in full at number 01.
It has confirmation that the blog is on the right track and has been for years.
The thought also occurred to me that the government agencies are probably shamed and in fear because of their failures to respond in a timely manner and are surely hoping that this blog dies and goes away, or that they can retire with full pension before the shite hits the fan. Keep up the good work and let`s try to get along a bit better. Ooops, sorry, I said “us“. Too bad dad !!!
Cheers!
Question
If I wish to send a copy of the petition with letters I am going to send, is there another copy of the petition to copy. The one I see still has these odd little circles with a curlicue on top. They do not in any way minimize what is said, but it would seem cleaner if they were not there. Any suggestions?
21. Renald
“The thought also occurred to me that the government agencies are probably shamed and in fear because of their failures to respond in a timely manner and are surely hoping that this blog dies and goes away”
HI Renald – I agree that the letter shows the blog may be on the right track (most of the time).
However, and I could be wrong, but I have trouble picturing government agencies being ‘shamed’. I also think it is standard operating procedure for them to almost never respond in a timely manner. I also doubt that they care one way or the other about the blog itself.
That being said, I do have a hunch that the issues themselves have begun to get the attention of some people in those agencies, and we can help that along using the addresses that ‘x-ray’ supplied. You can tell by the lawyer’s letter that they appear to be legally vulnerable and although it could be a coincidence, whats his name ‘itstwinetime’ certainly showed up right after the posting of that letter.
What I wonder is why the board wished the lawyer to stop his legal work for them. Is it a money issue or is it one of secrecy trying to limit the knowledge within the cult of what is going on with the money and in the galleria? Maybe he was just not corrupt enough to be a lackey for them. Or could it be that some of the old time members are brainwashed enough, and in their own way naive enough to assume that their imaginary C Influence will protect them? I have the feeling that Burton himself knows better than that and may have already planned an exit. It would not bother him to leave his little ‘inner circle’ and the ‘board’ holding the bag, and no longer employed. I don’t think he cares what happens to anyone else as long as he can take a few of the young men and a lot of money with him when he attempts an exit plan.
It’swinetime must be the new Fellowship approach to diminishing the blog credibility with intense posts like this ones. Three in one day! You get better everyday you fools but no matter how good you get you just light the fire! Guess you didn’t like the recent insults but you deserve twice as many!
Thanks to whoever directed us to David’s letter. It’s good! How much more leaking will come in time when everyone who knows the dirty stories raises enough courage to make them public and stops allowing the recruitment of new members.
20 is newly moderated
23 James McLemore
You can find a good copy of the petition at the WikiSpace link at the top of this page.
Xeeena
Thanks – I have been to the site and even that page before but just did not notice that the petition was in a different format.
itstwinetime
Should read: It’s Swine Time
Anyone up for swine flu?
Once you got the ol’ FoF disease,
There’s no gettin’ rid of it.
A swine that drank too much wine
Thanks Black Marker…
The letter dates from 2007. Maybe the time they had their meetings at OH to discuss what they will tell the authorities when they will come and check the “monastery” Fellowship of Friends. Then, they sent away some “religious” workers to various “centers” around the world.
Again…You are paying your monies to be in a School, Church of awakening. And what they call “third line of work” includes: lying, spying, going to secret meetings, marrying for a green card, adjusting figures to fit what the taxes may read…How do you call this in normal “life”? Most people call it corruption. If you are in the Fellowship you are brainwashed to believe that you and the likes of you are special and the rest of the world is “mechanical”, “asleep”…So you are more clever and awake. No morality, no “feminine dominance” for the FOF people.
Try to examine the possibility you might be a little, tiny bit wrong…
As Robert would say: “Your life is at stake” (so much wisdom that guy, next to his suffering…)
This post falls, hopefully, near post number 12896. I thought that coincidental as the address for the (one-time?) Fellowship of Friends lawyers was/is 12896 Rice’s Crossing Road. (See the .pdf version of the letter.) I used to think that an interesting address, as in: 12 ate 96; world 12 ate world 96. (AG being the agent of the transformation of this kind in his pursuit of justice.) Turns out that is really backwards. This page on the FoF blog may prove that it should be read backward (in one of those typical Burtonisms of upside down and/or backwards views of things) 96 ate 12; as in world 96 ate world 12 (by the unbridled use of the 69 position – if you get what I mean.).
arrrrrrrrgh,
22 years more or less in the fof, left twice, returned twice, finally left in 2000.
Found the blog 2 years ago, and it’s useful to keep coming back here, it’s been a year or so since my last visit.
I pretty much remained an outsider most of those years in the fof, so I was not aware of all the shenanigans until after my final departure. To have have been so duped is painful,
can’t imagine the tragedy of other’s pain, mine pales in comparison,
what’s so odd is how easy one can be manipulated,
at bottom , what kept me in was the idea of participating in a noble experiment to create an exisistence more attuned to my sensibilities…art, music, nature, harmony, having a community of people where we were aspiring to a more nobler and creative exisistence
…
held against the picture of RB, that it was smoke and mirrors…
arrrrrrrrgh
thanks all for being here
its twine time:
Quick question: Are you a big fan of Alvin Cash and The Crawlers or just a sloppy typist? I dig Marshall Crenshaw’s version, too. Look out!
33 is newly moderated
9 Itstwinetime
Hello, It’s twin time! A familiar voice… I think I know you…
Was it a joke about “alt.something”? You did not take it from any website, but wrote it yourself, no?
I watched “Inside the cult” last Sunday. It was interesting to see a resemblance in your posting of a “proof that there is something wrong with us”. According to their “teacher” there is nothing significant “in life” – all we have is ‘our little movies’ and ‘our little DVDs’. And a public education is a waste of time… Similar to what you write: “Why just look – over here I’ve got my diploma hung up on the wall, and on this wall I’ve got altruistic intentions and good thoughts.”
It is a clever analogy about prison, but also a little paranoid to say the least. In a way, this belief might be what keeps you in your cell. Somebody made you feel very bad about yourself and life in general. I can feel the pain and fear through your writing.
Movies, DVD’s or diplomas – it’s not all there is to it. Life is more that that… And by the way, the 4th way is ‘in Life’…
Keep posting. Let’s talk.
1 Black marker
It was rather shocking to read the letter, but now when I calmed down I see things a little different.
It is obvious that when someone is kicked out of the ‘important’ organization without any explanation it hurts. We had a guy at work who is still suing the administration for kicking him out… Well, Dave was pissed off. That might explain why he was using the words as “threatened” and “serious crimes” etc. The message behind: “You suck and you won’t do well without me”
That letter reminded me the incredibly intense level of business and extra-efforts at FOF. Some people are under a lot of pressure there…
Millions, art collections, real estate, investments, building projects, lawyers, immigration, etc. – do not exist in my reality of life. Do I need them to awaken though?
37. Tatyana
and generally lawyers are lawyers (…as RB would say…”and all that implies goodness”).
It was not clear to me. Did this lawyer/student escape from the Fellowship of Friends after he was fired or is he still trapped in there making his donations? Anyone more recently escaped know?
Cheers!
I’d like some more info, too…the Springfield letter is quite a score, if it is legitimate…seems up and up to me, I guess we could just ask him, seeing as you can make out his phone, email, etc.
I could make out every redaction except the cc. after Robert on the last page….can anyone make it out?
Just like all the stuff that’s leaking out from the Bush/Cheney reign of terror, maybe leaks like this will come out from the FoF as more rats jump ship. I must say that I am shocked — SHOCKED! — that FoF Board members would engage in illegal behavior after being warned by an attorney, even one of their own!
My own conspiracy theory is that the whole kerfluffle (of the “investors,” etc.) came about because a few students were either intentionally attempting–or were fooled into–putting money up for a foreign “compound” that Robert could “retire” to….far from the IRS and other U.S. authorities! If there are any corroborating sources out there, please contact me directly! I will respect your anonymity!
Here’s to all of us! Bravo!
walter.tanner@gmail.com
1. black marker – May 20, 2009
This letter is a bomb, and it has to be attached to the Petition and to be sent out urgently!
It is the time to shut this fucking cult down once and forever.
AND FUCK YOU ALL THE ´CURRENT MODERETORS OF THE SCHOOL´ (DA..D NOT INCLUDED)
40 Walter,
this letter is OLD. Don’t you think they must fixed a few things since then? Robert got involved, talked to a few people, sent a few folks home to the country of origin etc…
It was at the pick of the “blog days” and then it looked like some people are serious about suing FOF. But by now we know that that is not going to happen.
And I still think that he exaggerated a little because he was pissed off…
He is “still in” and by now I think he “transformed the queens” and got over with the issue.
42. Tatyana
Sounds to me like you must have left relatively recently, and in your heart of hearts you’re still buying a lot of their shit, and think they have noble aims.
42. Tatyana
Robert doesn’t change, period.
Ever heard of the term, “righteous indignation”?
Ever have a moment where you realize you are losing more than you or the supposed other guy can hope to gain?
But, for all the sub-minimum wage jobs out there to do (for the long-time cult-members who finally left and are now out to save the rest of the world), that of “garbage collectors” is one of the most prized.
And how big is YOUR particular bag today, now that you’ve scraped up this recent bit of “bad news”?
And do you even realize that this kind of news is made of glue and it gums up your mind, so that even to the casual observer, you sound like a raving nutjob… except to your “friends” in your replacement “community” (now that you don’t have FoF to cuddle up to anymore), where everybody all thinks just exactly the same as you do?
And have you even approached the possibility that your experience in that failed fourthway experiment, that pseudo-school wannabe, that CULT! was/is (and probably will continue to be) YOUR FAULT and your fault alone. Not Burtons, not Miles, not Girard, nor any of the sleeping machines who “counselled you” while you were debating with yourself: “should I stay, should I go, should I stay, should I go?”
The world laughs at you, not with you.
A criminals who have to be brought to justice for robbing, raping and destroying peoples lives are thinking about suing?
What a joke!
From Da..d´s letter it is obvious that FOF is in a very deep shit and is venerable like never before, regardless of when this letter was originated.
And yes, Robert Burton cannot change, because he is a fucked up criminal who is well deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Should I start thinking again yet?
45. itstwinetime
Greg, how did you slip back in?
46. X-ray
“Venerable” is what they think of RB, “vulnerable” is the word you’re looking for.
48. brucelevy
That same thought came to me about midway through reading the post.
Ditto. Sounds like diaper boy.
42. T.
I realize you still have some friends in the cult, and that it’s hard to leave it behind. It takes time. But the word “exaggeration” is common in cults. Everything is exaggerated, it’s not that bad, etc.
Visceral realizations about the true nature of any cult — and the cult leader — are ignored. Even direct evidence that something is seriously wrong — such as the PDF document that some of us are discussing — is explained away. And it’s not uncommon for former cult followers to continue that same line of thinking.
I don’t know you personally except for what you write here, but I don’t need to. I know you well enough to say that you’re smarter than this. They want you to believe otherwise, but remember that you’re smarter than your friends in the cult. Try turning the tables on them. Offer yourself to them and see how they respond. Use the word “cult.” Call Burton by his last name, Burton. Call them “followers”, not members, and definitely not “students.”
See how they respond to that. All they’re offering to you is the pre-approved, the pre-digested. Challenge them. Assuming you’ve left, what can they do? Kick you out?
“Offer yourself to them…” i.e., your own ideas (ahem), not the FOF party line.
Regarding itsinthewine or whatever above: whoever it is, anyone who jumps onto this page and completely ignores the PDF doc after several posts must have their eyes completely closed. That doesn’t sound like consciousness or any Fourth Way practioner.
48. brucelevy
-45. itstwinetime
-Greg, how did you slip back in?
nice try mercury boy.
a hit and a miss, as usual, as usual.
just because someone thinks your and your pals rants on the fof are beyond boring, doesn’t mean they’re named goodwin.
maybe 11 years connected to your hero addled yer brain?
and now that it’s 23 years later, and you’re still adding to the addling, maybe you ought to try THINKING for a change, instead of piling on… just a thot.
btw, the pdf is old news, boring and old. yawn.
so what? (“let ‘me and my friends’ bury the dead.”)
itsinthewine: “The world laughs at you, not with you.”
Yes, it does, and the world laughs at itself sometimes, too – in its better moments. And it laughs at you, too — although it laughs a bit less at malignant narcissism.
“so what?” another common response by cult followers when there’s any evidence that something is seriously wrong in a cult. “Oh, did you say, ‘so what?’ … Oh, well pardon me. No worries then. Everything must be fine.”
An unusual concert at the Galleria…
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6EYrqIn0yI”
54. itstwinetime
My sincere apologies for thinking you might be Greg. It’s hard to tell one jerk off from another, the narcissism smells the same regardless of where it emanates from.
54. itstwinetime
Yes it’s true it’s old news for the FOF, but in the right context it’s new and useful. But you know that. Isn’t that why you’re suddenly here, to try to diminish it’s apparent usefulness as “just another nail” in the coffin that’s the Pathway to Presence, aka Fellowship of Friends, aka Robert Burton’s Never Ending Parade of Young Cocks and Assholes?
45/itswinetime
And have you even approached the possibility that your experience in that failed fourthway experiment, that pseudo-school wannabe, that CULT! was/is (and probably will continue to be) YOUR FAULT and your fault alone. Not Burtons, not Miles, not Girard, nor any of the sleeping machines who “counselled you” while you were debating with yourself: “should I stay, should I go, should I stay, should I go?”
It’s fascinating to me that the 19th century, contractarian view, the view that rigidly restricts the scope of human volition to the individual level, has such staying power in cult ideologies.
People are willing, amazingly willing, to accept blame for things that aren’t their fault. Anyone who studies interrogation quickly learns that people are willing to be persuaded that they did things they didn’t do and confess to crimes they didn’t commit.
The problem for ex-members is it often takes them a long time to understand that things were *done* to them. The main thing that was done to them was that they were systematically led to distrust their own ability to think critically. Once you stop thinking critically, you can start to believe all kinds of crazy shit that you get told.
Looking back, people only see that they believed crazy things. They don’t see the systematic manipulation that led them to believe the crazy things. So they think that believing them was their fault. Maybe they bear some share of the blame. But the systematic manipulation, in my opinion, should be apportioned the lion’s share of that blame.
“assholes”…I mean that literally and figuratively.
Did the Mention of N******s Sp****ing perhaps bring you here, like flies on shit.
I shouldn’t try to apply names, the “who” is irrelevant. A douche bag is a douche (or douch bagess as the case may be). It comes from the same stagnant pool.
From an article by Abraham Nievod, J.D., Ph.D.,
Undue Influence in Contract and Probate Law
****
F. Undue Influence as Programmatic Strategy of Totalistic Groups Intended to Induce the Formation of a Contract
Recent litigation has seen the rise of causes of action based on the premise that totalistic groups, both of a religious and nonreligious character, have developed and employed programmatically applied techniques to control and manipulate behavior in a weaker or subservient party in order to induce the weaker party to enter into a contract or execute a will in favor of the group or the charismatic leader of the group. Briefly, such groups used “coordinated programs of coercion and behavior control” for example, the organization and application of intense guilt, shame, and/or anxiety manipulation, combined with the production of strong emotional arousal in settings designed to produce behavior that furthered the ends of the group or the leader. Conformity with group expectations was the goal of the social and psychological pressures applied by the groups. Such pressures could only be reduced by the weaker party’s acceptance of the group’s belief system and participation in behavior orchestrated by the group.
Research indicates that such groups operate by deliberately exploiting psychological vulnerabilities of the weaker party.16 The strategy developed by these groups employs use of a designed program of psychological and social techniques that attack and destabilize the weaker party’s “central elements of the experience of self.” Central elements of the self have been defined as including “self‑evaluation of the adequacy or correctness of a person’s intimate life and confidence in perception of reality (e.g., relations with family, personal aspirations, sexual experience, traumatic life events, religious beliefs, estimates of the motivations of others, etc.).” Ofshe and Singer propose that reality awareness, emotional control, and basic consciousness are at the core of the sense of self.
Destabilization of the sense of self is coerced through techniques that force a reinterpretation of individuals’ life history, a radical alteration of their worldview, an acceptance of a new version of reality and causality, and/or dependency on the organization. Singer and Ofshe suggest that attacking the stability and quality of evaluations of self‑concepts is the principal effective technique used in the conduct of a coercive thought reform and behavior control program. Among the techniques used to accomplish such ends are group pressure, modeling, accusations, confessions on a social level, emotional flooding, sleep deprivation, stripping away of various psychological defense mechanisms, induction of cognitive confusion, and hypnosis to intensify recalled or imagined experience. The programmatic nature of these techniques in such groups has been termed a “behavior change technology,” which can render a person a highly deployable agent of the organization.
In Molko v. Holy Spirit Association, the California Supreme Court held that a former member of a religious group could seek restitution of a monetary gift to that group based on a theory of undue influence. Briefly stated, Molko alleged that defendant Holy Spirit Association [hereinafter “Church”] deceived him into unknowingly submitting to coercive persuasion, thereby obtaining undue influence over him which the Church later used to extract the monetary gift. The Court held that Molko could bring a claim against the Church as to whether the Church established and used its dominant psychological position and its confidential relationship with Molko “for the purpose of obtaining unfair advantage of him with regard to the gift.”
It is of importance that the Court cited three sources for its view of undue influence as applicable to these groups. The first is California Civil Code 1575 (discussed above). The implication would be that such groups could be held to the standard of undue influence as stated in that code section. The second is an appellate court decision that undue influence is “that kind of influence or supremacy of one mind over another by which that other is prevented from acting according to his own wish or judgment” [emphasis added by California Supreme Court]. The third source cited was a legal reference text that stated that undue influence occurs when “one party uses [its] dominant psychological position in an unfair manner to induce the subservient party to consent to an agreement to which he would not otherwise have consented.”
The research into such groups would tend to indicate that contracts induced by such means could meet the seven criteria established for finding undue influence in nonfiduciary relationships by the court in Odorizzi.
The Odorizzi criteria must be analyzed within the entire context of relations between the individual and the organization. The discussions regarding the contribution of assets occur after an organization has promoted dependence of the individual through incremental structural and material life changes. After an initial “recruitment phase” designed to establish affective bonds between the recruiting agents and the subservient individual, influence tactics are employed to promote dependence on the organization. Direct social pressure is used to induce an incremental, step‑by‑step sequence of decisions leading to the formation of dependent power relations. Acceptance of the authority and the rules of the organization leads to structural and material changes in the individual’s life which increasingly promote dependence. In part, structural and material changes over an individual are introduced into a person’s life by the individual’s intimates who are also subject to the authority of the organization. Such intimates are in fact agents of the organization who ease the person along the road to dependence. Increasingly, the organization controls the person’s income, employment, capital, and social life. For example, persons may be induced to move into a communally organized residence, accept employment in an organization’s business, leave school, or contribute whatever assets they control to the organization.
Therefore, the Odorizzi criteria would be important in characterizing the methods used by totalistic groups to secure donations and bequests by means of undue influence. It is within the context of the authority wielded by the group–that is, structural and material control–that pressure and insistence on contributing assets to the organization occur. The alternative to making contributions is often the threat of expulsion. In such circumstances, a person threatened with expulsion is simultaneously being cut off from major social supports upon which the stability of identity and emotional well‑being depend. At the same time, expulsion may also mean the loss of income, employment, capital, and social life.
The full text of the article, together with the footnoted references which have been omitted from this excerpt, appear at:
http://www.csj.org/pub_csj/csj_vol10_no1_93/undue_influence.htm
N. has brought up the subject of “who’s to blame” for ex-members’ decisions to stay or leave. N. thinks YOU are.
N’s bringing up this subject raises the issues of “perceived authorship of one’s actions” and “the social context of volition.”
In that regard, this looks interesting:
http://bit.ly/FAFBL
Re: YOU being the blame, this is a completely familiar idea in the FOF or in any cult. It’s more of the same, and the Fourth Way absolutely plays right into this:
If you are having “difficulties” with the actions of the cult leader or other cult followers, there must be something wrong with you.
This is absolutely a key component of keeping people brainwashed in cults:
If followers believe it’s ignoble, weak, unattractive, or a sign of “sleep” that someone notices “weaknesses” in their cult leader or in the cult itself, then cult leaders and other followers simply direct the attention back to that person noticing that weakness.
Again, I believe it gets back to balance. If you’re able to see your own strengths and weaknesses — let me emphasize, sincerely see your own weaknesses and not pretend that you see your own weaknesses because that’s the cool thing in the cult — then you can see the weaknesses, faults, crimes, and absurdities of people around you, and in any group of people that you’re a part of.
Hmmmm. 64.JP
Interesting notion this “Undue Influence in Contract and Probate Law.” I’m
wondering how many others herein represented may have parted with sizable chunks (10% !!!) of an inheritance. And I’m thinking what fun it would be to raise a great legal hue and cry about it on the legal basis outlined in the article. I seriously doubt that the money is recoverable, Fellowship machinations being what they are, but we might give them a few uncomfortable moments and some really lousy publicty. I’m gradually getting comfortable enough with my own stupidity to parade it in public
What do you think?.
Key point from the link in Jomo Piñata’s post:
“…we adapt our actions according to social dynamics of which we are seldom aware.”
If someone IS aware of those social dynamics — for example, that they’re a member of a cult with a cult leader who has a malevolent agenda — then we stop adapting our actions according to those dynamics. As long as we’re not aware of those social dynamics, and as long as we continue to believe that the cult and the cult leader are benevolent or harmless or just, we continue to adapt our actions to those social dynamics. This explains Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. It explains cults. It explains the justification that the ends justify the means. I mean, if a few people are hurt, that’s their problem. They were weak.
We are fulfilling the will of the gods.
Opus111 – May 22, 2009
An unusual concert at the Galleria…
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6EYrqIn0yI
_____________________________________________________
I wasn’t able to access this. Are you sure it is the right address?
Thanks.
Hate it when a little joke falls flat… Try again:
itsswinetime…re-lax
“He is “still in” and by now I think he “transformed the queens” and got over with the issue.”
___
You probably mean he’s “transformed the Benjamin Franklins.”
—
“I’m gradually getting comfortable enough with my own stupidity to parade it in public…”
I love this one Susan; absolutely and downright good ole American-Sufi home cooking!
45. itstwinetime – May 21, 2009
This post of yours shows how insensitive you are.
It is irrelevant whether the document posted on this page is old or new. It is also irrelevant whether its author was “pissed off” or not.
It clearly portrays the corruption of the Fellowship of Friends.
Are you still cuddling up to the FOF community yourself itstwinetime?
Your sneer and laugh at others you do not know.
They appear as dependent and failures in your eyes.
And you decide to write a post to kick them even further.
Does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel on the top of the world?
Try to question your beliefs and attitudes. If you have been a member of the Cult for years and still active and believing in what the Fellowship group believes, you are probably very angry with ex-members. They publicly announce what you are trying to hide in yourself. This is difficult to take.
Your post is very angry and self-centered.
It is not about “us” and “them.”
If you feel comfortable with the Fellowship way of life and beliefs, you don’t need to come and read the stuff here.
I do not feel comfortable about my years in the FOF. Too many lies there. I feel shame. And I am trying to confront that feeling.
Arrogance (assholes)…again.
Standing in line, the other day, at the Oregon House Grocery, 2 of
FoF’s “finest” were discussing the potential benefits of purchasing
the OHG store:
“Make it, the store, FoF membership only”
“Would eliminate the ‘sleeping’ lowlife’s”
I turned around and glared at those 2 skinny little shit’s…good
thing I was running late for a meeting.
I really don’t know how any of you bought into the rotting garbage
at FoF…However, I have the highest respect for those of you that
have left the cult.
74. Craig Dockter
Don’t hold back buddy.
’sleeping’ lowlife’s”
yes, it’s very typical of them.
49. brucelevy – May 21, 2009
That’s right, but what I’m really looking for, is seeing one day conscious criminals of FOF are paying up their dues.
74/Craig
So glad to see you post here. Come back whenever you want to vent and tell us what you know.
A little light listening to start the morning:
79. Jomo Piñata
Wow. Robert Burton on truth serum.
“it’s nothing personal…”
“utility”
Hello again. We finally talk. It is interesting – we have been talking for years and sometimes you were the only person who talked to me in the entire FOF desert. But since I left you do not answer my emails and I can only hear your speak here. But it’s nice to hear you. Even though with a bitter humor you are still funny. And I hope you are doing well.
“And have you even approached the possibility that your experience in that failed fourthway experiment, that pseudo-school wannabe, that CULT! was/is (and probably will continue to be) YOUR FAULT and your fault alone. Not Burtons, not Miles, not Girard, nor any of the sleeping machines who “counselled you” while you were debating with yourself: “should I stay, should I go, should I stay, should I go?”
How is it my fault? You mean that instead of living we should of turned it around and make the failed fourthway experiment into a success fourthway experiment? Like you do? One can only do what one can do. Maybe you have special skills that I don’t. But without your “counsells” I would left much sooner. Any other advisors suggested “just leave if you have negative I’s about FOF”.
…And by the way, you never listen. You are like a TV – fun to watch, but no feedback.
58. brucelevy – May 22, 2009
-54. itstwinetime
-My sincere apologies for thinking you might be Greg. It’s hard to tell one jerk off from another, the narcissism smells the same regardless of where it emanates from.
well, well, well.
your “sincere”? apologies, followed immediately by another personal insult? (on these 4thway-type forums, yahoo groups, elsewhere, the use of the name Greg Goodwin when applied to another person, is ALWAYS used as a direct attack. Got that, mercury-boy?)
sounds like sleepytime, bruce. back to bed with you now.
At the meeting at work one person from the press-room said: “Have you ever been so tired that you don’t have energy to complain about the work?” Those folks work at night every night with no holidays…
That made me think… Compare to the lifestyle in FOF my life now is chill. While in FOF I was working full time 5 days a week, and from Friday till Sunday I was working full days at the Galleria kitchen. Plus had 2 kids to take care of… Plus stress in personal life… I don’t know how I did it! And that was not much compare to some people on salary or who work for Robert. This called extra efforts and was suppose to help us to stay awake and was ‘ligit’ according to Gurdjieff’s ideas… What do you think, did I just “fell of the train because of my Venusian laziness?”
83/Tatyana
What do you think, did I just “fell of the train because of my Venusian laziness?”
He’s just thinking what he’s been taught to think. It’s not really thinking. What passes for thinking in the fellowship is simply learning and applying ideology. In order to think a person has to be able to examine ideas critically, not just “apply” them.
83. Tatyana
Tatyana, I hope your are not doubting yourself that the working style in the FOF is lunatic and can actually harm your health. You have been under such pressure. Forget the laziness of any type.
Making people work hard is another brainwashing technique, it makes one lunatic not matter how much you are advised to apply relativity.
With rare exceptions there is no one around telling you that you need a rest. On the opposite. It’s also very productive for Burton,the main parasite.
In any case I am glad you fell out of the FOF train.
It would have not taken you far, or in better terms: where you wanted to go in the first place.
Veramente, thanks. I do doubt myself.
It is hard to think that you are making lunatic efforts when everyone around you are doing the same or MORE efforts. I heard many times from people working for Robert that “Robert works hard” and all those ‘slaving’ people are not easing his burden even a bit. And those demands are a WIll of C Influence that help us awaken (or escape prison)
My center director made it perfectly clear that from the point of view of a Tramp – a Householder looks like a Lunatic.
Who am I to complain about pressure when if you look around you see people with the ‘higher level of being’ who are not complaining but smiling and grateful when their house burned down, or their spouse ‘left’ or died, or when they can’t eat anymore (only impressions). Or people who can handle an event like Bolshoi ballet at Apollo… or building of a Theatron!
‘Extra-effort’ word was in the work books!
-81. Tatyana
You wrote:
“Hello again. We finally talk. It is interesting – we have been talking for years and sometimes you were the only person who talked to me in the entire FOF desert. But since I left you do not answer my emails and I can only hear your speak here. But it’s nice to hear you. Even though with a bitter humor you are still funny. And I hope you are doing well.”
Excuse me T. Just who do you think you are talking to? I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and that’s a fact, jack. Although, I will say I would certainly like to know you. (smiley dude face goes here.)
You wrote:
“How is it my fault? You mean that instead of living we should of turned it around and make the failed fourthway experiment into a success fourthway experiment? Like you do?”
No, T, you’ve totally missed the point. Your subjective experience of your life, is YOUR fault, not mine, not anyone else’s. What you do with your life, is up to you. Or… sometimes a sow’s ear, is simply a sow’s ear, and a lemon is just a lemon. Wake up and get the hell out of there, and don’t look back, and don’t make the same mistake(s) next time.
I’m saying the fof is/was/shall be a failed fourthway experiment, a cult (but a successful one at that) that went off the rails (in a fourthway sense, in a Work Sense) practically before it reached operating speed, in ’72-’73, and there were MANY enablers there at that time, who failed to push rb onto the straight and true, who had actually read the books, and knew a thing or two, but who favored a magical belief that he was the “Second Coming” or some such NONSENSE. This magical thinking only grew and grew and gained so much momentum that even by ’74-’76, most followers believed the drivel coming out his mouth (notwithstanding the dribble coming out his other parts that was not publicized, just overlooked by those who should have “Stood Up! Damn It! and said something…” but that’s water under the bridge, isn’t it?)
And DRIVEL – the “sacred word of the mr. robert” – is most certainly what it was, regardless his lack of self-control in certain “sensitive” areas (which were mostly overlooked until about ’81 or so, and the Sam Sanders lawsuit, which occurred – interestingly – simultaneously with rb’s ceasing to attend any more public meetings, and for all intents and purposes, ceasing “to teach” except to individuals and dinner guests), he simply did not understand the concepts contained in Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. And that was rb and fof’s chief feature – wrong and magical thinking to the detriment of those who could not think for themselves.
This, by the way, is a huge clue as to the failure of his teaching, he stopped teaching publically in ’81/’82 (many, many people left at that time primarily for that reason – rb does not understand the 4thway information, can not “Be the Words”). In a real school, a “conscious teaching”, this never occurs. The teacher always teaches publically to EVERYONE who can “be there” when it is presented – either by tape, video, transcript, or in person – and no one is excluded from the entire “teaching event”. Also, in a real teaching, there is only ONE TEACHER, not subordinate “student teachers” – “teaching houses”, maybe, but 2nd and 3rd level “student teachers”? NEVER!
“Second Cumming (up) my ass!” so sayeth his pathetic partner each and every sorrowful night.
Jomo,
I thought I was listening to a Firesign Theater-type routine and then I find out that Sam Vaknin is real!! Holy Crap.
I’m going to my cave now, someone give me a call when the new civilization begins.
87/Itswinetime
Your subjective experience of your life, is YOUR fault, not mine, not anyone else’s.
Makes you feel strong and manly, doesn’t it, blaming her? A nice simple bright line rule, her experience of her life is HER fault and no one else’s. You like to believe that. I don’t doubt that you sincerely believe it. But I don’t think it’s true. I think the truth is a good deal more complex than you make it out to be.
Kid Shelleen! lol!
Who the hell is Sam Vaknin?
90/Tatyana
Sam Vaknin is the interviewee in the youtube video above at 79.
87. Ooops…
-89. Jomo Piñata
Itswinetime:
“Your subjective experience of your life, is YOUR fault, not mine, not anyone else’s.”
You wrote:
“Makes you feel strong and manly, doesn’t it, blaming her? A nice simple bright line rule, her experience of her life is HER fault and no one else’s. You like to believe that. I don’t doubt that you sincerely believe it. But I don’t think it’s true. I think the truth is a good deal more complex than you make it out to be.”
This is really so simple, I am surprised you all aren’t getting it.
Maybe it’s the use of “fault”, versus “blame”, or something else entirely.
You walk into a grocery store to buy some cigarettes.
You are in an even emotional mood, not angry, not sad – even.
The counter person is arguing with another customer, and both are very angry and shouting. This goes on for a couple minutes before you can ask for your smokes.
you: “Marlboro lights, box”
he: (throws them on the counter), “$3.50. Hey, don’t look at me like that!” (obviously still agitated from before)
you: “excuse me, I wasn’t looking any way. here’s your money.”
he: “YES YOU WERE! You got something to say to me, huh?!?”
you: “no, can I please have my change?”, as his phone rings.
he: “Hold on, I’ll get to it as soon as I can.” then, he takes the phone call, and talks for over a minute, and still hasn’t given you your change so you can leave.
Your state has dropped considerably, now you’re angry at that clerk and his treatment of you, and if you had the time you might make something out of it – he is smaller than you – but you don’t, as he finally gives you your change so you can leave.
You get back into the car, and start driving away, but you’re still pretty pissed off at his treatment of you, and you start calculating ways to “get back at him”, which peter out pretty quickly as you drive right through that stop sign without even slowing.
Now, who’s fault is your sour state right now?
WHO?
Him?
No, YOU. Your state is totally your fault.
Grow up, and face the reality of your situation.
Your experience of your life – what you say and think about it – is not somebody else’s fault, just yours, and you are the only one who can do anything about it (before, during and after these “events” that befall you)… if anything needs to be done, and that is quite another question entirely.
In fact, THAT question is the important one on this forum in my opinion, which is NOT being addressed by anyone as far as I’ve read here. I could, but won’t, thanks for not asking.
you: you hand him a $
oops,
the last line:
“you: you hand him a $”
was a remnant in the message box.
93. itstwinetime
It’s amazing that you could pull that oversized bullshit hypothetical out of your ass without tearing. And I can’t imagine taking the time to present a contrary hypothetical to refute an idiot.
How about:
Your subjective experience of your life, is YOUR gift and journey, not mine, not anyone else’s.”
-96. brucelevy
Ok, “Your subjective experience of your life, is YOUR gift and journey, not mine, not anyone else’s.”
Works for me.
Except this: my anecdote – too long and drawn out for your tastes – has happened, almost exactly like that, to every person here, countless times – only the details/particulars are different each time it occurs, so you miss the OBVIOUS impact of each time it occurs yet again.
It even happened viz. your entrance and time spent within the fof, which so many of you seem to want to relive and re-talk about with damn near every message.
To wit:
You each entered the school, thinking you were going to buy your way into “heaven” (“enlightenment”, whatever) – well, after the first three meetings whereupon you learned there were tremendous monetary payments involved… “alright, that’s the price, and I must pay it to get what I think I want.”
But the clerk/teacher was already engaged in another apparent activity that you didn’t think was appropriate for the venue, given that you came here for SMOKES (enlightenment expressed by an enlightened teacher), but all he seemed to be doing was SEX-for-fun, which in your mind was “WAY WRONG!”
So, you finally bolted out of that store/school, all the while bitching and moaning about how you were mistreated, mislead, and very soon started looking around for other people (other “I’s” in your head) to recount, over and over, the misdeeds done to poor little you.
And, very soon, you started thinking of ways to GET EVEN with that clerk/teacher, even to the point of “burning down that store/teaching”, so that other poor souls wouldn’t have to experience what you did (or, was it REVENGE??? hmmmmmm?)
And, while engaged in this blaming tirade occurring in you for the next several years/decades, you never actually came to the realization that it was always YOU that was the problem here, not the clerk, not the store where the clerk sold his schtick, not the events going on at the counter where the schtick was presented… just you, you and more of you.
And…
this was yet another of your:
“It’s amazing that you could pull that oversized bullshit hypothetical out of your ass without tearing.”
Hypothetical my ass.
Wake up, mercury boy.
There was nothing hypothetical about it, it’s just that sometimes you have to use a 2×4 to bash the dozing donkey to get it’s attention to what you are saying.
You really are a moron. I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re talking to, but in this venue you are obviously just another deluded, egocentric self loving little prick, who gets excited hearing yourself preach. Like you were the last time you appeared here under a different name.
And we’ve heard it all before in different permutations from the various leeches who monitor the blog.
93, 97/it’s twine time
You know, when you tell your simple little story, you leave so much out. You just put in the things that matter to you. What matters to you is the conclusion, i.e., that there is fault, and it is on you. Then all the facts are chosen to lead to that conclusion. The result to be reached controls the choice of reasoning used. It’s “ideological.” You have decided that the moral of your simple little story is true, and have assembled the little story to prove it.
But it doesn’t prove it. You start from the premise that you are going to articulate a universal truth that you have decided in advance. So you assemble a little story you’re sure illustrates the proposition. You have even cast each of us in it. (Look back at it. The main character is “you.”) But really, it’s about no one in particular. The fallacy of your story is that it is not about anyone in particular. So it claims to be about each of us, but really, it is about no one.
P.S.: If you want to discuss universal truths, you need to talk about individuals, not hypothetical people. Individual people have psyches with all kinds of complex things going on. You simply paint a portrait of psychological life with all the blood drained from it. Your story is about a stick figure, not a real person.
Why do “you” smoke? “You” smoke Marlboro lights. That has a history. Something started “you” smoking. It spoke to “you” in some way. Maybe it calmed “you” down as a teenager when “your” parents, soon to divorce, had a fight and “you” couldn’t find peace at home. Soon “you” got hooked on Marlboros and even though you tried to quit seven or eight times, “you” couldn’t. “You” found you needed one within thirty seconds of waking up in the morning and smoking found its way into the various mechanisms “you” use to regulate “your” emotional state.
You see where I’m going with this? The person in your story doesn’t have a life. All the rest of us do. That’s why your story is a two-dimensional morality tale, not a genuine picture of human psychological life. We are all particular people, but your story doesn’t contain anyone in particular.
brucelevy/Jomo Pinata
I think we are getting to the point here – that, now and again,a ‘foffie’ or recently ‘ex-foffie’, ‘comes on air’, and offers a whole load of self-inflating rubbish. Some of you here really hurt and are using the blog to ‘defuse’ the self-blame and guilt that has occured upon leaving the cult. Hopefully, those of us who are further along the ‘self-healed’ path (and I count myself in on that score) can offer answers of healing…..Nigel.
He’s pretty similar to others who come here to defend the FOF and pretend that everything is alright — because that’s exactly why he’s here, too — to defend something that he’s devoted his life to. But what he’s defending is an attitude within himself about the world. He’s defending his ego and his sense of self-worth, and he’s defending the world view that he has somehow separated himself from the rest of humanity, and made himself superior, because he has studied the Fourth Way language, thought about it, reflected upon it, and maybe even used the ideas.
That’s fine for a time, studying and using the Fourth Way. But it can take someone entirely off course at some point. And if it doesn’t, it at least falls a little short. Just one step further (maybe) is all that’s needed — to stop separating ourselves from the rest of the world. To make our “work” a connection, and not a separation.
And to have the willingness to end one thing… and to begin another.
Geez, the wisdom here is stunning (stunningly lacking, that is)
1. I haven’t been connected in any way to YOUR favorite pasttime (FoF) for almost 30 years. Haven’t even thought about it, rb, you current and ex-followers, the farm or anything else on that goofy topic for that long. Fact.
2. found this silly venue completely by accident, just a few short days ago – for the first time! – read a few months of mostly drivel, from mostly SOURED, SAD, and pretty stupid people (with just a few exceptions, whose names I could mention, but they know who they are), justifying and rationalizing the fact that it took them so long to get out when the gettin’ was good, and even longer to “get clean” of the whole affair (though most have not arrived at that point yet, and still want to “commune” with ex-followers.) Geez, when are you all going to just MOVE ON, leave this venue and live out the rest of your short lives as though the whole affair was just a dream…? Oh wait, it WAS just a dream.
3. the piling on – like a naked pyramid of cellmates, in the prison of their own ordinary mindstuff, yucking it up, and slapping each other on the butts – is hilarious. so far, I’ve only read two, maybe three rather intelligent posts from persons who seem to have become quite clean of the whole affair, however they don’t appear on this particular page of posts… well, except me, totally clean, squeaky even.
4. this author does not care one whit if you continue in this failed vein, as your words can’t touch me, obviously, silly yous. in fact, please continue, as will I, in order to provide as much entertainment as possible in our limited time left on this planet.
5. I am not IN THE FOF, have not been connected to it for almost 30 years, and that’s a fact, jack.
6. some of you ought to try to READ THE WORDS written, without the overlay of your imagination coloring everything as it has been doing your entire life. mercury boy, that includes YOU.
104/twine time
You haven’t asked me, but you come across as sour, denigratory, angry, self-elevating, moralizing and, last but not least, dishonest. At least, that is how your posts come across, at least to me.
The main thing that I get is how angry you are. And,at least according to you, that’s your fault.
An angry man in his fifties. Women don’t come to this forum and behave the way you’re behaving.
So my questions are,
Why have you involved yourself in this ongoing conversation?
And why are you so angry?
104. itstwinetime
Obviously the words slap you smack-hard in
the face…bub. Shoot, your third person suffers
while you chase the dragon in the clothes
optional solitary confinement you have
stenciled to off-white butcher paper.
30 years and you’re still trying to make
a Zen Garden with a back-hoe. Why are
you obsessed with the furnished deck and
barbecue grill?
Linens and coffee will be provided which
may indeed cleanse yourself of the whole
“goofy” affair
You are most welcome.
Jomo #107
From the goodness of his heart, you see… (to paraphrase the old wizen one). Our “new” (?) preacher has not been in the FOF for 30 years, he has “moved on”, he is not interested in the pathetic lies that took place inside, nor in the wretched self-flagellating of those outside. He has moved on, he is squeaking clean, sort of enlightened, you see. Yet he comes here, is a bit angry at our childish behaviour and gives us tired old Gurdjeff parables from the recesses of his great mind and the goodness of his heart. But he has moved on, he tells us. Where to? I am not sure.
One thing I know, it will be our fault if we pay much attention to his contributions.
By the way…is Cafe Collage a FoFools business? Don’t
care to support a business where the proceeds may
end-up in Burton’s wallet. I gather Mr B. gets his fair
share of end-ups.
Not much to choose from in the way of eats around
Oregon House.
Bravo Swinetie, keep it rocking! Maybe you’ll get someone serious enough! Your lies and style are just right!
86. Tatyana – May 22, 2009
‘Who am I to complain about pressure when if you look around you see people with the ‘higher level of being’ who are not complaining but smiling and grateful when their house burned down, or their spouse ‘left’ or died, or when they can’t eat anymore (only impressions).’
Sick and brainwashed people.
110. Craig Dockter – May 23, 2009
I’m pretty sure he gets his piece.
‘Let’s help S..im’ – were Burton’s words during one of the auction, when a coffee machine was purchased for cafe collage. And those who knows Burton, understand what words like these would mean.
Elena,
I was not sure you will show up here again.
For a long time I wanted to ask you a painful (perhaps) question. Since you don’t like to communicate via email – may I ask it here?
BLOG CHANGES LEVEL OF BEING- ATTRACTS AUTHENTIC 4TH WAY TEACHER!
Blog members inhale a collective breath of liberation as they crawl out from their garbage bags and their fog of dreams of revenge.
Shining a light of clean transformation with nary a sour beam of judgement or resentment a long awaited teacher has graced the pages of the blog. Giving freely his down to earth stories and tried and true exercises to all who can ‘be there’ to hear.
Said one forlorn blog member Yesri Baba: ” That trying to stop thoughts thing blew my mind! I tried it and after a while my brain kept having more thoughts about stuff. I thought, shit, I must be asleep if thoughts just keep happening by themselves. What is that Jomo guy talking about when he says thinking is examining ideas critically?”
It is obvious to all from the blog that this being has transcended the FOF experience and moved on. Words cannot touch him. He just reads the words.
“That story about the guy buying cigarettes was totally me”, Baba continued, “That happens to me all the time and the way Teacher pointed out the obvious hit me right up side the cracker box! People treat me like shit and I get mad and treat other people like shit and it is all MY fault! I should just stop my thoughts and let it go. It is just like the experience of being in the FOF. All I need to do is apply the REAL priciples of the 4th way not the fake ones I learned from the sleeping fake teachers in the fellowship. What Teacher said about just reading the words and not adding my imagination is so true. I am not going do that any more. I am just going to read the real words just as they are so I understand exactly what they mean, that way I will understand everything a lot faster and I will be able to explain stuff to others better.”
In a near unanimous consensus blog contributers have decided they are losing too much time huddled in the dark corners of their rooms clutching keyboards and cuddling fears of damnation. The new Teacher has assured them that their too infrequent moments of consciousness and presence could become permanent if they would just stop doing dirty jobs. As the blog founder said, “Free speech is a dirty business”. From now on the blog will only engage in doing what new Teacher says.
“I am sick and tired of ordinary mindstuff, Yesri said sobbing. ” I want to be clear like Teacher! I am not going to do any more jokes like : How many students does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Hundreds, if Burton’s butthole is in it.
No more yukking it up for me. I am going to get serious about getting conscious. Thank you new Teacher!”
Thank you for the laughs bright new leader Yesri…
… said she, carefully crawling out of her garbage bag…..
Tatyana,
Your idea that I don’t like to communicate through e-mail is another of those examples of how things get easily twisted. What I don’t agree with is people who praise me in private and are unable to be positive about what I say in public because they think they’ll find too much opposition from the crowd. So if your question is private please send me an e-mail at tabluttatgmaildotcom and if it has to do with the Fellowship and even my personal position on it make it public for I have made it very public already.
113. X-ray – May 23, 2009
‘Let’s support S..im’ – were his exact words.
re: swine time… it’s obvious that his posts are rife with projection and in his mind it’s him against the world, (or at least the other posters here)…. his anger, resentment and pent up frustration seeps to the surface and in that respect mistaking him for greg is understandable. he begins posting on this page with ‘special insights’ which amount to nothing more than ‘new age’ cliche’ — ‘esoteric exercises’ he so generously offers to help free the poor readers here from their ‘troubled’ thoughts…. he’s come to save us from ourselves right? but in a classic example of ‘the kettle calling the pot black’ he later writes: “….for all the sub-minimum wage jobs out there to do (for the long-time cult-members who finally left and are now out to save the rest of the world), that of ‘garbage collectors’ is one of the most prized.”
welcome to the blog gargage man.
then a little later the blame game starts, and i think this provides insight into some of the reasons why he’s so angry, resentful and frustrated…
“…your experience in that failed fourthway experiment, that pseudo-school wannabe, that CULT! was/is (and probably will continue to be) YOUR FAULT and your fault alone… The world laughs at you, not with you.”
he blames himself for the mistakes and folly of his youth…. this is a source of his anger, frustration and resentment…. as to why he is here, i think it may be that it’s to learn how to forgive himself…. this may be a step in the direction of healing a festering wound which his self-blame inflames…. this despite his protestations that he is ‘squeaking clean’ of the past…. come on now swine, do you really believe this delusion? who in their right mind believes that their biographical past is not a factor in the present and future?
addendum re: swine time — on the other hand maybe he’s simply another narcissistic fool who craves the attention he’s getting here….
To repeat something I wrote above: He’s defending his ego and his sense of self-worth, and he’s defending the world view that he has separated himself from the rest of humanity, and made himself superior, because he has studied the Fourth Way. It’s interesting that he went on the attack after those comments, because I’m not just talking about him, but myself when I was in the cult, Robert Burton, and many others. It’s an illness, a malignancy. It’s the ego. And it’s narcissism, which is anything but “awakening” or achieving a higher spiritual realm. It leads to wars, conflict, lying, deception, crime, and destruction on this planet. Nothing new. Nothing different.
But G.G. sees the blog as a personal challenge to him. The blog seems to challenge his way of seeing the world, so he must go on the attack.
Many people on the blog are not only questioning the FOF and Burton, but also many of the beliefs of the Fourth Way (which we often pretended were not beliefs, but “verifications”). This idea of separating ourselves from others and feeling superior to them can feed the ego to such a degree that malignant narcissism (narcissistic personality disorder) does tend to become a problem with it. It’s not a benign condition. G.G. is upset by the criticisms of Burton and the FOF and all questioning of the Fourth Way beliefs, because, by extension, he takes them as a challenge to his own world views.
previous post to swine time should read; ‘welcome to the blog garbage man’ …. and etc.
in2it, sounds like you think he is greg (?) or is it only similarity based on mutual contact with a diseased entity… the fof attracted all kinds of folks for various reasons but to paraphrase an earlier remark: “That interest in one’s own evolution/salvation is totally self-centered is a conundrum rarely explored.” imo this ‘conundrum’ helps to explain why many are drawn into the fof…. ‘like attracts like’ and there is an extremely virulent strain of malignant narcissism at the core of the fof which draws wannabe and would-be and fledgling narcissists like moths to the flame….
Wanted to return after time of little blogging – the fact is, enlightenment is not stable – sometimes you feel ‘low’ and vulnerable. Something to do with the ‘disorder’, I think. I went down to my local this evening to be with ‘the common people’ and to play some music on the jukebox – “I have a dream (I believe in angels)”; “You raise me up”; “God is watching us”. I think the fact is – you need to know where you can be truly fed. And, as an aside, I think we should disregard “Twine-time”…..Nigel.
ton, I think he is, but not sure. In a way, it doesn’t matter. His words have the same toxicity. I absolutely agree with you regarding the “mutual contact with a diseased entity.” That could be the similarity.
Also: “…there is an extremely virulent strain of malignant narcissism at the core of the fof which draws wannabe and would-be and fledgling narcissists like moths to the flame.”
You couldn’t describe it more succinctly.
Let’s not forget that at the core of the narcissist, malignant tho he may be, lies a wound so painful that it warps and distorts his entire life.
poor poor blog
what a sad place
“endarkened”
this is rb-s real curse on you
to be unable to get rid of the whole petty fof-antifof matter
to be unable to live for now
where already theres no fof and theres no cult
but what you really want
nothing else
126 innin
Actually, the blog is rich, very rich, to ‘those who have eyes to see, and ears to hear’…..Nigel.
127. Sounds like someone hit a nerve there, Innin.
If there’s any curse, it’s in someone’s inability to open their own eyes — that’s all. And sometimes this means opening your eyes to the unpleasant truth. Not very much “living in the now” is going on without that.
Just something to think about… when it’s on a nice roll, the blog is all of the following:
— a forum to help people see the unpleasant truths about Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends cult.
— an avenue to discuss alternative philosophies and world views.
— a way to have fun.
— a way to heal from a negative experience.
In general, fof followers, defenders, and blog critics like to ignore all four of these aspects of the blog. Instead, they usually present a number of false dichotomies and straw men in an effort to discredit any open discussion about the cult (which by the way, is exactly what happens within the cult, and within all cults). The blog threatens their view of the world, and therefore they believe it threatens them. But that’s their choice alone to think about the blog that way. They could, if they wanted to, see it differently. They could, for example, see it as I describe it above. They could add their own positive influence to the blog. But instead, their common refrain is:
— Stop writing.
— Stop reading.
— Don’t look.
— Don’t listen.
129/130 in2it
Phew! Fresh air…..Nigel.
“What Makes a Leader?” by Abraham Zaleznik
(from ‘Success’ magazine, June 1989)
“True leaders are rare in business.
Many executives, who were once potential leaders, have instead become absorbed by the managerial mystique. They have been seduced by a false sense of security: that running a business is like tending a plant nursery, where you prepare the soil, sow the seeds, apply fertilizer and water and watch as Mother Nature works her magic with flora.
The mystique requires dedication to process, structures, roles, and indirect forms of communication. It discourages ideas, people, emotions, and direct talk – the stuff of leadership. The main credo of the managerial mystique is, Act on form and hope that substantive solutions will follow. It deflects attention from the realities of business. It calls on executives to relinquish their abiltiy to think, and to adopt slogans and formulas instead of developing the art of self-examination that stimulates the imagination as well as toughens analytical thinking.
Leading is vastly different from managing.
LEADERS GROW THROUGH MASTERING PAINFUL CONFLICT DURING THEIR DEVELOPMENTAL YEARS, CONFRONTING EXPERIENCES THAT CAUSE THEM TO TURN INWARD. MANAGERS, BY CONTRAST, PERCEIVE LIFE AS A STEADY PROGRESSION OF POSITIVE EVENTS, RESULTING IN SECURITY AT HOME, IN SCHOOL, IN THE COMMUNITY, AND AT WORK.
Leaders are ‘twice-born’ individuals who endure major events and crises that lead to a sense of seperateness – estrangement – from their environment. They turn inward in order to re-emerge with a created, rather than an inherited, sense of identity. The introspective capacity, which reinforces that sense of seperateness, encourages DEEP THOUGHT ABOUT PROBLEMS AND METHODS FOR THEIR SOLUTION.
…..a leader is concerned with substance: what decisions get made and communicated.
…..leaders are more dramatic in style and unpredictable in behaviour. They overcome the conflict between order and chaos with an authority legitimized by personal magnetism and a commitment to their own destinies.
…..leaders relate to people in intuitive and empathetic ways. for them, empathy is the capacity to take in emotional signals and to make them mean something in a relationship with an individual.
…..leaders ger excited about their work and, even if only by contagion, STIMULATE THEIR SUBORDINATES.”
This posting is designed to unmask who ‘itstwinetime’ is to themselves; i.e. let them know that someone knows who they are and thereby take the focus off of ‘itstwinetime’ and put it back on what is posted in 1/73, the letter by ‘Da..d Spring…ld, Attorney at Law, from November 19, 2007.’ That’s because ‘itstwinetime’ appeared here to obfuscate the real issues therein described. ‘itstwinetime’ has been given enough twine to go hang themselves. [Other astute readers, especially the fofblogmoderator, might get a hint from this.]
93. itstwinetime:
‘You walk into a grocery store to buy some cigarettes. You are in an even emotional mood. . .’
Your story reminded me of this passage from Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous, pages 120-121 (Depending on your edition. It’s in Chapter 7.)
‘Sometimes self-remembering was not successful; at other times it was accompanied by curious observations.
I was once walking along the Liteiny towards the Nevsky, and in spite of all my efforts I was unable to keep my attention on self-remembering. The noise, movement, everything distracted me. Every minute I lost the thread of attention, found it again, and then lost it again. At last I felt a kind of ridiculous irritation with myself and I turned into the street on the left having firmly decided to keep my attention on the fact that I would remember myself at least for some time, at any rate until I reached the following street. I reached the Nadejdinskaya without losing the thread of attention except, perhaps, for short moments. Then I again turned towards the Nevsky realizing that, in quiet streets, it was easier for me not to lose the line of thought and wishing therefore to test myself in more noisy streets. I reached the Nevsky still remembering myself, and was already beginning to experience the strange emotional state of inner peace and confidence which comes after great efforts of this kind. Just round the corner on the Nevsky was a tobacconist’s shop where they made my cigarettes. Still remembering myself I thought I would call there and order some cigarettes.
Two hours later I woke up in the Tavricheskaya, that is, far away. I was going by izvostchik to the printers. The sensation of awakening was extraordinarily vivid. I can almost say that I came to. I remembered everything at once. How I had been walking along the Nadejdinskaya, how I had been remembering myself, how I had thought about cigarettes, and how at this thought I seemed all at once to fall and disappear into a deep sleep.
At the same time, while immersed in this sleep, I had continued to perform consistent and expedient actions. I left the tobacconist, called at my flat in the Liteiny, telephoned to the printers. I wrote two letters.
Then again I went out of the house. I walked on the left side of the Nevsky up to the Gostinoy Dvor intending to go to the Offitzerskaya. Then I had changed my mind as it was getting late. I had taken an izvostchik and was driving to the Kavalergardskaya to my printers. And on the way while driving along the Tavricheskaya I began to feel a strange uneasiness, as though I had forgotten something.—And suddenly I remembered that I had forgotten to remember myself.
I spoke of my observations and deductions to the people in our group as well as to my various literary friends and others.
I told them that this was the center of gravity of the whole system and of all work on oneself; that now work on oneself was not only empty words but a real fact full of significance thanks to which psychology becomes an exact and at the same time a practical science.
I said that European and Western psychology in general had overlooked a fact of tremendous importance, namely, that we do not remember ourselves; that we live and act and reason in deep sleep, not metaphorically but in absolute reality. And also that, at the same time, we can remember ourselves if we make sufficient efforts, that we can awaken.
I was struck by the difference between the understanding of the people who belonged to our groups and that of people outside them. The people who belonged to our groups understood, though not all at once, that we had come into contact with a “miracle,” and that it was something “new,” something that had never existed anywhere before.
The other people did not understand this; they took it all too lightly and sometimes they even began to prove to me that such theories had existed before. . .’
So, like that scene in the Indiana Jones film: Raiders of the Lost Ark, where a hostile jihadist comes toward Indiana Jones with sabre swords swinging in acrobatic style – so impressive – for several frames holding almost all in awe, and then, Indiana Jones pulls out his gun and shoots the guy dead in one second and moves on, here is the summary: Ouspensky walked down the street and turned into a tabacco shop.
itstwinetime, you are found out. Now go like your master’s boot like a good bull dog and shut up already.
Readers, one and all, go back and read 1/73, the letter by ‘Da..d Spring…ld, Attorney at Law, from November 19, 2007.’ Download the copy of the original PDF that is at the archive. See that it is not a fake. See that the relative truth was spoken from someone inside the cult who was in a position to know.
Ode to Yesri.
I’m the court yester… I’m yester-day’s man
I sneak in the shadows and surprise all the fools with
Asshole Buttplug Burton’s bum
Heh heh heh yuk yuk yuk
I shake on my rattle and look fierce at first
Asshole Buttplug Burton’s bum
heh heh heh yuk yuk yuk
Don’t care for your Work don’t need a fourth way
Or a first or a second or a third… I’m so happy to say
I’m here already, Present I am
With no failed ideas, no ideological scam
You can’t touch me can’t even come close
When I’m present already I rattle the most
Asshole Buttplug Burton’s bum
heh heh heh yuk yuk yuk
Always sat at the back in class, all back of the hand
A snigger then chuckles til Teacher turned round
But he couldn’t touch me couldn’t even come close
I know the law, it’s when I rattle the most
Asshole buttplug Burton’s bum
heh heh heh yuk yuk yuk
To the end of my days I’ll be singing this song
Surprising the fools and righting their wrong
Asshole buttplug Burton’s bum
heh heh heh yuk yuk yuk
You can’t see me can’t touch me
Can’t even come close, cos I’m here in the shadows
It’s when I rattle the most
Asshole buttplug Burton’s bum
heh heh heh yuk yuk yuk
yuk yuk yuk
yuk yuk yuk…
…..from Exeter High Street Pyramidial Sculpture…..
“On earth there’s a warrior of curious origin. He’s created, gleaming, by two dumb creatures for the benefit of men. Foe bears him against foe to inflict harm. Women often fetter him, strong as he is. If maidens and men care for him with due consideration and feed him frequently, he’ll faithfully obey them and serve them well. Men succour him for the warmth he offers in return; but this warrior will savage anyone who permits him to become too proud”
“…..I say we shall come on,
Though France and another such neighbour
Should stand in our way”
(Henry V by William Shakespeare)
133 WonderingWhosWatching
“The French, advised by good intelligence
Of this most dreadful preparation,
Shake in their fear, and with PALE POLICY
SEEK TO DIVERT THE ENGLISH PURPOSES.”
(Henry V by William Shakespeare)
(nice one WWW!!!!!…..)
134 Crouching Tiger
Can’t say I don’t deserve some of that. Most of it is bullshit though.
“Cry, Multitudes of arks! Across
The water lidded lands,
Manned with their loves they’ll move,
Like wooden islands, hill to hill.
Huloo, my prowed dove with a flute!
Ahoy, old sea-legged fox.
Tom tit and Dai mouse!
My ark sings in the summer’s end
And the flood flowers now.”
(Dylan Marlais Thomas, from ‘Prologue’)
What’s the betting REB is handing out ‘prestige sandwiches’ to all those who can ‘rally round the flag’ at Apollo and stop the foundations shaking any more than they have been after the D—d S———d article..Nigel.
“I sit at open windows in my shirt,
Observe, like some Jehovah of the west
What passes by, that sanity be kept.”
(from ‘That Sanity be Kept’, by Dylan Marlais Thomas)
“Out of the sighs a little comes,
But not of grief, for I have knocked down that
Before the agony; the spirit grows,
Forgets, and cries;
A little comes, is tasted and found good;
All could not disappoint;
There must, be praised, some certainty,
If not of loving well, then not,
And that is true after perpetual defeat.”
(from ‘Out of the Sighs, by Dylan Marlais Thomas)
“In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the grief of ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.”
(‘In my Craft or Sullen Art’, by Dylan Marlais Thomas)
Yesri.
It’s no more bullshit than some of your views on the 4th Way outside the fellowship. They are just pure guesswork, based on your experiences in the fellowship.
The 4th Way may not be everyone’s cup of tea – and certainly not yours – and it’s no universal panacea… but it does have much better and more sensible versions than in the fellowship. You might at least try allowing for that possibility.
I find your views on getting outside systems and beliefs and seeing them as part of a seeker-complex frequently invigorating. But it is also possible to work within a system or set of ideas and get to the same point (that may be part of the point)… And have the benefit of comparing your experiences with those of other people.
“On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody
Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body
I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft:
To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given
Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to heaven,
The lovely gift of the gab bangs back on a blind shaft.
To lift to leave from the treasures of man is pleasing death
That will rake at last all currencies of the marked breath
And count the taken, forsaken mysteries in a bad dark.
To surrender now is to pay the expensive ogre twice.
Ancient woods of my blood, dash down to the nuts of the seas
If I take to burn or return this world which is each man’s work.”
(‘On no Work of Words’, by Dylan Marlais Thomas)
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see the blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
(‘Do not go Gentle into that Good Night’, by Dylan Marlais Thomas)
144 Crouching Tiger
Way back toward the beginning of the blog I mentioned I had been to three different 4th way groups. The fof, one led by a student of Alex Horn and one by a someone who worked with E.J Gold. The latter was quite an interesting guy who presented a kind of mix of Zen and 4th way. He passed away a number years ago from complications of HIV. The AH guy was sharp and harsh and I had just been kicked out of the fof so that wasn’t a very good fit for me at the time. Both had very, very low opinions of the fof.
Someone on the blog in a 4th way group jumped on that and said they were all psuedo 4th way groups and bla, bla, bla…maybe they were.
In the Zen type group I met a young lady that became my girlfriend for a while. She had been a high school drop-out but during her time in the group recieved her GED went on to get a masters in college and is now a software engineer. We are still good friends. I mention this because it seems to me being in that group helped her quite a bit. Maybe I did too.
Who doesn’t work within a system of ideas? Partly, the blog is a battle of ideas and an examination of ideas. I am familiar with the ideas of the 4th way as well as other systems of ideas. I have practiced to the best of my ability some of those ideas over many years. I understand some of those ideas differently now than when I first learned them.
At the time I was kicked out of the fof (it was ‘my fault’) I had drunk deeply of the kool-aid and it was at a time (’80) when, at least to my knowledge, not many people had been expelled. I was fairly young (24 yrs.) and had spent 4 yrs. working at the property. No matter what I learn or know now will erase the devastation and emotional wound that occured then. It is a fact that I accept. It is not in the realm of ideas or reason. From this blog I have learned of others that have experienced wounds worse than what I experienced.
No one can find the simple truth of their being except themselves. I wish I could grab people by their heads and turn their gaze 2 degrees so the closest, most simple, most obvious truth comes into clear focus, but I can’t. I do trust that those who continue with whatever path they choose will find what they are looking for because they have never, ever lost or left it.
Just for the record that post a ways back when I referred to ‘Daddy G’ and ended with : “what do you think MR. Krabs” in retrospect I realized might have been hurtful to Tatayana. It was not aimed at her but that asshole on wiki that called me SpongeBob SquarePants. I have pretty thick skin but I’ll be damned if I am going to sit by and let someone malign a beloved cartoon character.
innin 126
please ‘enlighten’ this ‘poor, poor endarkened place’….
thanks in2it and nige
134 crouching tiger, wow! where did that come from? you haven’t been around in a while and you return with an attack on yesri ? the tiger is showing his stripes as well as his claws… your little exercise in poetics comes off sounding more like you’re defending conscious bob than your ‘sacred’ fourth way — although i assumed the latter was the intent ???
to borrow a line from in2it:
“….Many people on the blog are not only questioning the FOF and Burton, but also many of the beliefs of the Fourth Way — which we often pretended were not beliefs, but ‘verifications.’ This idea of separating ourselves from others and feeling superior to them can feed the ego to such a degree….”
c t, the ‘little ditty’ you posted, this defensive and reactionary ‘poem’ (that seems to ‘come out of left field’ as they say in my country), indicates to me that you feel your ‘world view’ is threatened by what yesri represents on the blog. there are a few folks posting here who are still psychologically and emotionally invested in a ‘system’ or vestiges or parts of a ‘system’ which they BELIEVE will lead them to some imagined promised land, a better life, accelerated evolution, etc…. i say that beliefs and belief systems are self-limiting but ‘to each their own’ — everyone has their limitations, their beliefs. of course the ‘fourth way’ is a belief system most of us here know a bit about and we can examine it, take it apart and see it for what it is…. but some folks take the stuff they’ve read in ‘workbooks’ or learned in 4th way groups as ‘gospel’ and sacrosanct — i think you (ct) tend to fall into that camp. if you need the comfort and security which a ‘system’ provides then knock yourself out or rather, wrap yourself up in this cozy little blanket which ‘the system’ provides you. you can defend ‘the fourth way’ like every other stripe of ‘well-meaning’ and rabid fundamentalist does their particular faith and belief system…. personally speaking, i too thought your poem was bullshit. the ‘esoteric’ and highly revered ‘fourth way’ and the social clubs that this particular ‘system’ has spawned, are nothing more than a cage and as such a ‘safe’ place to occupy and confine your mind if not your body…. you’ll be absolutely free, only if you want to be…. but you really have to want to be and even then, there are no guarantees.
Yesri Baba, what a pleasure to hear you speak.
In relation to the lady that moved on in life in the Zen type group I would like to clarify that that sort of experience happened to a lot of people in the Fellowship Cult and still it is nothing but a sick cult. What is appalling about the Fellowship experience and cults in general, is that people can have a master’s degree and still become pimps for narcissistic sociopaths, which brings man to the reality that it is not what you do what matters but what you do it for. Making a lot of money to support a cult or any other form of corruption does not make one more of a human being than making no money and being a criminal. Harm to others is the result of both.
It is wonderful to be confronted with such a question because it makes the necessity of a direction a reality. It implies meaning and meaning is what people’s lives have lost. After more than a century of working for others in factories, or living on others, the fact that people are willing to make a religion of doing so and sacrificing themselves for a narcissistic sociopath in a cult is not surprising. You train people to walk only on a leash and they won’t give a step without it. The leash of submission is the reality of workers in capitalism as much as communism and cults are the emotional justification of the physical condition. What’s so interesting about them is that it is not that people believe in something and live by it but the other way round: people live by something and develop a cult to justify it.
Another interesting aspect of it is seeing the relevance of processes and how people are conditioned by form more than by ideals. It is not the ideals of freedom or evolution what determine the lives of men in our time, but the conditioning of forms in which they do not have to respond for themselves but work for others what determines how they live.
While the ideal is correct: working for the well being of others, the practice is corrupted: working for the well being of the guru. The ideals are so fantasized that in the realization of their practice they turn against those practicing them. It’s the turning of the ideals against the person practicing them what the brainwashing implies and it is done by gradually submitting the I into blind obedience. It’s truly a very interesting expression of intellectual “possession” in which the centers continue to function without an I to answer to, because the I has been replaced by the identification with the guru.
Something else worth looking at is how the guru becomes the incarnation of what the selfishness within each of the members is looking for. The ego gives up what it can’t get for itself to the one and only guru at the cost of all those around him or her. It’s because it is coming from the selfishness within the individuals participating that it leads to corruption. Competition between the participants is the pattern of such structure.
It’s also interesting how the external qualifications of the guru’s status replace the inner quality of the Guru’s condition. Instead of the guru holding consciousness within himself he is “dressed” with privileges and attributes as if he possessed them and members are mesmerized by the external behavior of other members towards the guru instead of actually looking at the behavior of the guru. They end up imitating, believing and “idolatring” the guru even if the guru does nothing but exploit them.
Is it so surprising that capitalism would end up making a religion of being exploited? For what else is a Cult? Capitalism or any other form of extended submission? The machiavelic mastery of capitalism is that it submitted people’s will, voluntarily, lambs for the sacrifice.
Whatever You Do, Don’t Read Post No. 1
PLANET EARTH (ARK) — Whatever you do, don’t read the first post on this page, a Fellowship of Friends spokesperson announced Sunday.
“Best to ignore that,” the spokesperson said. “There’s nothing there of any importance.”
Yesri.
Thanks for filling in a lot of the blanks. I was certainly unaware of the history you had posted earlier in the blog, and of your other experiences in groups with 4th Way connections of one sort or another. From your own experience, and ours collectively in the fellowship, it certainly does seem that the ideas brought to light by Ouspensky do have an outstanding potential for causing damage through various ‘personal interpretations’ by the likes of Burton and Horn.
“At the time I was kicked out of the fof (it was ‘my fault’) I had drunk deeply of the kool-aid and it was at a time (’80) when, at least to my knowledge, not many people had been expelled. I was fairly young (24 yrs.) and had spent 4 yrs. working at the property. No matter what I learn or know now will erase the devastation and emotional wound that occured then. It is a fact that I accept. It is not in the realm of ideas or reason. From this blog I have learned of others that have experienced wounds worse than what I experienced.”
Thank you again. It is always a surprise to see how deep the wound went. Perhaps it is something to do with the emotional openness the fellowship engendered, so maybe experiences did penetrate more deeply. I still have times when the memories are very clear, and the ‘hold’ can be felt as a definite grip. It takes time to erode. I don’t have the experience of ‘trying to get rid of it’ so much as to mix it back into the earth, so that the new growths can occur.
A few months after I left, I had a real sense that the best way forward was to go back into the 4th Way and find a way to save what I could… It was, and is, a little like picking apart a bunch of threads that has become hopelessly entangled! But over time, the simplicities of the work do become more evident. As long as the basic desire is there to become more simple.
“I do trust that those who continue with whatever path they choose will find what they are looking for because they have never, ever lost or left it.” Amen to that.
I appreciate your candour, it is very good to hear you. I felt there was some disagreement left over from previous posts on both sides that needed to be resolved, the ‘poem’ triggered it…. A clumsy instrument. My apologies for that.
Ton.
I think the above post may help to answer your post too. I see my particular contribution to this arena as the practical experience I have gained from a 4th Way group with some connection to Gurdjieff. It provides a background and source of comparison to what happened in the fellowship… and I believe it shows how and where the Burton stuff is crazy and doesn’t hold up. It twists what Gurdjieff actually taught, and the way he taught it.
For some ex-students, like myself, the process of rescuing something of the 4th Way from the fellowship corruptions is, and can be a very valuable exercise. Simply because a great deal of our inner life became entangled with Work language and ideas in a kind of experimental ‘oxygen tent’ that increased our emotional vulnerability…. If you can disentangle some of the threads, or find a positive new use for them , you can reclaim some of that inner life.
Others, like yourself, obviously chose to discard it entirely. To each his own. But I don’t believe that act of discarding ‘freed’ you of belief-systems, or dissolved the entanglements, by itself. Maybe it just drove them underground, so they are less visible. From your previous posts, I don’t have any clear sense of what your entanglements were/are, or how you experience them now.
Which brings us back to Yesri. I felt there was some unresolved tension between myself and Yesri from previous exchanges about the 4th way. For some reason, it came to a head with my ham-fisted ‘poem’. Yesri’s reply was so candid and honest that I felt I had more understanding of him, having read it. It is always a privilege when someone volunteers that means to understanding.
We few, we happy few…..” (Henry V)
This is how the ‘magic works’…..first, male to male confrontation; second, surrender to each other’s paths, then third, “we band of brothers” (Henry V). Another fact guys – do not fail to listen to Elena with her brilliant impelling-to-right-thought language – I have said, I know, twice that she is the Female Avatar for ushering in this Age of Aquarius and I do not back down from that comment and Statement of Fact. Remember in what way she has “suffered for her sanity” (Don McLean, ‘Vincent’). She, as I have, has learned to “dishonour not thy mothers” (Henry V).
As regards the ‘foffies’ – “ignorance is (will be) blitzed”, that is, as others have said, they are paying millions and millions to be taught how to be asleep in a pseudo-system, by Robert Earl Burton, who is a DEAD KING OF CLUBS MACHINE POSING (FALSE PERSONALITY) AS A KING OF HEARTS AWAKENED BEING, WHILE LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY, EATING FLESH.
“I expose all…..” (Walt Whitman)
“Life is an ocean, and love is a boat;
In troubled waters, it keeps us afloat:
When we started this journey,
There was just me and you;
Now gathered round us
We have our own crew”
(…..from the ‘Celtic Heart’ compilation album)…..Nigel.
crouching tiger 152
thanks, your two recent posts are from the heart and reflect (to me) a high degree of clarity on your part…. just to be clearer myself, it’s not my place to judge anyone who chooses to follow ‘a system’ or a religion, or doctrine or dogma… and i’m certain — based on my own personal researches and experiences — that there are more viable permutations of ‘the 4th way’ than that farcical and fraudulent circus offered by the fof… more power to you if you have found something along these lines that works for you, an alternative to the fof ‘4th way’ — which as far as i can tell has nothing to do with what i read in the books by ouspensky….. and just to be clear, again, although i chose to discard ‘the system’ i am not suffering under the illusion that this has ‘freed me of entanglements’ i realize and freely acknowledge that past experiences go into forming current belief structures…. as stated previously. thanks again for your posts.
and generally, ‘we’ — meaning the blog, must be doing something right… thanks all for continuing to participate… keep it up. excerpts below are from post # 1 at the top of this page:
“3. Investigation/Monitoring of Blog?GF/PR, etc. Several times this year I have written to Youtube or other websites to have offending material taken off line. This has been largely successful. I also have conducted an investigation into aspects of the Blog and some individuals with the aim to allow us to file suit for defamation and/or invasion of privacy if and when appropriate. I have worked on obtaining PR consultations for which then no funding was purportedly available. (Nic.ol.s Spa.ldi.g who was helping in this area, was threatened by Et.an Har.is to stop working with Abraham and myself) This area should be a major concern for the Board which has been almost totally unresponsive.
4. It was our diligent monitoring of the blog that put us on notice that A.af Brave.man’s arranged (by Fellowship officers and/or agents) fraudulent marriage to Elisa.et.a da Ros was being exposed to the world. This finally stimulated action in this area but more is needed. I will no longer monitor the Blogs or any other sites, in any language, and will no longer assist with analysis and efforts to bring these matters into compliance. A lot more needs to be done in this area for many involved.”
The Fellowship of friends is going to need one helluva big fan to cope with stuff like post #154…..Nigel.
Dear W-lt-r
I couple of things to re-adjust.
The investor group has nothing to do with a retirement scheme plan for Burton.
Itswine time…..Maybe a projection?
The letter was sure news for many members and ex members not for the small elite/ decision makers, who made several changes anyway.
So it still stirs up the pot and time will tell how much stirring. See 150.
What makes you so angry? Who treated you so bad in your past or in your early childhood?
Yesri – “…E.J Gold. The latter was quite an interesting guy who presented a kind of mix of Zen and 4th way. He passed away a number years ago from complications of HIV. ”
EJ Gold is alive and kicking in Penn Valley.
157. sharon
Unless I’m incorrect, I think Yesri was referring to someone who knew E.J., not him, himself.
I have had several interactions with E.J. over the years. His little coterie is an interesting conglomeration of people. Many of whom are very fine artists. In fact, one of the main foci of his group is fine art and music (much of it E,J.’s). His cosmology is an interesting amalgam of common esoteric truths, and like the FOF, one can glean useful things for oneself. However, make no mistake, E.J. is also a consummate huckster, manipulator , and when it suits him, I liar. But aren’t we all to some extent? He’s got his own esoteric shuck and jive. One of my children grew up with one of his and he used to go over to his house/hacienda and quite perceptively observed the dynamic at a pretty early age. I remember being pretty astounded at his observations. Eventually he decided he would rather not be around that environment.
And of course his group had the usual drugs, sex and rock and roll (mostly figuratively speaking), and the usual deification of the “teacher”.
“No, YOU. Your state is totally your fault.”
___
You see me in Capital Letters?
Thank you for looking.
We’re all desperate for mirrors that can say nothing perfectly.
157 Sharon
The guys name was Robert Daniel Ennis. The group was called Tayu Center. Of the ‘4th way’ characters I have met he seemed the most open and least authoritarian but I never got to know him well.
For what it is worth he did mention E.J. Gold in one of the talks i went to. It was his impression that Gold was way developed in one area but not so developed in others. Seems par for the course in the teacher/guru game.
Yesri, Nigel, Bruce, ‘ton, Whalerider, Elena, Arthur (if you are still following somewhere), thanks to each of you for exposing here what you have been able to speak of in your experience at the hands and feet of the not-so-illustrious Couscous Being, Robert Burton and his minions in the Fellowship of Friends. I hear you.
Behind these electronic characters dancing in the internet-ether are many years of hard earned, hard won, experience that were never defined or described on the FOF dancecard, but included, nonetheless.
For those who have eyes to see, let them see. For those who have ears to hear, let them hear. For those who don’t (yet), quite simply, their time will come.
“The search for enlightenment is basically a human one”
(Gautama, the Buddha).
Why does this quote come to me? To explain, I am living a simple life, teaching real things to real people, enjoying the contact with simple folk as my form of relaxation. Without breaking a confidence, I emailed Elena concerning a ‘matter of the heart’ and received in return hints of ‘how to be for a woman and for oneself’. Most of you will remember how, in the FOF, we all had to be ‘on display’ – super-human facade with sub-human sub-plots. I think the Buddha also said “To be born human implies imperfection”. Maybe we have to accept ourselves ‘up to the hilt’ – all the evil things we have produced and all the little ways, maybe, in which we rose above our faults and ennobled ‘la condition humaine’. Maybe ‘awakening’ is not a matter of rising into a state of ‘blinding lights and fairy sparklers’ but of the awakening of our possibilities to take the stage as a robust and giving human entity.
“To fly through the endless rings
And never be quiet again”
(Walt Whitman ‘Song of the Answerer’)
for what it’s worth…
i don’t know about “E” j. gold, but a number of years back i came into contact with a self-styled ‘guru’ named Justin J. Gold. i met him through a dear friend, an ex fofer who was attending gold’s meetings when he lived in santa barbara where justin was located too. gold claimed to have had some contact with gurdjieff as an infant or very young child…. did some traveling in south america on his ‘search for the miraculous’ where he met his ‘teacher’ and other ‘remarkable men’ etc. from santa barbara gold moved his center of operation and bought some acreage outside of Nevada City. my friend sent me gold’s book called “another heart in his hand” — mostly metaphorical yarns about gambling experiences, seemed to have some hidden meanings and veiled messages but i was not impressed by the murkiness of it all. but at my friends prompting i did make a trip from the east coast to the west and visited justin at his ‘compound’ there in the foothills where we spent the day. the following day we went to one of his weekly public meetings in Nevada City. his property there was under development and ‘coincidently’ from certain vantage points on that property you could see the back slope of fof property across the yuba river gorge. there was a comfortable and shaded ranch style house on the property with a number of small trailers scattered around in which his groupies lived…. the people, mostly women, seemed friendly enough…. there was a garden behind the house which had a goodly amount of ‘weed’ growing in it…. we did get high during the visit with justin…. my overall impression was that he came off as the reluctant, if de facto leader of a group of people who were looking for a direction in life…. his reticence gave the impression that it was a bit like a lure, a means of drawing people in through their questioning and searching…. my wife is by nature skeptical and her comment after the face to face meetings with justin was something to the effect: “he seems like an angry jew with a flute…” (apparently she feels she can make such a politically incorrect statement and get away with it since she is herself a ‘jew’). the flute part refers to the public meeting where about 30 to 40 people gathered to hear justin’s ‘teachings’ which were interspersed with riffs on his flute when words failed him…. that’s my recollection, for what it’s worth.
164. ton
An amazing and accurate depiction of E.J., IMO. Yes, his mother won a pretty big hit on the Calif. lottery and, it’s said, she gave E.J. half the money. That’s where he got his credibility. A good friend of mine (also Jewish) who knew him pre-windfall, said E.J. used to be a load mouthed schmuck, now he’s a rich loud mouthed schmuck with pseudo credibility. My son said one thing that made him uncomfortable at E.J.’s compound was all the little children running around, with different mothers, and E.J. as the father of most of them. I guess he was breeding his followers.
He has also written somewhere between 10and 20 books on “awakening”. He’s a fantastic painter, he fancies himself a great composer (his stuff doesn’t do anything for me), but his “gift” is his shuck and jive. Most of the town just sort of giggles and accepts him, though he keeps to himself and his group. He used to occasionally have his “public art auctions” of great art, to raise funds, but most of the art was his own. But he pretty much saturated the market here and everyone knew what the gig was.
When I first met him he said he heard I was previously in a “group” and he kept intimating that he had possession of some unknown, unpublished “Gurdjieff manuscripts” that I might like to see, since I was a “book person”. I went to his place and it turned out to be one of the auctions. No manuscript, no nothing except his scam.
Also…at one time one of his older followers asked totake bookbinding lessons from me. I think he came twice, but I had this pervasive feeling that E.J. had sent him to draw me in. It petered out pretty quickly.
re E J Gold. R. E. B. once showed a film at the Academy portraying Gurdjieff teaching “ the movements“ on Vancouver Island. It had been produced by `Eugene Dore ` aka E. J. Gold.
From wikipedia: “Eugene Jeffrey (E.J.) Gold (born 1941) is an artist, author, jazz musician and spiritual teacher in the “Fourth Way” tradition of G.I. Gurdjieff. Gold’s large-scale JazzArt paintings have served as backdrops for Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Nancy Wilson, Oscar Peterson, and Toots Thielemans .[1] His artwork has appeared in the set of Sister, Sister, International Association for Jazz Education[2], Jazz at Lincoln Center, and other jazz venues. Gold has written and self published over 50 books. In addition to starting an online science fiction museum, he is a voting member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. His science fiction stories and articles have been published in a number of monthlies including Omni Magazine. In 1992, his artwork was part of a collaborative show with writer Margaret Randall at the Cedar Tavern in New York City.”
A view across the Yuba River gorge, ton – these days, his property is off Indian Springs Rd in Penn Valley, no views. From my glimpses of his group, Gold seems just another self-centered, opportunistic “guru” who has sex with his female followers (something like 12 kids from different mothers), who all appear to be artists. At least he has some talents other than his “4th Way teaching”. I think these days he writes game software, and is not solely financially supported by his followers (if at all). My knowledge of him and his group comes from his children, 2 of whom were my son’s classmates and friends since 4th grade (now in high school). Talented kids.
Just to clarify, E.J. Gold and Justin Jaye Gold are two different, unrelated (as far as I know) teachers operating out of Nevada County. A few years ago a friend of mine was dating one of the “friendy” women in Justin’s group who was trying to lure him into the group. I loaned him my copy of “The Guru Papers” before he went to his third public meeting. He went to the meeting armed with a few pertinent questions and decided not to join. He has thanked me many times for loaning him that book. Another friend of mine was in Justin’s group for a few years. I believe he said that Justin does not claim to be running a Gurdjieff group. The lineage of the group is supposed to be from one of Gurdjieff’s teachers.
170. xeeena
I don’t know about Justin, but …
“I believe he said that Justin does not claim to be running a Gurdjieff group. The lineage of the group is supposed to be from one of Gurdjieff’s teachers.”
This sounds pretty much like the m.o. of E.J.’s group as well.
I think the munificent bestowing of a bunch of children on a bunch of women followers is pretty far up there with “pretty fucking creepy”.
But then again, pretty fucking creepy (PFC) is, all too often, the “hook” that draws the palette of followers that is drawn to any mini-guru with a schtick.
Bruce 172 – yep.
Isn’t there a Yogananda thing up that way?
Seems like there are more gurus than rattlesnakes up in them thar hills.
Hey, guess what, guys? My local pub now serves (E)xmoor Gold. Some things are worth their weight in gold – other gold things, you can ‘trash ’em’…..Nigel.
Hi everyone,
I left in 2006. Now, after almost three years, I feel I got over most of the downsides.
The main obstacle and depressive state for me was being financially poor. I have been poor for years, while living around Renaissance/Apollo/Isis.
I am not an American native. I got my US citizenship through my marriage (ended long ago), yet after living the School I was completely by myself.
When I left, I was literally broke. I had barely the means to find a roof over my head. The first months have been a nightmare for me. I felt I have lost my basic living skills.
In 2008 I was lucky to receive 25K out of a 140K inheritance a family member has been hiding from me for four years, ridiculously claiming he was not able to find me.
That was the best day of my life.
I bought a good laptop; I took an eBay sales course and started eBay commerce, at first on a payroll and later on as self employed.
Since January 2009 till today I managed to earn 93K in eBay and in other e-commerce arenas. I expect closing 2009 with at least 130.
Strangely enough, money was the real healing factor for me. Not the obsession for money, but the great feeling that I am able to stand on my feet again and provide for myself.
The last time I was visiting this Blog about 18 months ago, there were a petition and perhaps other legal actions coming into existence against the FOF.
Personally I had no involvement in the “HOT inner circle” and therefore I cannot directly contribute, yet I wonder what is going on.
I asked my friend about Justin Gold. The story is that Justin’s father was a student of Gurdieff and when Justin was young he met Gurdjieff’s good friend Raya (sp?}. Gurdjieff and Raya had met when both were students at a monastery in Kabul. Justin became a student of Raya who had a mystery school at Lake Titicaca in the Andes. Justin also studied at the monastery in Kabul and when war broke out there Justin and his group managed to get the elderly monks out of the country and moved them to New Zealand where they “retired”.
177 is newly moderated
The petition to which you refer should be accessible through the link at the top of this page labeled; petitiononline.com
ReMemberMe:
Thank you for your fine contribution. Your story is inspiring.
Thankfully, you received your inheritance after you left, otherwise a good chunk of it would have been sucked up by the Fellowship of Friends AKA Pathway to Presence.
Way back when I was in, I knew of at least two Fellowship followers who had to “donate” a large portion of their inheritance to Burton’s freak show under the guise that “c-influence” was the cause of the windfall of money.
The fear of the unknown keeps many followers mired in the cult, but you faced your fears and that is admirable. I wish you well.
What was the ‘tipping point’ that made you take the leap toward freedom? What made you leave?
ReMemberMe,
lucky you! You might want to be grateful to that family member. Imagine wasting 10% of your inheritance to the Cult, plus starting going to various “fund-raising events”; travelling all over the globe to see your beloved teacher spreading his wisdom….
Good to have you here.
181 Panoritsa
As we all know, REB is not a ‘wisdom spreader’ but a ‘muck spreader’…..Nigel.
177. ReMemberMe
Welcome! And, thank you for the interesting moniker. Shall I suggest a valuable source for such a name?:
Hamlet
William Shakespeare
Act 1. Scene V
‘Ghost:
[Of Hamlet’s dead father making known to Hamlet how his untimely death came to pass at the hand of his evil brother, Hamlet’s uncle/step father.]
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, –
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce! – won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark’d about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.
Exit Ghost
HAMLET:
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables, – meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark:
Writing:
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is ‘Adieu, adieu! remember me.’
I have sworn ‘t.’
Would that it be, that the villainy of the Fellowship of Friends (AKA Pathway to Presence) were set down in literature eternal, as it is above. Someone want to write a play?
xeeena, thanks for the clarification…. ya i looked at “E” j gold’s website and he’s definitely not the same person i met… the info you provided about justin’s jaye gold’s connection to gurdjieff and his contacts with ‘raya’ in the andes fills in the details that were only ‘sketchy’ for me, that i’d forgotten… like i said, it was only a two day encounter with justin so those kinds of details weren’t exactly indelible…. although i didn’t hear justin playing up his gurdjieff connection, it was ‘in the air’ circulating around his ‘followers’ and i thought at the time that the fact that it was more or less a vicarious and distant connection was a bit disingenuous, dubious, and really beside the point… what i said earlier about the people gathered around him who seemed to be looking for a direction in life…. it seems that part of the whole guru/chela dynamic involves a ‘charismatic’ individual drawing in people who are looking for a ‘director.’
speaking, or writing of directors, the previous exchange between yesri and crouching tiger stirred up some old memories of my own post fof encounters with gurdjieffian style groups…. i’m going back about 15 years ago when i was still living in oakland… another friend, also an ex fofer was living in berkeley at the time in that house on dwight way that charlie forline formerly managed…. this friend of mine was acting as a ‘quasi’ agent for a man from pakistan named tariq who claimed to be a ‘genuine’ sufi and who also claimed to be a long time ‘practitioner’ of the gurdjieff work…. he ran weekly meetings there at charlie’s house which i attended for a number of months…. (charlie would always cook a big meal for the after-meeting socializing). it was interesting work, i liked tariq as a person and i felt there was something of value in the gestalt of the small group work, but i could never shake the feeling that tariq was taking advantage of people, that he was a user and manipulator…. the attendees in the group changed quite a bit over the months i was involved, there were even a number of ex fof students who came and went…. i got the feeling that tariq was taking advantage of the vulnerabilities that ex fofers brought to the encounter… to make a long story shorter, i stopped attending the meetings which brought a curious reaction from tariq…. he showed up at my door one night with a couple of his groupies in tow…. they tried to convince me to return to the meeting format…. after a brief discussion, i was not convinced and they left. the friend who introduced me to tariq continued the relationship and the group work for a number of years and occasionally, from time to time he still hears from tariq…. whose latest scam… er, i mean ‘enterprise’ is a website…. if you’re curious:
http://ecosynch.blogspot.com/
and then there were my encounters with james george, jacob needleman and my close friend who is a former long time member of the gurdjieff foundation…. but i’ll leave that for another time.
Morpheus: … Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Fellowship is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
(In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill.)
Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe about the Fellowship. (a red pill is shown in his other hand) You take the red pill and you stay on the blog and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Long pause; Neo begins to reach for the red pill) Remember — all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.
(Neo takes the red pill and swallows it with a glass of water)
Hi ReMemberMe, welcome, and glad to hear of your adjusted landing. You took the red pill.
Funny how things can actually be the opposite of what we think they are: and real navigation in life seems to depend on how fully we allow ourselves to fully trust our experience rather than the concepts (however hidden they may be) we may have about ourselves, our life and the world around us.
How do you guys get the youtube in here?
These are three youtube about Narcisti Personality disorder….
v=DKkaE4jvX4s&feature=PlayList&p=C32A6F3107996023&index=3
Why did we not have this info before we joined….?
Still questioning…..
‘ton, thanx for info re tariq… I remember meeting him and understood that he was a manipulator and that he WANTED followers, wanted them BAD, pled with me to join his group and to pay him for musical training that, he insisted, would help us to “skip” an entire bardo at death….
All,
Say this with Groucho Marx’s voice in mind:
“Ouspensky walked down the street and turned into a tabacco shop.”
>
>
>
And you know what: I bet that would have made Mr. O very happy indeed.
“Some say love, it is a river,
That mends the breaking reed;
Some say love, it is a razor,
That leaves your soul to bleed:
Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless, aching need;
I say love it is a flower;
And you, its only seed.
It’s the heart afraid of breaking
That never takes a chance;
It’s the dream afraid of waking,
That never learns to dance:
It’s the one who won’t be taken
That never seems to give;
And the soul afraid of dying
That cannot seem to live.
When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long;
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong:
Just remember in the winter time,
Far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun’s love,
In the spring time, becomes the rose.
“The Rose”, as first sung by Bette Midler
Find more videos like this on Greater Fellowship
If that doesn’t work, maybe:
http://greaterfellowship.ning.com/video/video/show?id=799715%3AVideo%3A162897&xgs=1
Thinking of it, the NPD videos 1, 2 and 3 would provide a very valid replacement to the current Prospective meetings 1, 2 and 3. Projected on a big screen and accompanied by Pachelbel’s Canon and some inexpensive cookies, these videos should do the trick.
Then a test would be given at regular intervals: of all the people you met in FOF, who do you think might have the disorder? Once you get the correct answer, you are allowed to leave. If you do not, then stay and pay, I guess.
181. Panoritsa – May 26, 2009
How much Viagra and Darvon could be purchased, and cocks been paid for with that 10% of his inheritance?
This guy is doomed for sure and goes to the moon.
189. nigel harris price:
The Rose:
Reposted, without permission, from the website of the songwriter:
Amanda McBroom
‘HOW ‘THE ROSE’ CAME TO BE
People often ask me what inspired me to write The Rose. Here is the story:
I was driving down the freeway one afternoon, some time in 1977-something.
I was listening to the radio. A song came on the radio. It was “MAGDALENA” by Danny O’Keefe, sung by Leo Sayer. I liked it immediately. My favorite line was “Your love is like a razor. My heart is just a scar.”I thought,”Ooh, I love that lyric.”
As I continued to drive down the road the thought came, I don’t agree with the sentiment. I don’t think love is like a razor. (I was younger then.) What, then, do I think love is? Suddenly, it was as if someone had opened a window in the top of my head. Words came pouring in. I had to keep reciting them to myself as I drove faster and faster towards home, so I wouldn’t forget them. I screeched into my drive way, ran into the house, past various bewildered dogs and cats and husbands, and sat down at the piano. Ten minutes later, THE ROSE was there.
I called my husband, George, into the room and played it for him, as I always did with my new songs. He listened, and quietly said to me, “You’ve just written a standard.” I protested that no one but my pals would ever hear it. (This is long before I had ever recorded anything.) He said,”Mark my words, something is going to happen with this song.”
A year or so later, a professional song – writer friend of mine said, “Listen. There is this movie coming out called “The Rose”. They are looking for a title tune. Do you want me to submit this to them?” I had never really tried to submit this song to anyone. I didn’t consider myself a song writer at the time. So I said, “Sure.” Originally the film had been called THE PEARL, which was Janis Joplin’s nick name. But her family refused permission to use that name. Lucky for me. “Pearl” is MUCH harder to rhyme.
She submitted the tune to the producers, who HATED it. They thought it was dull and a hymn and NOT rock and roll and totally wrong. They put it in the reject box. But the divine Paul Rothchild, who was the music supervisor on the film, and had been Janis Joplin’s producer, hauled it out and asked them to reconsider. They again said no. So he mailed it to Bette. She liked it, and that’s how it got into the film and changed my life forever.
I have never written another song as quickly. I like to think I was the window that happened to be open when those thoughts needed to come through. I am eternally grateful… to Bette… to Paul Rothchild… to Bill Kerby, who wrote the screenplay…to my friend who first submitted it for me… and to the Universe for speaking to me in the first place and for showing me what I truly believe.’
Here are the lyrics:
Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love, it is a hunger
An endless aching need
I say love, it is a flower
And you, its only seed
It’s the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It’s the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It’s the one who won’t be taken
Who can not seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying
That never learns to live
When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love,
In the spring becomes the rose.
See it sung by Bette Midler as for the film, of same name, loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin:
The Rose – Bette Midler 3:40:
194 Bare Reposting
Thank you, kind blogger, for correcting my attempt at recalling the lyrics of “The Rose”. May I tell you of yesterday? I arrived at my workshop, as is usual for Tuesday, at 10.15 am and switched on the electrics. The first song on the radio was “The Rose”. For 3 reasons, 1) I am emotionally centred, 2) I suffer from bi-polar disorder and 3) I have fallen in love (gently, to try for something worthwhile, with an emotionally centred Mars-Jovial lady called Kate, “There is witchcraft in your lips, Kate” – Henry V, who once had a job as a manager at the roughest pub in Cardiff, South Wales and is now training as a primary-school teacher – TALK ABOUT GETTING ROUND THE ENNEAGRAM!!!!!), I burst into a flood of tears. The day continued beautifully with the three students who will be ‘inheriting’ the legacy of workshop/teaching business, when I ‘pop off into the astral realms’, coming in to do extra classes, taking me to lunch and Sam, a 10 of Spades, Solar-Venus-Mercury, doing his 5-hour stint with his ‘avant-garde’ copper sculpture. We finished work at 5 pm and I ‘bussed it’ home, driven by “The Flying Scotsman”, a well-spoken Edinburgh gentleman. I posted ‘The Rose’, as best I could remember the lyrics, and got back on the bus to town. And guess the name of the ‘roly-poly’ Jovial lady bus-driver? ROSE!!!!! I told her of the synchronicity and she said “Ah, bless” (Are we not all blessed?????)…..and I saw Kate again yesterday evening.
I thought, while on the subject of LOVE, I would recall the lyrics of the song that Michael Ball made famous in the year that I returned from the USA and also the year that Kenneth Branagh made (the more robust than Olivier’s version of) Henry V (Renaissance Films!!!!!).
“Love changes Everything”
Love, love changes everything,
Hands and faces, earth and sky;
Love, love changes everything,
How you live and how you die;
Love can make the summer fly,
Or a night seem like a lifetime;
Yes love, love changes everything,
Now I tremble at your name;
Nothing in the world will ever be the same.
Love, love changes everything,
Days are longer, words mean more;
Love, love changes everything,
Pain is deeper than before;
Love will turn your world around,
And that world will last forever;
Yes love, love changes everything,
Brings you glory, brings you shame;
Nothing in the world will ever be the same.
Off into the world we go,
Planning futures, shaping years;
Love bursts in, and suddenly,
All our wisdom disappears;
Love makes fools of everyone,
All the rules we make are broken,
Yes love, love changes everyone
Live or perish in its flame;
Love will never, never let you be the same.
Maybe the blog would do well to stay awhile on the subject of love (nothing to do with spring), since it is love, not sarcasm or bantered words, that will ‘win this battle between hard-won (and still hard-gaining, for some) FREEDOM (playing one’s role from conscience) and the huge and hurtful EVIL that is the Fellowship of Friends’.
There is one phrase that comes to mind, from the ‘good book’…..
“There is nothing that love cannot achieve…..”
little nigey…..
from post #194
“I like to think I was the window that happened to be open when those thoughts needed to come through. I am eternally grateful… ”
…..my mum, who liked to joke about her role in our family as ‘Mrs Malaprop’, said once, when she read a ‘work book’, “What the hell does it mean – ‘the many ONE’s?”
However, could we not be ‘the I’s that are the windows to All Souls?’…Nigel
“…..I have been through the physical and the metaphysical; the delusional and back. And I ask myself – “What is logic?” And I have found that it is only in the equations of LOVE that logic, real reason can be found. I am only here tonight because of you. You are the reason I am…..you are all my reasons”
(John Nash, the famous mathematician, as played by that superb actor, Russell Crowe, in the film, ‘A Beautiful Mind’)…..Nigel.
Ah, Nigey! Kate, me thinks upon the Kate of The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare, in particular: Act 2, Scene 1:
‘Petruchio:
You lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.’
I recently watched the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton/Franco Zeffirelli version of that play; vaudevillian!
But Vaudeville is, reportedly, originally in the north of France, so therefore perhaps you prefer The Life of King Henry the Fifth, Act 5, Scene 2:
‘KING HENRY V
Fair Katharine, and most fair,
Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms
Such as will enter at a lady’s ear
And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?
KATHARINE
Your majesty shall mock at me; I cannot speak your England.
KING HENRY V
O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with
your French heart, I will be glad to hear you
confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do
you like me, Kate?
KATHARINE
Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is ‘like me.’
KING HENRY V
An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.’
Et Cetera. (As it goes on long after this.)
Did ‘the ‘roly-poly’ Jovial lady bus-driver? ROSE!!!!!’ have a tattoo of a rose, with delicate petals and thorns, upon her upper arm so that all entering the bus could see it?
By Jove, I think you have spring fever! Try this one on for size:
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor’d youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress’d.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I, that I am old?
O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore, I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.
Sonnet 138
Dear friends
Have some fun and see what is your personal disorder.
http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv
“and then there were my encounters with james george, jacob needleman and my close friend who is a former long time member of the gurdjieff foundation…. but i’ll leave that for another time.”
Ton, can’t wait for this story…
J. Needleman was they guy who together with Lord Pentland came to Apollo to ask for a financial contribution for the movie “Meetings with remarcable men” and got a pillow instead.
191 Brucelevy LOL!
tatyana,
actually, many pages ago i did post something of my meetings with james george who is an impressive individual, a man of very high degree…. and more recently i posted a few things here about a public lecture i attended this past winter where jacob needleman spoke at length. in a couple of hours during just one evening, he provided me with more true wisdom-filled human insight, compassion and inspiration, than did burton in all of the years combined which i spent in the fof. the event where needleman spoke was hosted by the gurdjieff foundation…. james george also has some affiliation with that organization… but mind you, this is not an endorsement of that organization, i myself steer clear of ‘joining’ any organization that would have someone like me as a member…
ya i heard about the ‘legendary’ story of the pillow-gift and lord pentland, i didn’t know needleman was involved too (?) imo this petty little ‘joke’ by burton strikes me as an asshole ego-tripper trying to embarrass someone who he felt threatened by…. burton could — no doubt — learn a thing or two from both pentland and needleman, that is if he weren’t the closed-minded ass that he is. but this is only my interpretation…. what do you think?
http://www.conversations.org/story.php?sid=6
I found this book today of Rick Jarow “The ultimate Anti-Career Guide”. I want to share a few thoughts about sixth chakra. I am not familiar with the chakras (B influence:), but it sounded interesting. Especially the part where he speaks about duality of chakras… Maybe RB did get special pwoers, but fell into an expected trap? I hope to hear some of your comments, since I don’t trust my own opinion. (According to ANother Name’s test I have a moderate Dependent Personality Disorder). Here it is (long, sorry!)
The sixth chakra is located in the forehead. It’s energy is light. It’s color is often seen as indigo. And interestingly enough the Sanskrit word for this center is called ‘Agna’ or the ‘command post’. And this is very significant for it insinuates that the ‘command center’ – the director of our drama – is not in the power center. It’s not in the emotional center. It’s coming from a very high source – the intuitive center – which is what the sixth chakra is about. Not the sixth chakra has more often than not been discussed in very occult ways as place for super-consciousness, visions, clairvoyance and flair-audience. And that may be well and good, but for your life’s work it’s helpful to understand this as a flow of the intuitive cosmic intelligence that is not occult at all, but maybe very natural.
For example, I often ask groups: have you ever had a time in your life when mysteriously or in some way that you could not understand some force came in and guided you, helped you make the right decision, pointed you the right way, helped you out of danger? And generally a large majority of people raise their hand and said ‘yes’. So this is not a hidden secret experience, it is something that most people at one point or another in their life have had happen to them! But then I ask a question: ‘how many of you felt this was extraordinary?” And again the majority of people raise their hand. Now, what if this e experience was not extraordinary at all? But what if this is the way it’s suppose to be? What if you are actually aligned the intuitive flow direct perceptions available to you 24 hours a day? This is a possibility of the sixth chakra.
To perceive and open to dimensions of experience that are often invisible to people not because they are so high and mighty, but because most of the time we’re just too busy. You see, we live in a culture that is vibrating primarily on the first three chakras. Occasionally we move into a heart energy. Occasionally we move into a creative energy. But the opening of a direct intuitive intelligence is something that is neither taught nor supported in popular culture. Therefore it is thought to be fantastic.
The vocational issue around the opening this ‘command center’, if you will, is intuition on one side and inflation on the other side. You see, you may have a fantastic revelation, a fantastic opening (and that is a beauty of the sixth chakra) but then when you begin to think that ‘Oh! I must be special’ or “If everybody did this in this way they may have this” – you move into inflated side of the sixth chakra. And it can get very very heady when the person begins to experience what Henry Davis Toro called “the higher laws”. That’s why it is so important that we work from the bottom up, that we have a strong ground, that our feelings are open, that our power center is clear, that we are working towards contributions, and so on and so forth.
So, what we want to do is open to the higher laws. Not to be someone special, not to move out of the world, but literally as you are reeling a kite in from the sky to bring them down into the market place. Because the market place is the great democratic leveler of everything. If you can bring your intuition. If you can bring your inspiration into the market place – then you’re sharing it with other people. That is your life’s work.
When you inflated – you shy away from the market place, you want to keep things secret. Because then you self-delusional bubble might burst. So the opening of the sixth chakra has to do with the opening of intelligence, with the opening of intuition, with the opening to guidance from sources that we cannot fathom, but that we can experience and work with on a daily basis.
After all in the last twenty years we have seen remarkable healing of all sorts – through healers, through assemblies, through groups, through prayer. We have seen a power of spirit cure cancer, leukemia, diabetes, we have all seen incredible transformations. Well, if the power of spirit can do this then the same power should be able to get me a job. This is “bring it down home”. And this is very important: this work is a work of alignment – its not a work of escape. The whole purpose of creating the work you love and moving into our life’s work is to bring the heaven and earth together. To bring the intuition and a practical together and to take that deep intelligence and apply it to day-to-day situations.
So we ask in the sixth chakra that we can open to the unknown and bring into the known. And that will generally guard us and guide us against the inflated delusional position.
Rick Jarow “The ultimate Anti-Career Guide”
I wanted to share this article with people. Beware of the usual attitudes: For example, it’s pop psychology and therefore there’s nothing useful in it. It has no esoteric origins, and there are are no secret symbols within it. It’s available and appealing to the masses, so it must not be good. Parts of it may be silly, so it must be wrong or useless. And because it’s pop psychology, there’s no use in trying to extract some truth out of it.
Other attitudes that I’ve noticed: We are students of the Fourth Way, so we shouldn’t stoop to this “level.” We should disregard it. If a part of me believes it’s accurate and enlightening, I shouldn’t trust that part of me.
I strongly recommend that people look for people “out here” who have something to offer in the effort to heal from the FOF. Take what’s useful; absorb what makes sense to you. You may be surprised how much it will help you understand more clearly what happened to you in the FOF, and how much it helps you understand in general.
===============================
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/8-toxic-personalities-to-avoid-461078/
Although we like to think that the people in our lives are well-adjusted, happy, healthy minded individuals, we sometimes realize that it just isn’t so. Personally, I’ve had moments where I’ll be skipping through my day, happy as can be, thinking life is grand and BAM, I’ll be blindsided by someone who manages to knock the happy wind out of my sails. Sometimes it is easy to write it off and other times, not so much.
Maybe you are a positive person, but when you are around a certain individual, you feel negative. Or, maybe you have an idealistic view of the world and when you are with certain people, you are made to feel silly, unrealistic or delusional. Or, maybe you pride yourself in being completely independent and in control of your life, but when you are around a certain family member, you regress into a state of childhood.
Some of these situations, and yes, these people, can have a tremendously negative impact on our lives. And, although we are all human and have our ‘issues,’ some ‘issues’ are quite frankly, toxic. They are toxic to our happiness. They are toxic to our mental outlook. They are toxic to our self-esteem. And they are toxic to our lives. They can suck the life out of us and even shorten our lifespan.
Here are the worst of the toxic personalities out there and how to spot them: …
203 in2it
You know what mate?????…..your introduction to excerpt was pure
CELTIC LITERATURE. Allow me to explain the directive to understanding –
major/minor, possy/neggy, fast cycling, inflective and ‘mellifluateing’, (pardon my arrogance, but I actually invented that word, along with ‘scussing’, as in don’t scuss the system – laws, morals or conduct that is becoming to a critically analysing human being) towards forcing or, as I frequently use the word, ‘impelling’ to a higher level of understanding.
How do I know?…..
I have a Lunar-Venusian student called Fae (Celtic for ‘fairy’, as she informed me today – so she is Faithful Fae to me, always turning up for her Wednesday class week after week and every Nigerella, who has to act with ‘balls’ needs a Faery Godmother), but, boy, did I think I had mental health problems to deal with!?!?!
To list hers…..
Fast-cycling bi-polar disorder, aspergus, recovering from teenage alcohol and drug abuse and subsequent/consequent self-harming, struggling to find a medical regime that works (she is being given a-typical i.e. not tried and tested drugs for her multi-conditions, except Lithium, which can fornicate skywards, as they say, your liver more than alcohol), and, to put the ‘cherry on the turd’, an ex-partner, who has been given a restraining order, against which he appealing, by grovelling letters to the courts and lawyers, because he has threatened to come down and kill her. If he comes near her, when I am around, I will take his head off, sword or no
sword!!!!!
But we make our play/creative therapy work, so that she finds her peace and happiness for the time that we are together and carries it through to her home life, as a 21 year-old single mother. And she “hands over the money without asking, for it is money she has (from benefits, to which she is entitled) and peace she likes” (guess what film? – hint “is there a heaven”).
nuff said…..nigey
“There was a boy,
Very strange, enchanted boy;
Say, he wandered very far, very far,
Over land and sea.
And then one day
That magic day he came my way;
And we talked of many things,
Fools and kings,
This he said to me…..
‘The greatest thing you can ever learn,
Is just to love, and be loved in return…..
To love and be loved in return’
(musical fade out to blitz…..bliss and a possible psychedaelic dream-enriched, nourishing sleep)
Good-night and may your god go with you
(Dave Allen, Ireland’s most intelligent comedian – remember the Admiral Nelson joke, John Craig?)…..n.
Hi Nigel – just thought it would be nice to give credit to the writer of that beautiful song. It was written by eden ahbez in 1947. The most famous recording being done by Nat King Cole. However a host of people have done arrangements of it including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Frank Sinatra.
(here it is again – with a couple of lines you left out)
Nature Boy
There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he
And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return”
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return”
Dear James
So many thanks for particularising my Jovial generality. It is someway that I operate in my teaching and friendship life. However I have inherited another problem – I,almost every post, have to work on blogodyslexia. I am pretty sure it is annoyance at a machine that tells me how it needs operating – a bit like REB/Darth Vader whose mechanicality was unmasked to show a flagellated penis/head for buggering about with the Dark Side – or my senses racing and not having time to be attentive to details. My request????? Be Stuka to my Blitzkrieg and learn to show those nasty/nazi apollonians that “Arbeit macht frei” does not work in the case of the foffing foo-foo fools…..nigel
Hello, Elena.
I was hesitating to ask you this question, and I don’t need to make it public, it’s up to you.
I am not sure I understand your motivation to vent in public your marriage with Gerard. But since you do so, can you explain your attitude toward the fact that he was actually married to C when you got together with him. Otherwise your straightforwardness has a hidden side. Just tell how do you feel about it:
– don’t care
– it was his idea
– it was my right to do so
– feel terrible that C was hurt
– don’t want to talk about it
– it’s none of your business
– none the above
– other:
Thank you,
Tatyana
Hi Tatyana,
Thank you for your question. Since I have myself exposed so much of my personal life so that there was no doubt to anyone where was what and how, I would like to answer your question in public since I guess many others here also have it. I don’t expect it’ll free me from any more judgement, it just seems to round up the story.
The reason I vent my marriage with Girard has been because I find it of immense value to watch the relation between people’s personal lives and their social behaviour. It is particularly clear in our case and where I have done so I do it almost as a clinical case. Someday it’ll be useful to others interested in such research.
The rest of your question enters a much more private arena than that of the Fellowship. Basically are you asking me why I went after a married man? I’m afraid I had been after him for the previous thirteen years no matter who he was married to and was much surprised when he actually responded to the interest. Girard mattered a great deal to me. I had eaten the full crap and he was accessible while Robert wasn’t. I wanted to know what a conscious being was like and although he seemed everything but conscious I loved his love for Robert! His commitment to the cause! His full trust inspired me to trust equally blindly but in the long run, it allowed me to see what I was wanting to look at. We use to get together for lunch quite often when I visited Renaisance even though it was never an open flirting. Not even when it finally happened, there hadn’t been a flirting! But I definitely wanted it to happen and when we said goodbye after lunch, Fellowship style, we got stuck in the kiss! It stuck so long and it felt so good! We were right in the middle of the property with students anywhere around us. One was looking at us and still we were stuck! It was wonderful!
In the previous months I’d seen him not well. He’d repeat himself over and over in those meetings as if he couldn’t keep track of what he was saying… like a tape recorder or a scratched record. I was convinced that if only he would let me or anyone love him, truly love him, he would change and he would not only be committed to Robert and the Fellowship but to life and beauty and himself!! You’ve no idea how convinced I was about the Fellowship being a conscious school and Robert a conscious being and how if Girard was supposed to be the next conscious being, we better do something about it!! I was, like with Dorothy, trying to serve the Fellowship!! It’s so good to laugh about it all now!
I hope that answers your question… some. C was simply not in the equation. When we spoke after she found out, she said she’d lived a miserable life for eight years with him and I understood her very well after living four. What’s so tragic in all cases is that we all loved him. After being married three times or seven if I count all the people I’ve loved and lived with, I am convinced and was already then, that no one goes after another woman or man if his or her marriage is still functioning. I had also experienced being grateful to other women who bothered to take my husband away from me when the marriage was already drowning. People tend to hold on to those sunk boats and instead of attempting to swim on their own, the whole family drowns in the failed marriage. They’ve no idea the favour they’d done me so I don’t feel particularly bad about C. Separating and divorcing is usually such a messy thing that running away with someone else was not the worst idea, especially when people are still young. Of course, if I had ever been conscious I might have done things different!
The other issue was that I needed to get to the heart of the Fellowship and no one was more in the heart than Girard. I’m very happy to have gotten to the heart of the matter! It was only four years with Girard. Had we not married, I would perhaps still be in the Fellowship!
Today he wrote to me asking me if I wouldn’t want to rejoin the Fellowship and that he misses me sometimes! If it weren’t for the Fellowship and all that that means in his life I would run back to him!
To have been able to love someone so straight and formatory and silly and sick and stupidly humble, someone so badly hurt by life and the Fellowship, someone so immensely beautiful convinced that he is the ugliest thing that has to blindly serve a Robert Burton, someone who carries his half paralyzed body with such courage and confidence is something I don’t regret. He is the incarnation of a whole side of America. It is with great pity that I find it impossible to be with him. It’s strange to be alone while my husband is still hanging himself in the Fellowship rope.
He has of course read the terrible things I’ve written here but he knows I am not lying and not hating and not meaning to hurt anything worthy of protection. We are just part of the tragedy… Side effects!
Hi Tatyana,
Your question raised another issue overnight and it has to do with what women, and specially the women of Robert’s men, became in the Fellowship Cult. From one angle we could say that Girard’s only wife has always been Barbara. I can understand her not exposing him because of their children. It is always more difficult when children are involved but I cannot say the same for Cynthia. While I do not exactly judge her choice I obviously did not share it and chose to expose everything not only because I needed to for myself but because I thought I owed it to the members who blindly followed the illusion of integrity that we thought those men had.
I, like many other in the Fellowship, had judged his other women as not being “good enough” for Girard like hundreds inside and out probably judge me! In the midst of the brainwashing, cult members tend to turn everything upside down and backwards to fit the imaginary picture of the infallibility of the cult leaders and I was no exception. If anything goes wrong it is wrong in the people that got involved with them and not the leaders. If you look at my first posts you’ll watch how I struggled to look at reality for what it was. It was all there before I left the Fellowship but I did not formulate all the sickness before leaving, I was unable to, it came after. I knew all the time but I was not willing or able to acknowledge it. It would have cost me the life and the man I had chosen! And it wasn’t until the blog and the fact that others had been willing to expose it that I found enough support to let go but since Dorothy’s “play”, the magic had been cut off. She was still alive though and I couldn’t get my self to leave her or Girard or my equally lost self!
I guess the problem is not in the fact that people are so sick as much as the fact that they are willing to hurt others. Dealing with Girard’s and all of Girard’s “problems” wasn’t something I wasn’t willing to work with, I knew most of it at the beginning, it was with the fact that the whole institution was geared towards hurting vulnerable people without the slightest discrimination and Girard was the mind that justified it all, what I could not deal with. How it actually worked was what I found out during those four years of marriage.
There are no regrets. Not for having been in or for having left, not for the blog or all its consequences. Not for the aloneness or the vituperation! I am glad to have lived.
Elena #208
These are some of the most insightful, touching and yes, beautiful words you have written for this blog.
Opus 11: Nothing like a little transparency to make us feel connected with each other. I think it’s great when people are able to speak their truths and take the chance of not everyone agreeing or understanding that truth. It helps all of us.
Kate has had a man try to kill her!!!!! She showed me the actual scars. And her step-daughter was raped several times before she was removed from his influence and he was put in a high-security prison. So I do not want to hear those stories (lies, actually,) about loving Girard. He is a toxic automaton and was from day-FOF-1. Cynthia (Power VANITY non-existence) and Elena (Power VANITY naivete) were much of a muchness in the pawning-politicaliality of the fucking fofferie….and it still continues. There, I made hints towards it previously, so this quaking declaration is no REAL SURPRISE.
My aim in the Fellowship????? – to achieve illumination – ACHIEVED MIGHTILY AND PERMANENTLY OVER YESTERDAY AND INTO NADIR AND RESTFUL PEACE WITH MY HEALER STUDENTS TODAY and so beyond we go, “we happy few”…..
…the undersigned…..
Whitman’s “Answerer” and he alluded to in “Isiah 42”.n.
quick or dead…..your choice!!!!!?????
Thank you Opus 111.
I’ve been saying the same thing for over two years. I’m just not screaming it out loud any more! It helps to feel well!
Nigel, Sorry to hear that you can only perceive one side of life at a time.
215 elena
Sorry that you do not have eyes to see!!!!!…..Nigel.
Elena have talked by telephone only once. The essence of the call was…..
I am sure of my avatarhood…..
“When an avatar awakens, it is for humanity”
“The temper by which right taste is formed is characteristically patient. It dwells upon what is submitted to it. It does not trample upon it,- lest it be pearls, even though it looks like husks. It is good ground, penetrable; retentive; it does not send up thorns of unkind thoughts, to choke the weak seed; it is hungry and thirsty too, and drinks all the dew that falls on it. It is an honest and good heart, and shows noty too ready before the sun be up, but fails not afterward; it is distrustful of itself, so as to be ready to try all things; and yet so trustful of itself, that it will, neither quit what it has tried, nor take anything without trying. And the pleasure which it has in things which it finds true and good, is so great, that it cannot possibly be led aside by any tricks of FASHION, OR DISEASES OF VANITY; IT CANNOT BE CRAMPED IN ITS CONCLUSIONS BY PARTIALITIES AND HYPOCRISIES; its visions and its delights are too penetrating, too living, – for any whitewashed object or shallow fountain long to endure or supply. It clasps all that it loves so hard that it crushes it if it be hollow.”
(‘Frondes Agrestes’ – Ruskin)
And Elena’s answer when I read that to her?????…..
Have fun!
Funny how Politically minded Mercs show their true colours, when you get nearer to them in person…..
I asked Elena, by private email, how to be the man I am to attract Kate’s LOVE, POSSIBLY – and I have my responded experiences to relate…..
1) a little silliness in taking the rise out of one’s one Jovial pomposity
2) surrender to the honour and hospitality of the pub (Bishop Blaize)
3) be passively around her whilst dancing in one’s personal delight
4) when the times are there to talk, admire how she has coped with
story of her life
5) the first goodnight kiss should be patiently waited for – parting
simplicities should be succinctly composed
“wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast” (Romeo and Juliet)
“The purpose of teaching is to ensure that learning takes place”…..Nigel.
Moderator: Can you please delete the last post from Atelierartisanal?
Bruce, #212, Another hot one. Thanks!
Subject: your letter of caution
From: aprhys@nigelprice.net
Copy of email to George, in Pacifca, Joda to my Skywalker (don’t go skyhigh with your ideas ,when you sixth chakra – ground base-root – nadir-bottom-out, if necessary to tremble (nerves and fear is edge – fear is not to be feared, fear is your companion)) a little above level…..
Dear George
You are as correct about people as my father is correct about money dealings. My strength at present is that I can ‘drop little pebbles of ideas in the pond’ and let the client ‘ripple with them’. I am not so desperate these days to ‘get the cash in’ as those days were in Sausalito. My father has set up a trust/bond with my grandmother’s, mother’s and Mary’s buying the half of father’s house legacy and that pays for my council apartment rent and utilities (including my broadband connection!). I get a £92.82/month annuity from surrendering my ‘stakeholder pension’ and, added to that, £179.40 as Disability Living Allowance every 4 weeks. The business is the ‘cream on top’ – it pays for the extras I want. Maybe that is putting it too flippantly, since it is both social and psychologically balancing for me and allows me to pass on to others the gift of being able to craft in precious metals, which gives me a ‘wealth of pleasure’.
The Scotts and Chehabis of this world are far behind and I do not have to keep on nagging for commissions. And I pay a middle-of-the-road price for my outworkers without having to pay loud-mouthed rip-off merchants like Katzmann. There is no need to worry about me, George, but I still value your advice. I learned a little about Robert Wallace from his wife, Meg – she is the quiet and creatively nourishing partner – when they came into the studio to finish/polish the rings, she had finished her own ring in a ‘cherished fashion’, while ‘Basher Bob’ was still hacking away at his. This is the plan – let a good idea sink in and let him think it was he who dreamed it up – he has enough dominance and vanity.
Over to you for the next installment of ‘Nigel meets Reality’…..Nigel.
Nigel,
It’s strange when a friend turns against one because he didn’t like the advice he asked for. But I am a Fellowship member: nothing too low is too surprising.
Nigel :
I realize that perhaps ‘anything goes’ on the blog, and yet I cannot see why you would wish to take private phone and e-mail conversations and ‘air’ them here. It feels like an attack, and an attack on someone who has supported you in the past. ???????????
Good grief! I take some comfort–cold comfort that it is–from the impression that nearly everyone contributing of late is quite insane. Certainly I seem to be. First I took that quiz about personality disorders and found I should not be allowed out without two keepers, a leash, and wearing a muzzle like the Hannibal Lecter one. Then I watched the Youtube posted by Another Name (220?)and couldn’t tell whether it was a satire or for “real” or whether it mattered. I think I will just curl into a fetal position and suck my thumb for a while.
Here’s an idea; let’s shut the blog down for the weekend and take a break for a couple of days.
New Page