Fellowship Of Friends/Pathway To Presence Discussion – Part 91 March 31, 2010
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Welcome to the newest page of the Fellowship of Friends/Pathway To Presence 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 Discussionblog, 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.
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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/
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Fellowship of Friends - Living Presence Discussion 
Hello FoF Bloggers,
I have some documents that I would like to place on:
fellowshipoffriends.wikispaces.com/Archives
under:
Fellowship of Friends in books and news
or
FoF page at:
archive.org
Can someone tell me how to best do that anonymously?
Thank you.
Hi Folks,
I would like to apologize to each and every one of you for the obnoxious behavior I managed to get to in my frustration with this whole issue that led to my banning and ask to join this conversation again.
I am positively convinced that there are still a thousand ways to make this sad experience highly profitable for those who are still inside, those who have left and those who will hopefully never join!
273. Wouldnt You Like To Know:
“…it was called the Franklin Complex.
That’s right. Another rather forgettable name.
“…series of ponds…Christ Waters, and Lake Nancy”
Wow. Seriously? Christ Waters and Lake Nancy? That is just too good. I saw that and thought it was satire at first…
274. Jomo Piñata:
“No Kid, I’d be interested to know whether the following document provides any fodder for your recollections: http://bit.ly/bCy16f”
Yes. That is pretty much the roster from the early days.
Associated Press/1
Information about uploading material to archive.org appears here:
http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php#Uploading_Content
Hi fofblogmoderator,
This blog connected to Anderson Cooper’s exposure of scientology is worth participating to denounce the Fellowship.
2 & 5 are new
*
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. [e.e. cummings]
What will they think of next?!
*
Golden Veil,
I enjoyed your video and so did my dog who was watching with me. I then put the translator on him and he said while holding his front legs on his eyes “What you doing in there, are you in for another round of applause?”
It IS so good to laugh! I’ve missed you all well but the pause was great! Thanks!
Anderson Cooper at CNN (TV) is holding the scientology interview tonight at ten in case you’re interested in watching it.
2. Elena
Wholeheartedly welcome back
I am not a very active member in this Blog. Personally I am all for for letting go. When I left, at the beginning, I was obsessed with keeping in touch and collecting information about “What is going on”.
Later on I realized that if I keep on holding the FoF in my mind I will fail to recover, mostly financially. When I left I was literally broke with no money even for descent food. Now I am in a prosperous situation.
Today I know that there must be balance between the “role” of exposing RB evil deeds and the possibility of unwillingly becoming obsessed with the FoF.
I think of the heart and mind of some folks here who left 20-30 years ago and are still full of bitterness. I think it is important to realize that this Blog is not necessarily a replacement for psychological and mental help.
Hello Someone,
Have a happy leave. Don’t worry about what others are doing or judging that they are obsessed with something you’re not. The Fellowship Cult is just one small phenomenon in a big world and everything that happens in there is happening in different versions outside and in other cults. It is not the cults that matter but people’s lives. My responsibility as a human being is to take my small experience and understand the big lesson in the hope that others will profit from my experience and not make the same mistakes. Taking care of our selves and our lives does not mean we are obsessed with a subject. One does not need to be identified to carry out one’s work or live one’s life and the most precious aspect of any life is that which one shares with others.
The cult phenomenon is something of our times. It is good to live fully in the time one belongs to and I consider it an honor to have shared that terrible experience with the members of the Fellowship cult and consequently be able to digest it with them. Had I loved it any less, I would not have married the second in command! I wish we could use his brains to untangle the mess he managed to get himself and so many of us in.
I am presently trying to write a book and would like to share some of it here so that it will hopefully get destroyed if it’s not worth it before any paper is wasted on it! In one chapter I argue that the tendency in cults to lead to suicide like those in the People’s Temple in Jonestown where 918 Americans died, Solar Temple -74, Heaven’s Gate – 39, the Movement for the restoration of the Ten Commandments – 778, is due to the fact that members are psychologically deformed so substantially that killing or dying is the culmination of an ongoing process and not just an accident.
I affirm that when the guru finally asks for the member’s lives, (and in all of them I found the same structures were in place as those in the Fellowship cult with a very interesting difference which is that the overt violence of places like Jonestown, is strongly “introverted” in the Fellowship cult, “introverted” and “refined”, using alchemy itself to impose the restrictions) having the members already surrendered their emotional life: family, husband, wife, children, friends, mankind to blind idolatry for the guru; their intellectual expansion: reducing themselves to quotes from the teacher and his choices and their “self”: replacing their capacity to take decisions on their personal as much as social lives, death comes as a liberation from an unbearable situation in which they have already sacrificed most of their being.
This is roughly the outline of that chapter. I would much appreciate it if those who have read extensively on cults and have seen other authors addressing the issue of suicide would let me know in what book I can find a related piece.
I believe those of us who have closely lived such process and freed our selves from it can shed a great deal of light on it in the hope that it will not continue to repeat itself endlessly.
Thank you for sharing. Elena
I’m glad you bring that up, because many people have used the FOF as “a replacement for psychological and mental help.” People feel lost in the world, or out of place, so they turn to a manipulative guru to lead the way. It’s a simple formula for many cults.
One word in your post was interesting… “balance.” Imv, as long as people are balancing their commentary with positive steps in their lives, releasing their thoughts in a blog is a good thing. If people do that, there’s no need to worry about being “obsessed” or “bitter.”
Be sure to take some of your own advice as you deliver it. If you’ve moved on, then move on. If you think bitterness is a bad thing, then let go of your bitterness toward the blog — which expresses itself in your persistent comments that people just need to move on. It seems like you’re having trouble letting go of the idea of letting go. Be the words (which by the way is one of the best ideas conveyed in the FOF, but one of the least applied).
Negative comments about the FOF are not by definition coming from “bitterness” and “obsession.” But even if there is some occasional bitterness, my question is why that’s a bad thing. Some of the best medicine has a bitter taste to it. And the end result is a type of cleansing. Of course, you don’t want to be consumed by it, and that’s where balance comes in.
If the topic of the moment is imbalance and obsession and bitterness, take a closer look at the FOF… scorning the world of sleeping machines who just can’t see the way — who somehow can’t see the belovedness in the beloved teacher. What’s wrong with them? And now, instead of quietly leaving us alone, they mock us with their critical and very public commentary. That is bitterness, too. That is obsession, too. That is imbalance, too. That is the FOF.
We don’t usually see the negativity that radiates from Burton’s ideas, because they’re delivered with a soft voice and a smile. But listen more closely.
Well stated, meow!
Dear Someone,
I am very grateful to those who shouted at my face with all their anger and bitterness and fears and inability to let go…. They gave me the wake-up call I needed to pack my bags and run with no looking back…
I would not worry about the “others” if I were you… Take care you do not sink into a blissful “relativity” state as we were so well-instructed in the Cult…
I am off to enjoying a lovely Eastern Weekend, with no agendas, extra luggage and “efforts to transform one’s misery.” Misery that is being presented as some kind of necessary evil in the FOF (oh, yes, and not to forget the Pathway to Presence pretense…). Misery that believe me or not… Can be easily dropped very quickly after you drop the illusion of a “conscious teacher”, or even better said the illusion others can be better beings than you…
Life is sweet and Love does not hurt…
Happy Egg Hunting!
Dearest Elena
So glad to see you back after a while (is it about a year?). I have personally been away myself due to a broken router on my PC which has been fixed. More importantly, I have been away because of having to spend more time on my jewellery teaching business – http://www.apma-uk.co.uk – with more new students and profitable, both moneywise and artistically, commissions. I recognise the need to ‘let go’ and have now not much interest in bringing down REB and Co. (or at least less interest than some time ago when I was going into messianic modes). Real friends and real family for me now – plus an Easter Message to you all from Walt Whitman:-
“Always life, always inception”.
Nigel.
Hi Nigel, good to see you are well. I think it’s been about five months!
In another chapter of the book I’m trying to write, I state that the Fourth Way as presented by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky is essentially no different to other cults including the Christian religions.
In all of them there are a few basic premises such as a human and a divine realm, the relationship of the human to the divine and vice-versa, how the human can reach the divine through particular behavior and the relationship from human to human. It is no coincidence that the Fourth Way is presented as esoteric Christianity for in essence it adopts the same basic tenets.
I argue that the differences between the problems we face today are no different to those posed to people in Martin Luther’s time. What has changed is the number of people able to participate in the social processes due to democratic realities. The simple fact that more people are able to participate economically, socially and culturally and that the power relations between them is not as strongly tied to a unique hierarchic structure, gives room for not only greater freedom but also much more abuse. As the power of the king and the pope declines, we see the phenomenon of dictators and gurus trying to replace them each with their own particular agenda on what is right for the people. People remain, what changes is the relations between them.
What we also see is that in all times, the relations between people are tied to their relationship to the “goods” they share. Economic, cultural and social “goods” and how those goods are distributed is what determine the relationships between them as much as how each feels about his or herself.
The social, economic and political milieu in which an individual grows up, determines the way they will develop no differently than nature determines the way an animal behaves. Nature is to an animal what culture is to a man. They belong to each other as the dot to the line or the center to the periphery.
One of the great realities that the cult phenomenon is revealing is that the milieu to which people are submitted has the power to enslave them more deeply or free them more expansively in very short periods of time. We can see that the “milieu” has the capacity to lead people to massive suicide in periods no longer than weeks, months or years. Weeks in the internet mass suicides of Japan and years in the twenty-thirty year process of the People’s Temple (Jonestown). It would be very interesting to look closely at the social structures proper of Japan to understand the ingredients for the suicides. In my superficial knowledge of it, the impression is that it has been a very strict, formal society that has promoted suicide as a viable resolution to failure to act with honor in people of high rank but that has developed in modern times into very young people “joyfully” committing suicide because they deem themselves a failure before they even have or give themselves a serious opportunity to try. Statistics show that there are around 100 suicides per day in Japan. How what was once an “honorable solution” has turned inside out and against its own people, is something to look deeply into. It is as if the young Japanese today, were trying to tell their community that it has failed to honor them but instead of fighting against it, they sacrifice themselves to it and maintain it’s honor.
It is also interesting to look at how members of society are solving similar difficulties in western countries where teenagers are simply taking firearms and shooting at whoever got and gets in their way. They are both equivalent responses to different “milieus” and are both a profound scream for help from the younger generation to the older generation. Hopefully we will not take too much time to hear it.
9 Someone
“I think of the heart and mind of some folks here who left 20-30 years ago and are still full of bitterness.”
a recurring theme which “someone” continues to repeat here is the idea of “letting go” and moving on. to my way of thinking “letting go” does not imply forgetting, in fact if one were to blithely forget an incident which should otherwise serve as a real and true “life lesson,” this forgetfulness would by necessity lead to repeating the experience, albeit in some other form. to me, “letting go” requires firstly and ultimately, digesting of experience — this “digestion” implies in part, putting an experience into a proper perspective, seeing it in the larger context of one’s overall biography. in order to truly “let go” one thing is certain, it’s necessary to forgive one’s self. forgiveness of self only begins with digestion of the experience, then the “blame game” can take a positive turn and some measure of wisdom is distilled from the experience. connected to all of this is getting deep inside of and understanding one’s feelings, including the “bitterness” which may be the (literal and metaphorical) medicine in the pill of an experience.
when “someone” is “20 – 30 years” removed from the experience maybe s/he will understand how this works (?).
15 ton
You are one of those people with spiritual common sense. I know, in the past, you have helped me through ‘crazy times’. Strangely, though, this being Easter, I should be in a ‘soaring high’ – but no – just a gentle positivity with plenty of rest before the crative season of Spring. When we talk of balance, we must know ourselves in all our aspects and walk boldly towards the future but, as you mention, learning from the past. Life and joy to all of us…..Nigel.
Hi Elena, again…..
I had a chance to view the few pages that are on your Public Square site. I feel you are as determined as ever to speak out against the FOF and cults in general. That being so , I think I must be supportive of all efforts here to expose the FOF and REB to close scrutiny, since I was one of those who survived the psychological and financial pressures of the cult (the scars of hell or “mestatized at the fingertips” as one student poetically wrote about my suicidal injuries remind me that there was a reason I survived).
I cannot be sure whether REB is inwardly quaking in his boots and putting on a brave face or whether he is just so pathologically far gone that nothing bothers him. Either way, we must keep probing away at his bubble…..Nigel.
Hi Nigel and All,
I am glad to hear you still have some enthusiasm. I am definitely not more determined to speak out against the Fellowship of Friends Cult than I am about speaking against myself or anyone else in this wide world. The problems at hand will not be solved by pointing at anyone but by exploring what in everyone tends to lead to crime and by crime I understand people who systematically act against their own self or that of others. Cults are just one amongst many of such groups. Perhaps the most tragic aspect about them is the willingness with which people walk to their own destruction convinced that they are going to heaven. When I look at similar phenomenon happening the world over in places as disparate as Sweden, Japan and Colombia, the urgency to understand what is actually happening simply triples itself.
I’ve been indulging in intense research on suicide and sexuality, religion and power but it feels like I have barely scratched the road that is to be tred. It is truly very exiting! One of the authors I’ve been digging deeply on is Michel Foucault and great as he is looking at each particular phenomenon and revealing worlds within worlds as he goes by, I’ve had the feeling that he is also simply scratching on the problem and that while he is a master at understanding some aspects of the problems, he doesn’t grasp the whole picture. Who could? Maybe no one is meant to grasp the whole picture and we’re all justly destined to reflect the piece that didn’t get lost in our own mirror. He and other equally great authors such as Jurgen Habermas seem to be looking at sides of the elephant and not the whole elephant as I believe a System tries to encompass and yet if we look at, for example the Fourth Way System as presented by Gurdjieff, it is so weak in the area of society that it lent itself to Robert’s separation from “life” and make of that weakness a tool for the development of the cult. I believe Rodney Collin tried to balance that but drastically bounced off religion when he thought that people in essence could take on the responsibility of consciously caring for others. They do it naturally as far as they can in their own sphere.
The more I look, the more it seems to me that Robert and the gurus of cults are as much the victims as the members. The fact that they commit suicide together at the end of the play in the classic “cult”, does not reveal a man who fooled the rest and got away with it but a man that is as deeply enmeshed in the problem as everyone else in the play. Robert to me is not self-destructing any less than the rest of the members. He is a man incapable of love and that already reveals someone who is pretty destroyed. Like Jim Jones, who boasted that he could have sex 15 times a day, the chaos and manipulation of his sexuality simply reveals the lack of focus of his own emotional sphere. It is very superficial to think that one man alone can make a thousand people poison themselves to death and the wonder of realizing that is the beginning of understanding that not only do people influence each other but that life itself is an objective reality that has the capacity to lead people to their destruction or their realization; that the “WAY WE LIVE” with each other, the way we interact and the things we do, has a dialectic power to recreate the “social” through culture and the individual through his personal participation in that culture: his “Work”.
The question then is: Why does life in cults lead to destruction? One possible answer is that people do not work from their self, that is, their own I is not active in the work they perform. Having given up their will to the guru they become automatons without soul and shun “culture” or creativity, which needs the inspiration that comes from the sphere of the I. They continue to “function” but without “life”. In that sacrifice of their “self” and surrender to the guru’s will, they, consequent to the premise, self-destroy. The actual ritual of “dying” is the culminating realization of what they had lived for: self-sacrifice. The tragic lesson that comes from such cults is not that the human being is a destructive entity willing to self destroy but that the human being is an entity willing to sacrifice itself for its ideals and that in the childlike immaturity of our being today, we give ourselves up naively to people as immature as our selves and who self-destroy together with us. That we all have to take responsibility for the problems because not one of us is able or capable to do so no matter how much power we give him or how willingly he takes the job.
The next question could be: Why are we living through a period of equally decadent culture in the world today? Another possible aspect of the answer is that like in cults, the majority of people work not because they are creatively inspired to do so but because they are tied to the economic profit and not the human gain, whether they are in the lower or upper classes. The production of millions of things that are not only not necessary but harmful to the world at large, using and abusing not only the material but human resources, creates, like in cults, a mechanism that tends to self-destruction. People in cults are trying to compensate what people in life are unable to offer: their capacity to sacrifice their own greed for the well being of the whole.
The election of Mr. Obama in the United States as much as the new direction in politics as presented by Sarkozy in his visit to the US, seems to carry an awareness of the problem that such “market” driven world was leading to, so I am much more optimistic about the future than I was when I was “pulled out” of the Fellowship cult by this blog. That alone makes it a worth while reason to keep supporting this blog in the hope that others inside will hold on to it to take a step outside. We are here to help you inside be less afraid of such a step. It is so beautiful to feel the expansion of one’s own self over the whole of the wide world without the constraints of a destructive little cult that I wholeheartedly invite each member inside to try it out for yourselves. This “life” is your life! You do not need to sacrifice your selves to show the world how willing you are to help it. Enough people have already done that in other cults. You will help yourselves and others more, not by self-destroying but by self-constructing through patient and gradual participation in the world at large. We are One! And it is a “magnificent” world!
Elena writes
“by crime I understand people who systematically act against their own self or that of others”
“Perhaps the most tragic aspect about them is the willingness with which people walk to their own destruction convinced that they are going to heaven”
“he (Rodney Collin) thought that people in essence could take on the responsibility of consciously caring for others. They do it naturally as far as they can in their own sphere”
“life itself is an objective reality that has the capacity to lead people to their destruction or their realization”
“people do not work from their self, that is, their own I is not active in the work they perform. Having given up their will to the guru they become automatons without soul and shun “culture” or creativity, which needs the inspiration that comes from the sphere of the I”
“the majority of people work not because they are creatively inspired to do so but because they are tied to the economic profit and not the human gain”
“We are here to help you inside be less afraid of such a step. It is so beautiful to feel the expansion of one’s own self over the whole of the wide world without the constraints of a destructive little cult that I wholeheartedly invite each member inside to try it out for yourselves”
Elena…..
I remember one of the Renaissance Vine editions encouraging students to train in computer engineering and allied jobs. So much for the growth of Essence!?!?! I managed to gain my Honours degree in Craft Design (having joined the FOF half-way through my course) and saved up money as a handyman in the London Centre to go to California to train as a precious-metal craftsman, which caused a psychological (due to the stress of working within the FOF) and financial (due to teaching – ha-ha! – payments) downward spiral until that fateful day of 11 June 1989. Despite many attempts to ‘spiritually’ and ‘essentially’ get back on my feet, it was not until 2003 that the ‘picture changed’ – learning to teach my precious craft discipline. I now have a beautiful little school with beautiful, striving students. THE PAYMENT WAS WORTH IT when I look back now. And I see so many ex-students have been able to ‘get back on their feet’ essentially. I hope you, Elena, and other students both in and out of the FOF will gain from this post…..
THIS IS THE WAY IN WHICH I WISH TO CARE FOR YOU ALL…..Nigel.
You all might like this little quote that my friend, George, in Pacifica, sent me…..Nigel
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” – Carl Jung
why / how a person is drawn into a cult and then controlled by cult indoctrination ? at a stage in their development, an individual searches for meaning and direction in life. when the person is young and relatively inexperienced (as was true in my case), they lack the life-experience and therefore the genuine ability to reflect and look “within” in a relevant / meaningful way, and so, a young person who seeks to understand the “deeper” questions, might “naturally” (easily) latch onto a “system” which seems to contain at least the possibility for answers to the “deep” questions — or maybe it’s the other way ’round — a “system” latches onto the seeker. the pervasive conditioning of people in today’s materialistic culture is such that it creates in the individual a tendency to look outside of themselves for gratification and fulfillment, so it’s not surprising when the inexperienced seek outside of themselves for the satisfying of answers regarding “matters of the spirit.”
part of the packaging is the representative (or representatives) of “the system,” an authority figure (or figures) who are (of course) also “outside” of the seeker. once the seeker believes he’s found “IT,” then all that is required is a few suggestions by the representative(s) of outside authority, in order to sow the seeds of control which are internalized and quickly grow into auto-suggestion, auto-regulation and the invisible chains and limitations imposed by self-supervision.
the antecedents involve cultural conditioning and a form of mind-control initiated by cult indoctrination, but mind-control is internally perpetuated by the cult member herself…. this represents a type of “invisible omniscience” extended by the “guru” over the flock. the good news is, since mind-control is for the most part self-inflicted, breaking the chains is very much within the power of the individual so afflicted…
“Most god men are self-proclaimed, and they are being increasingly outed as hypocrites and fakes,” said Ravi Ghatge, a retired banker in Bangalore. “Then everybody finds out that there is not an iota of spirituality in any of them,” he added.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/swami-sex-scandals-have-i_n_525752.html
A serious look at scientology. It’s amazing that the Fellowship cult didn’t need a third of the paraphernalia to drive people as crazy as these. Just alchemy… we fell with just the good looks!
There has been much in the news about school children and bullying lately. One high profile case where the young teen girl committed suicide. Just wanted to share an experience I had with my son attending the Lewis Carroll School. He was in the third grade and was being bullied by an older boy. This boy was the son of one of Robert’s favorites at the time. My son came home saying he wanted to kill himself because of the abuse (some of it physical). I addressed the issue with his teacher J_n_t. Nothing was done. I took him out of Lewis Carroll and enrolled him in public school. Not long after I was called with a message from Robert, “You are traitor to c influence.”
I have NO REGRETS
http://www.xenutv.com/blog/?p=4685#respond
and a very interesting blog follows the interviews.
25. wildz
An “I” I find useful to work with is “Fuck Robert”.
yes, Bruce, thank you. I am a Mama Bear!!!! and F___ R_____
Dear wildz:
Please forward case file for J_n_t.
I’ll look into it.
Sincerely,
Richard Boone
PS. Ames, you may be called in on this one.
19 “We are One!”
“The oneness doctrine appeals to modern westerners because it seems less authoritarian and easier to reconcile with science than western theologies, but it is riddled with contradictions. It takes an individual, after all, to experience oneness; moreover, the concept of oneness has within it a hidden duality that leads to a hierarchical division of reality. Oneness ideologies denigrate individuality as illusory and self-interest as sinful, the source of all suffering and evil.
Buddhism and Hinduism in particular postulate the existence of certain rare beings who have transcended their individuality and thus experience oneness in a deep and abiding fashion. These are the enlightened ones, gurus, masters, sages, avatars. The very nature of any structure that makes one person superior to others breeds authoritarianism, indeed, gurus are the ultimate authority figures. The guru insists that the path to enlightenment comes through surrender to him. The guru claims that those who devote themselves to him will be rewarded with bliss, self-knowledge, immortality, states that are conveniently as difficult to reach as they are compelling. The guru projects an air of absolute certainty not only about his enlightenment but about almost all matters. When criticized, the guru accuses the critic of being mired in illusion and egotism, which the guru, of course, has transcended.
Both as individuals and as a species, we face real-world problems, some of which threaten our very existence. Spirituality can help motivate us to address these problems by boosting our empathy for our fellow humans and for all of life. But spirituality should incorporate reason as well as emotion and intuition, and it should be embedded in daily life, not separate from it.”
——————————————————–
23
“Sceptic challenges guru to kill him live on TV….
Since richer, urban Indians have little time for long pilgrimages or pujas (prayer ceremonies), they are often attracted by holy men who offer instant gratification — for a fee.”
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=10282
Hello Ton,
What an elegant way of questioning a statement.
The idea of We are One or All is One I believe, has been experienced by Westerners of our times when they are tripping on drugs, when an afternoon is too awesome to avoid it or when making love, the whole cosmos participates as much as when they sit peacefully with each other and listen to music, talk things over or cuddle around their children. Such experiences include the kind of Oneness that I am talking about. In addition I believe children are naturally closer to the experience of Oneness; that we all know what it tastes like when we remember ourselves as children for children are not born with the deformed perception of the world that comes with separatist concepts and behavior present in classicism, academicism, “groupalism”, racism and nationalism. Humanism as a doctrine would tend to become as “separationist” as any of those isms and maybe that is its destiny, but Humanism as an inner reality of the individual as much as a social practice amongst communities would tend to make Oneness a reality when, beyond our religious beliefs and nationalities, we begin to share in the life of this Earth as Human Beings.
I believe people already have experiences of Oneness in our lives without having ever tried to have it and that the experience of that Oneness is powerfully expressed in the integrity of people still connected to nature and their nature. The pathologic disconnectedness to our selves and others seems to have come with the industrial revolution and particularly the human misery that came with such process in which the whole purpose of “work” and “life” became “economic survival”. Alcoholism in Russia, drugs in the States and Europe and suicide in Japan could be better understood if we realize the extent to which people’s lives no longer matter in those societies, what matters, like in the Fellowship cult, is how much is you are worth, how much do you produce? And then by standardizing that amount that people produce with an average wage, that production becomes a massive phenomenon in which individuals have no meaning and their place in society is just a number: an “employee”. That is deadly for the soul and culture of the human being as an individual as much as a community. People are so uninspired in these societies that we get phenomenon like the 23 suicides of the telecom company in France in the past two years, many actually leaving letters stating that they cannot bear the work environment. The corporate world has become a cult of its own.
So as not to extend too much here, let me conclude saying that the experience of Oneness as I am understanding it today, is “life-giving” and we actualize it by the “spirit” within our “acts”. Everything a person does separates or unites him with the rest of the world. Pathological separation leads to destruction in a process of crime. Most people live consciously or unconsciously uniting and separating with the rest of the world. Cults are unconsciously separating from the rest of the world until they suffocate in their pathologic individualism. No matter how “humanistic” their ideals, their practices are anti-humanistic and that makes them implode rather than evolve! Healthy communities allow for healthy union between their individuals and healthy individuals promote healthy communities. These promote culture: a life giving force from the community to the individuals and from the individuals to the community in a dialectic embrace. “The” Culture in which the individual grows up and participates inspires his work and his work inspires his culture or hers! Where there is no culture there is no inspiration, where there is no inspiration, there is no spirit, where there is no spirit, people enter a process of crime. Inspiration cannot live in dogmatism, the greatest challenge Humanists would face, is not to allow Humanism to become a doctrine.
31. “Both as individuals and as a species, we face real-world problems, some of which threaten our very existence. Spirituality can help motivate us to address these problems by boosting our empathy for our fellow humans and for all of life. But spirituality should incorporate reason as well as emotion and intuition, and it should be embedded in daily life, not separate from it.”
ton, thank you for sharing such a beautiful quotation, the above being just one part. (who’s it from?)
Yes, I think when someone says “we are one”, maybe they really meant to say, “We are connected.”
Or maybe, they meant to say:
“Life has more meaning and I feel healthier, stronger, happier, more productive, and more natural when I feel a sense of connectedness to others, to nature, and to the universe as a whole. When my sense of self is dependent upon feeling separate and superior to others, to nature, and to the universe, inevitably things goes awry.”
The desire for separateness and superiority leads to all sorts of inhumanity, crime, war, religious fundamentalism, as well as the gurus described in your quote above, and the cult followers who follow them.
The “air of absolute certainty” that *our* guru conveyed was telling. Nothing escaped that. He had an “air of absolute certainty” about small things and large things. He knew that everyone was doomed who did not support his enterprise. And he also had an “air of absolute certainty” that everyone who *did* support his enterprise were fortunate and blessed. He knew with an “air of absolute certainty” what happened to each one of us when we died. The only criteria for his certainty was whether someone joined the Fellowship of Friends, left the Fellowship of Friends, or never joined the Fellowship of Friends — which, when you think about it, is an insane view of the world. But depending on which of the above categories, a person’s fate was known with an “air of absolute certainty.”
Feelings of connectedness often radiate from a sense of mystery about the world, about ourselves, about others, about nature, about the universe, and about the existence of all of us, as well as the trees, the animals, the rocks, the ocean, and the stars. Believing that we know with certainty “what this is” takes away that sense of mystery. Regaining that is a powerful healing force.
~~~~~~~
From Song of the Universal
…All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all,
Nature’s amelioration blessing all,
The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.
Give me O God to sing that thought,
Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,
Health, peace, salvation universal.
Is it a dream?
Nay but the lack of it the dream,
And failing it life’s lore and wealth a dream,
And all the world a dream.
~Walt Whitman
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bernard Berenson who wrote:
“The older I get, the more the mystery thickens.”
Elena,
Yes, your use of the word separation makes sense to me. A lot of pathos comes from a fear of feeling *too* connected — to others, to nature, to new ways of thinking, and to new knowledge — and to just fear in general. It’s resistance. So, people often combat the fear by separating themselves (me too). Speaking for myself, I think leaving the cult was anything but a separation — it was actually a profound act of connecting.
It is clear that both the Fellowship and Scientology share a special feature,” THE MERCHANDISING OF GOD, Rooted in a influence ,’the church of selling god’ is a tricky business at it’s best.
“What IS important is that the basic motive is to take the victim to the cleaners for every dollar he has or can beg, steal, or borrow. And it’s incredible how much money the hypnotized disciples of a clever and ruthless operator will plead and of him to accept from them”. Volney Mathison – original inventor of the E meter
Both Fellowship and Scientology compete with children/family for the time and resources of the parents.And children, who are of no value to Business/Church, tend to be marginalized and allowed to suffer. Or made to suffer by work and emotional/financial neglect.
Both Robert and L Ron suffered from a megalomaniac desire to interfere with the parent/child relationship.
My daughter remembers when she was asked to refer to us as ‘mother and father’. She remembers feeling confused and irritated by Robert and his frivolous, manipulative requests.
silentpurr, thanks for another loud roar.
I’m glad people are shedding some light on the effects of this cult on children. I hope more people check in and tell their stories – of all ages.
If you’re out there reading some of this and wondering if anyone cares… yes, they care. Please write your thoughts here, no matter how young, or how old.
—–
25. wildz
Unbelievable.
Or… actually, it’s all too believable.
32 Elena
“….the greatest challenge Humanists would face, is not to allow Humanism to become a doctrine.”
if it has “ism” or “ist” as a suffix,
it ALREADY IS “a doctrine.”
i’m reminded of this:
“In a way ideologies are drug fixes, because they fix some certain kind of mental disequilibrium. You just give yourself a shot of Marxism or Hegelian idealism and say, ‘Oh, that makes the pain go away!’ ” terrence mckenna
33 Thot — John Horgan (Rational Mysticism)
Hi Ton,
Would you say that reductionism is quite an obstacle too?
For you with love!
Actually Ton, the observation is very valuable, the problem is hardly ever in the doctrine but in the way it is lived out. We are after all, still trying to be human!
“There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty that makes human nature rise above itself in acts of bravery and heroism” Alexander Hamilton
Hey Elena
Why are some of your posts coming up as ‘Adober Readable Only’?…..Nigel
True, humanism is a doctrine. Not to get too involved with translating here, but I think what Elena is suggesting is that one (a.k.a., Juan) can transform humanism into something that’s more than a doctrine.
[I’m not sure that’s exactly what she’s saying, though.]
But by becoming an actual humanist — not someone who studies it in books or professes to be one — you transcend the doctrine or the idealogy. You become the words.
Doctrines and ideologies are maybe a formalized or structured set of ideas — a set of organized thoughts. That’s good, but if they don’t go beyond that, and if we don’t think about them critically occasionally, maybe the drug analogy is perfect… We not only use them as a drug fix (as TMcK said), but we become addicted to them. And worse yet, the doctrine morphs into something the opposite of what we believed it was right before our eyes — and unfortunately often without us noticing it.
“…the problem is hardly ever in the doctrine but in the way it is lived out. We are after all, still trying to be human!”
i strongly disagree that “the problem is hardly ever in the doctrine.” where you get all tangled up is in the “trying” – do you imagine that you’ll get it all figured out at some point down the road?
to simply be a human being… imagine that.
Thanks Thot for reading between the lines… is that how you say it? Connectedness is a question of grammar!
Oh Ton, isn’t it wonderful that we can disagree and still swim in this pool?
If you haven’t seen this film, please give yourself the pleasure
but this one is shorter if you prefer!
if only we’d been this clever!
30 — Agent 45/ Richard Boone
You can contact me at mom.victoria@gmail.com
Thanks for your interest!
If someone is writing a summary on JntC I would like to speak on her behalf. Without her help, they would have probably taken Dorothy Beaulieu to the old people’s home which is what Robert asked for and E.B and the other ladies in charge were eager to carry out. I told E.B. that if she did that I would leave the Fellowship the next day and Jnt called me later that evening and told me it wouldn’t happen. Somehow they actually overstepped Robert and let it fall through. Somewhere in this blog is that story.
I hope no one ever forgets that these people are all doing what they are doing because they are in a cult convinced that they are sacrificing their lives under the guidance of a divine being no matter how sick it is when looked at from the outside. Deprogramming these people should be “a labour of love”! even if that included the courts.
I commend what j_n_t did for Dorothy. She was also wonderful with some of the children under her care. However, her care did not go beyond what was comfortable for her. She was not willing to support my child over the lover of Robert.
That was true of my daughter too Wildz. She trained Girard’s son to give a talk when they were eight years old and she trained my daughter to talk after his son. She trained Girard’s son beautifully and mine poorly and then exposed them. I felt anger and shame but never said anything to anyone about it. But if I started telling such a stories about the Fellowship they wouldn’t stop beginning with the fact that no one who ever had a position in which they could have helped me, was willing to give me a paid job. I always worked for them as a volunteer! Even my husband wouldn’t pay for my medicines when I got sick supporting him on one of his trips!
I realize it is very important to shed light on all these little and big pains that we have but are these stories going to help any one of them still inside step outside? And isn’t that what really matters? Perhaps they won’t help in the short term but life is long enough to remind us of our actions. Not one of these pains is powerful enough to wish any of these people any harm. Those in the inner circle are in fact the most harmed. Those who actually took Robert on high and committed serious acts against themselves and their children, abandoning them, are the worst victims. As I said to one of them once: yes, you did that, take it and suffer it and then be there for it. All we can do is face our selves. Compassion is born in that suffering.
Parallel to denouncing these acts it would be wonderful if we could create a site of support where whoever can offer anything, offers it. “Institutionalizing” this help even with just a page, will send a very clear message of non-judgement to those inside and clear us about what our intentions here actually are.
I would still like to offer a place of rest for anyone inside if they wish to take it. Resting, just resting and having time for one’s self in the cottage in the Caribbean has been wonderfully healing for me. It is an ongoing offer. Take a few months off for your self and think it over without even committing to leaving the Fellowship, that would not be a condition. Just give yourself the opportunity to breathe outside for some time.
Elena wrote…..
“All we can do is face our selves. Compassion is born in that suffering.”
…..I would add – “However long it takes”…..Nigel
I didn’t consider it little. My son came home telling me he wanted to KILL himself. I am, and remain, a MAMA BEAR!
This may sound funny, but it was part of my “disentanglement process”, hving come out of the FOF. In 1991/2 I was involved with a Secondary Education Training Program. I thought I was going to learn to be a Craft, Design and Technology Teacher and take the qualification back to the Fellowship at Renaissance (never happened, obviously, and I was actually leading up to my first Mental Health Sectioning). The question I would like to lay open at this juncture is – what was the purpose of the Lewis Carroll School? Was it part of the ‘cultural ark’ and allowing the children a broad and liberal education for ‘fitting in’ or are those children, now young adults, involved with ‘alphanumerical professions’ or otherwise. What went right and what went wrong? Is there still some form of education in the Fellowship for youngsters? I hope the answers to these questions may prove enlightening…..Nigel.
I’ve got nothing on my mind: nothing to remember,
Nothing to forget. and I’ve got nothing to regret,
But I’m all tied up on the inside,
No one knows quite what I’ve got;
And I know that on the outside
What I used to be, I’m not anymore.
You know I’ve heard about people like me,
But I never made the connection.
They walk one road to set them free
And find they’ve gone the wrong direction.
But there’s no need for turning back
`cause all roads lead to where I stand.
And I believe I’ll walk them all
No matter what I may have planned.
Can you remember who I was? can you still feel it?
Can you find my pain? can you heal it?
Then lay your hands upon me now
And cast this darkness from my soul.
You alone can light my way.
You alone can make me whole once again.
We’ve walked both sides of every street
Through all kinds of windy weather.
But that was never our defeat
As long as we could walk together.
So there’s no need for turning back
`cause all roads lead to where we stand.
And I believe we’ll walk them all
No matter what we may have planned.
“Crossroads” – Don McLean
45 is new
Wildz,
Thank you for repeating that “little” detail that easily escapes readers who are, even like myself, “just” reading a blog and often forget to hear the tragedy. Please also note that I said that if anyone is doing a summary on JntC I “simply” wanted to speak on her behalf. With that I did not mean to stop you or anyone else from looking at our suffering, what I meant is that all the sides need to be seen so that we are swift in our judgement and can still help those inside leave and not continue to hide in there because they think we’ll burn them at the stake if they come out and that their sacrifice will solve anything in this world. They already have too strong a tendency to go ahead with it.
The explosion of this blog three years ago should have been enough for all of them to leave but it is clear that they are too addicted to stop taking the drug because their concerned “family” asks them to.
45 elena
i know that “the moving finger writes… and moves on” — but before it’s buried, let’s review this short thread in the context of something called the “thought terminating cliche’ ” — the effect of which is to discontinue reflective conversation, replacing it with “emotionally appealing phrases.”
it started with “We are one!” — which lead me to an “elegant” (as you put it ) questioning of doctrinaire sloganeering. what followed was (imo) a brief but constructive conversation which only scratched the surface in getting beneath what is otherwise a thought terminating, emotionally appealing cliche. (regarding the individual, the processes of individuation and individualism v collectivism…. cultural programming, dominant paradigms, the ‘christian’ mythos, social conditioning, self-sacrifice, cults… the conversation could go much deeper).
and with my “elegant” questioning of doctrine, you post:
“Actually Ton, the observation is very valuable, the problem is hardly ever in the doctrine but in the way it is lived out. We are after all, still trying to be human!”
another emotionally appealing, thought terminating cliche’ — followed by another:
“Oh Ton, isn’t it wonderful that we can disagree and still swim in this pool?”
dismissal is complete when the subject changes – as it always does… “and having writ, moves on.”
“For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of ‘brainwashing under freedom’ to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments.”
noam chomsky
ton, I sense you’re concerned that when someone finds one doctrine or ideology that proves to be destructive in some way, and then leaps to yet another doctrine without thinking critically about it, they’re potentially replacing one harmful thing with another?
The root of the word indoctrination does happen to be doctrine.
Sometimes I think a potential antidote to that tendency to be consumed by any one ideology or doctrine — to getting sucked in (sorry for the expression) to any type of group thinking — is to be open to many doctrines, and to connect to many different groups. (without necessary “joining” them by the way).
But I guess it feels cozy and safe to have one doctrine, one ideology, one group, one leader, one nation, one religion, and to attach ourselves to that. Feels safer, but it’s often not so smart or wise, or in the end even safe at all. Even “non-dualism” becomes “dualistic” if you start approaching it in a certain way. The key is to reflect upon the idea, meditate on it, and take from it what is healthy and wise. Seems best whenever possible to avoid the labels — e.g., I’m a non-dualist, I’m a “student of the Fourth Way”, I’m a Democrat, I’m an American. We already start closing ourselves off from the rest of the world, and start down that path of becoming prone to indoctrination.
Or if I do call myself an American or attach any other label, doctrine, or ideology to myself — at least be able to say that I am also a resident of the world at large.
—
“And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”
JFK, June 1963
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkamericanuniversityaddress.html
Hello Nigel, You are the last person I spoke to before leaving the Fellowship. You phoned me at the Chautauqua house and congratulated us on the birth of our new baby boy. He is now 26.
I can remember empathizing with your having to call and congratulate new parents and then, with discomfort, ask for a donation to fund the creation of a Silver Fellowship Baptismal Bowl.
At that moment, I appreciated the call, but in denying the request, I felt newly freed!
Did it get made? How was it used?
I too am interested in the subject of the Fellowship’s methods of ‘teaching’ children.
Dear Ton who have consistently checked on me and kept biting at my heels in the hope that I will move a different way, I sincerely thank you for your insight on my recent participation.
I am afraid that like you, I also feel that you pick on a little something of everything I am saying and neglect to address the whole idea, which is all right. If that is all you can do here that is what I am willing to take from you. It is clear that I am little more than a sloganeer for you and if that is what I am, please keep repeating it that I might one day see it and that whoever is reading me is three times careful with what they are hearing.
I write what I believe and it is not that I am following a humanist doctrine that I read somewhere as Thot Plickens suggests but that I have come to understand for myself that everything that made and makes me inhuman towards others is based on some kind of imaginary separateness that I justify because they are different to me economically, socially, academically, nationally or racially. When work on my self began I repeatedly observed those things in me and the more I stopped expressing negativity towards others for these totally absurd reasons, the more I understood that behaving “consciously” for me meant behaving humanly. I am still far from being all the human I wish to become so I thank you for pushing me on. I am glad for you if you feel you have already reached such a condition.
It is also very clear to me that most people don’t understand each other because as soon as they meet they catalogue the other person so thoroughly that they either fall into deep identification wishing to attract that person or totally ignoring them. This too I’ve observed in myself.
I sincerely believe that WE, every human being alive today, can behave humanly at least towards a few people and that wars as they are being waged are not only not necessary but criminal. Since this is my belief the least I can do is to not carry out a war with you and the many here as I did before I was banned. We are not here to agree but to talk and listen and help each other and those inside who, some agree, would benefit from not continuing to sacrifice themselves in the Fellowship cult. It is the duty of a nation and every individual inside of it to stop its people from destroying themselves or others, some still try to help individuals who are about to commit suicide, why aren’t we helping those in cults when we know they are on that train? How many more people in cults have to die before laws are passed to control them? Laws that forbid every institution and cult and anyone with no matter what authority to act against people’s human rights? I am afraid we are far from human today and need laws that will protect us from our very powerful inhuman tendencies such as Fascism just half a century ago and the equally fascist activity of Israelis towards Palestinians today. It is a blessing that so many Jews are already acting against the State of Israel.
I am also not here to be attacked personally or attack you personally but to dialogue about our understandings. Before I was banned I was still so emotionally shocked by the cult experience that people who did not agree and support me in everything I said were perceived as people who did not love me and my self steam was so low that I turned very aggressive towards them. I am very sorry that I needed so much protection after the cult experience and did not look for it somewhere else. I am a little less vulnerable today and your agreeing or disagreeing with me is an opportunity for me to reflect on my understanding and continue to hold you because you are simply another human being with as much confusion and pain as I often experience. Where you not, you would have no difficulty being kind and generous. I do not ask you to love me but there is a huge difference between a conversation in which there is love and one in which there isn’t any. There is no love in your tone, no kindness and when there is no kindness, it is very easy to dismiss what is being said because the other person has in fact dismissed one and just picked up the piece of what one said and used it for his own interests. I sincerely do not know what your interest is but I get a feeling that you are not interested in me which is all right. We are not here to focus on my self but on life. We are fortunate to have the right to freedom of speech and do not need to share deep love to be able to practice it. That is what laws are for.
I can understand that I have hurt many of you in my previous participation on this blog. I have already asked you to forgive me but I cannot force you to forgive. We each come to that in our own time.
I also sincerely thank you for questioning my thinking. Let it get buried deep in the ground if there’s nothing worth sprouting in it. It seems to be helping me and I have not lived in vain, so hopefully it can be useful to others. I have actually nowhere found a simple understanding of what being human means for the individual and society “together”. History seems to be crowded with those who dealt with the inner side or the outer side without getting to the fact that they are too sides of the same coin: the human being. Everywhere people seem to agree that it is enough to be human with those one likes and agrees with, but not with those who do not belong to one’s class, race or nation. Humanism as I am understanding it means Humanism: we are all equals as human beings. We all have the same rights and freedoms:
Civil rights include:
Ensuring peoples’ physical integrity and safety.
Protection from discrimination on grounds such as gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, national origin, age, immigrant status, etc.
Equal access to health care, education, culture, etc.
Political rights include:
Natural justice (procedural fairness) in law (such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy)
Individual political freedom, including rights of individuals (freedom of thought and conscience, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of movement) and the right to participate in civil society and politics (freedom of association, right to assemble, right to petition, right to vote)
Civil and political rights comprise the first portion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with economic, social and cultural rights comprising the second portion). The theory of three generations of human rights considers this group of rights to be “first-generation rights”, and the theory of negative and positive rights considers them to be generally negative rights.
We are FAR in the world today from practicing these freedoms and rights and each and every one of these rights is horrifically abused in cults, which is the particular area that we are discussing in this blog.
My aim is to explore humanism as I understand it so deeply that there will be no doubt as to why we human beings cannot continue to allow these very destructive cults to proliferate in our societies. My aim I believe is to a certain extent your aim. May we at least share that portion of the effort even if we only get a third of the way. Others will surely pick up where we left off.
58 Elena Larsson
I started composing a little statement about the Ceremonial Set, as the first major silversmitihing commission I had and how I died to the trade with my mental disorder and became reborn in the teaching of it to others. The ‘thread got lost’ and I have had to say it concisely, but I remember this song being ‘bandied’ as an example of the willfullness feature. How far from the truth can you get…..Nigel.
And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I traveled each and ev’ry highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way
I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way,
“Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way”
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!
Yes, it was my way
Further to answer Elena L. …..
This frigging money situation that made everyone uncomfortable …. for God’s sake it almost cost me my life. The other Elena (married Haven) has opened so many doors to the beautiful tool of self-questioning that leads to the Free State of Selfhood in Service of Humanity. The willingness to give, to the extent that it hurts our very being, but those are growing pains to Soul Maturity. I think we can all recognize ‘surfacey’ people and we can all recognize those who are the Survivors and Followers of Destiny. Blessings…..Nigel.
Nigel, can you explain what you mean by :
“I think we can all recognize ’surfacey’ people and we can all recognize those who are the Survivors and Followers of Destiny.” In the context of replying to Elena L
Many thanks
62 wildz
Pardon my choice of words…..I suppose they made sense to me in the overcharged state in which I have found myself at the end of my day. By surfacey I meant to convey anyone who is by nature living mostly by ‘the mask’ – persona, personality – and who has not been ‘cut to the quick’ by their play. The post to Elena was actually a curtailed version of a more descriptive one about how the ‘little play’ with the Ceremonial Silver Set was part of a larger picture in which I had undergone, in my own life, The Divine Comedy, – a process akin to what Gurdjieff described as awakening (to our essence possibilities as I would see it now) dying (to the core of our being – again, my choice of words, which I hope will make sense to you now) and the rebirth to the full-flowering of our spiritual nature. There are many who were more involved in the machinations of the FOF and whose play had an effect on how they exited and wish to presently position themselves. Do you think this subject is worth further ‘mileage’ to help the blog aim?…..Nigel.
dear elena,
you don’t like my ‘tone’ eh? i’ve made no personal attacks, believe me, i wish you only well-being. what i have done is to question a few of your assumptions and preconceptions — apparently this rubs you the wrong way. if you are used to the notion that you are always right, and that your opinion counts more, then by now a certain kind of response should be expected… the soap box is no substitute for a little self-reflective analysis so i hope my ‘needling’ can at least give you pause to think. no, you don’t know everything, in fact you know almost nothing if you can’t get past identification with ego and the little self… you complained that i “pick on a little something and neglect the whole idea…” i say that the whole is contained in the parts, even if you can’t see it… anthropocentric humanism is at the root of the problem, from your current perspective you may not see it but inherent in this doctrine you’re preaching is human egotism writ large. there are alternatives to ‘ego’ based biases…. as a philosopher, scholar and ‘author’ you might want to do more research — for example, for a critique of the ‘ego-logical’ perspective see: rozak, naess, fisher, metzner, mckenna, et al, and see whitehead’s process-relational theory.
“What Humanist theories do not allow for is the fact that a system of ethics formulated from a human perspective may not be entirely accurate; humans are not the centre of reality. Spinoza argued that we tend to assess things wrongly in terms of their usefulness to us. Spinoza reasoned that if we were to look at things objectively we would discover that everything in the universe has a unique value…. a human-centred or anthropocentric ethic is not an accurate depiction of reality, there is a bigger picture….”
Thanks Ton for your observation, I will carefully meditate on it.
Nigel, I don’t know what you mean about adobe reading my posts. If you’re talking about a different site to this one, please contact me at tabluttatgmaildotcom. Thanks.
I just received this email from JStreet. I don’t need to be Jewish to be human so I signed this petition and hope others here might be inclined to do so. This was just a site I happened to come across and left my name for further references, there was nowhere to tell them that I wasn’t a jew. You can find Jstreet on the internet if you would like to sign it.
I believe it would be wonderfully healing for Fellowship cult members and ex-members to realize that the Fellowship is not the only institution that functions like a cult and that millions of jews in Israel have been equally conned to behave as if they were in a cult, in fact when one looks at the way kibbuts were put together it is clear that they participated in very similar mechanisms and are now acting against those around them and the rest of humanity as if they were the “chosen ones”.
The internet is changing the relations of power all over the world, it is the most democratic invention we’ve witnessed in our lifetime, what a great joy!
Tell PM Netanyahu We Want a Democratic and Pluralistic Israel
Sign Our Petition
Full petition text follows below.
Prime Minister Netanyahu:
We, American Jewish supporters of Israel, are deeply concerned. Israel is rightfully proud of its democracy and its membership in the group of nations that value justice, freedom and the rule of law.
In recent months a disturbing picture has emerged of nationalist extremism that would stifle dissent and erode Israeli democracy. The threat has become all too clear to anyone who connects the dots:
* Women led away from the Western Wall in handcuffs for daring to wear prayer- shawls there, and their leader detained and interrogated;
* Dozens of activists unlawfully detained for peacefully protesting in East Jerusalem, and the longstanding peaceful protests in Bi’lin now outlawed;
* A former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset defamed in a virulent smear campaign against Israel’s leading human rights organizations, with images reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of Jewish history;
* The fundamental freedom of Israel’s vitally important civil society under threat from Knesset legislation that would selectively label some NGOs as “political” – in the manner of Russia, China and Iran;
* Women forced to sit in the back of segregated busses with support from the ministry of transportation.
* Years of effort to achieve recognition for Reform and Conservative Jews again threatened by a proposed law preventing recognition of non-Orthodox conversions in Israel.
Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, and it must not jeopardize its standing as a democratic nation. As a democracy, the rights of all its citizens must be upheld and safeguarded, and freedom of speech, conscience and belief respected by the government and private citizens alike.
We call on you, Prime Minister Netanyahu, to stand with us and with all those working to strengthen a democratic and pluralistic Israel.
Sincerely,
Sign Now, Add your Voice
About the kids…
25 Wildz:
“I took him out of Lewis Carroll and enrolled him in public school. Not long after I was called with a message from Robert, “You are traitor to c influence.”
NK responds: Far far better IMO to be “a traitor to c-influence” than to betray your boy. Glad to hear that you intervened when he was being hurt.
#58 Elena L:
“…our new baby boy. He is now 26…ask for a donation…. At that moment, I appreciated the call, but in denying the request, I felt newly freed!”
NK responds: What a wonderful birthday present to your son: his parents free and able to rear him without dubious organizational entanglements.
Kudos to all the fierce parents out there.
I’m one, too. Nobody messes with my kid
because then they’d have to deal with
me…and I am definitely – No Kid
Ton: “anthropocentric humanism is at the root of the problem, from your current perspective you may not see it but inherent in this doctrine you’re preaching is human egotism writ large. there are alternatives to ‘ego’ based biases…. as a philosopher, scholar and ‘author’ you might want to do more research — for example, for a critique of the ‘ego-logical’ perspective see: rozak, naess, fisher, metzner, mckenna, et al, and see whitehead’s process-relational theory.
“What Humanist theories do not allow for is the fact that a system of ethics formulated from a human perspective may not be entirely accurate; humans are not the centre of reality. Spinoza argued that we tend to assess things wrongly in terms of their usefulness to us. Spinoza reasoned that if we were to look at things objectively we would discover that everything in the universe has a unique value…. a human-centred or anthropocentric ethic is not an accurate depiction of reality, there is a bigger picture….””
Sounds great Ton, would you share what you understand as the bigger picture? and what you’ve understood about what I am saying just to make sure that we’re on the same platform?
Ton, just to clarify, I am asking because what I am saying is so new to me that I hadn’t realized it was all that structured for you to come with this observation so it would be very helpful if you tell me what it is that you are understanding since it seems to be so clear to you.
elena,
i think we’re definitely not “on the same platform” — but that’s ok. no need to be sarcastic, clarity is an ongoing lifelong process, we both know that, and no need for disingenuousness, if you truly meant what you said, and were to “carefully meditate on it” then there would be no reason for me to elaborate (a hint: when you “carefully meditate” too quickly, you miss the point). regarding “isms” — do your “homework,” another ongoing lifelong process — i offered a few indications of where i’ve looked for a “bigger picture” (here are a couple more… thomas berry, wendell berry), but as far as that goes (“the bigger picture” that is), the possibilities are endless and it depends entirely on you. you see elena, we have this wonderful informational resource literally at our fingertips but what do we do with it? like most things that are used it can also be ab-used, unfortunately there are too many examples, but one that comes to mind in this connection is:
http://thefellowshipoffriends.wikispaces.com/message/list/home there are many others… think about it, or don’t, but consider this; IF you think you already “know it all” and you’re unwilling to consider other perspectives, THEN you’re not going to be interested in what’s potentially available, and of course we all have our little personal agenda to attend to… but you know all this already… right? speaking generally, one aim of “self-examination” is to “get over yourself” and this should at least free you up and point you in the direction of a “bigger picture.” i hope this helps… otherwise, i gladly leave the soapbox to you.
Dialogue
Wretched Doubt:
Here I come
To convince your might
That you are mine
I:
Yes… perhaps…
I’m glad you’ve come…
Do sit, no, no, perhaps not now
I was about to “ground”.
Wretched doubt:
Ha, ha, ha,
You don’t understand
Where could you “ground”
when you can’t even stand?
Ha, ha, ha
I:
Do you think so?
Yes, maybe.
Who knows where
Who knows what
I never was
Wretched doubt:
Ha, ha, ha,
Ha, ha, ha
You are mine
To keep and fry!
I:
Love perhaps…
Would have allowed?
Wretched doubt:
Love? You mad?
I:
Enough love perhaps…
Would give the child
The robe of being,
The light of life?
Wretched doubt:
Ha, ha, ha,
What love you speak about
When so little of it is left by now?
I:
A circle then?
My fellow men?
Like soil for the plant to emerge?
Would that have helped me stand by now?
Wretched doubt:
You make me laugh so loud,
What ground but bog is found?
I:
Inside my self then could I have found
A whirling world
The dervish ground?
Wretched Doubt:
What self? What self?
The void is wide
You wretched soul
What self by now?
I:
In the deep cave of the wretched self
In which I drown
In that deep cave in which I rest my soul
Without hope or joy
Tell me, tell me now,
Is my self in that deep cave where I die
and still subside?
Wretched Doubt:
Hellas! Hellas! I’m drowned!
Hi Ton,
I hope you enjoy the little poem I just wrote while thinking about your post.
Thanks for introducing me to these great characters. Researching on Mckenna I found Erik Davis’ Techgnosis great site and a wonderful article on Gilles Deleuze that I just posted at
http://battlesword.blogspot.com/2010/04/beautiful-article-about-gilles-deleuze.html
Beautiful! It must have inspired me to write a poem!
By your answer to my question it is clear that you really don’t understand me or what is worse, trust me. Trust, yes, such a difficult thing to recover after we’ve rolled down the street struggling with each other. But even without trust, as long as we can keep rolling down the street we might actually learn to hop between the bumps and sing along with it. Will you promise me that if I help you smile, you’ll play with me?
I think I got a gist of what you are implying by your posts so let me try it out again and make it as short as I can so as not to offend the passers by.
Humanism as I am understanding it, has nothing in opposition with the magic that all these authors, in my short and superficial look at them, propose. Please realize that I am not inventing humanism, just understanding it and a substantial aspect of it is in any System you might look at. If you look at Deleuze’s article, it is very easy to realize that he is supporting my own statements that we must go beyond our class, nationality, religion, etc, etc, etc, to be truly human. Let me make that more clear: we must go beyond our identification with class, nationality, religion, etc, beyond and within and then from inside of “them” let ourselves be more truly ourselves, more fully that which we were given to be. Non-identification does not mean the rejection of one’s class, nationality or religion but rather the penetration of such realities into their very soul to allow one to be truly human. “Truly human” is not the linear sequence property offered us and enslaved us with convinced that by owning things we owned our selves! Non-identification does not mean the negation of who and what we are as the cult induces in its members, it means that one can allow for the reality of one’s conditions and conditionings to live themselves out without mechanically determining our response to the world. i.e. if I was born in the South of US it doesn’t mean I have to belong to the ku-klux-klan or that I have to drink coffee if I am Colombian. All the magic that these authors you mention seem to be bringing to our door is directly connected to the idea of higher states. They are simply and clearly talking about what was understood as high states in the cult and there is nothing “not human” about them. Previous to our time the Church might have made such states the power of a few authorities but today we swim and drown in them like beetles in a can of flies!
Everything they seem to have experienced and talked about in the book followed by anti-oedipus sounds like experiences of states of non-identification or third and fourth states or whatever you want to call them in their respective system.
I had picked the following passage:
Both Anti-Oedipus and its 1980 sequel A Thousand Plateaus were subtitled “Capitalism and Schizophrenia.” The authors contended that capitalism is balanced between its limitless production and the need to socially “codify” this energy in order to keep it under control. The first pole is fragmented and expansive; the second is paranoid and repressive. Deleuze and Guattari saw schizophrenia as an active “multiplicity,” a localized revolutionary force that liberated one from the confines of psychological subjectivity and the fascistic forms of the State.
Elena: NICE! Yes, it has both potentials: that of becoming an schizophrenic narcissistic sociopath like Robert, Mr. Haven and each in the FOF cult in the paranoid and repressive aspects or… the other kind!… the wonderfully creative people of all times that escape towards life!
What we are able to understand today is that PRECISELY those forms of power are the ones that developed the two personality hasnamousses that people continue to idolize in the fellowship cult.
Mckenna seems to have had his wonderful share of ayahuasca, here in Colombia in fact, says the article, but if you remember, what any of these mushrooms or plants do is catalyze the necessary mechanism in our body that will free the actual substance that gives the high state. The REAL magic is not in the ayahuasca or mushroom but in the human being, which brings us to the fact that we can “liberate” these states
if we ourselves become the catalysts. Prolonged non-identification goes exactly through the same process: a release of fixed mental, emotional and physical structures that inevitably change the chemical inner “imbalance” and free the I to access other realms.
When an individual stops his or her self from ignoring the waiter that just came to the table because he is only a waiter, the entire universe shifts up a scale and we become more human!
Many people do that naturally because they never learnt not to do it but when all our so called “civilized” world consciously learns to do it, we’ll actually “dine”!
I was hoping you would give us the pleasure of your thoughts and not make me answer you a long post such as this right away but here it is.
Have a great day, thanks for sharing!
*
This is about experiencing the world.
*
golden veil,
haven’t heard of david whyte…. powerful. thanks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
dear elena, you end with:
“I was hoping you would give us the pleasure of your thoughts and not make me answer you a long post such as this right away but here it is.”
elena, elena…. elena, am i not writing words? are these not thoughts? you see elena, what you wrote here is a way of dismissing and discounting me as someone who may not entirely agree with you… and in the process you’re making excuses for yourself…. let’s be clear, i’m not making you do anything. what am i saying here elena? are these not thoughts? what are you missing? i will add that i know that you know that i’m not in complete disagreement with you… for example:
“we must go beyond our class, nationality, religion, etc, etc, etc, to be truly human. Let me make that more clear: we must go beyond our identification with class, nationality, religion, etc,”
imo the above is a start in the right direction but it doesn’t go nearly far enough… it’s only a beginning.
you wrote:
“what any of these mushrooms or plants do is catalyze the necessary mechanism in our body that will free the actual substance that gives the high state. The REAL magic is not in the ayahuasca or mushroom but in the human being, which brings us to the fact that we can “liberate” these states
if we ourselves become the catalysts.”
oh really? gee elena, you make yourself sound like an expert on these matters… how much actual experience have you had with these “substances”?
don’t get me wrong, i’m not advocating the taking of these “substances” — the point you seem to miss in all this is that there is in fact A RELATIONSHIP between the biota and human beings. but due to a conditioned blindness, you place the human above the rest of creation and THAT IS PRECISELY THE PROBLEM… it’s why i’m saying that even so called “humanism” with all of these seemingly well intentioned “humanistic, people first” impulses, even all the lovable causes out there related to “human rights” — it’s still a form of human hubris and egotism, albeit on a mass scale. this is not to say or imply that there isn’t a ‘righteousness’ about it and that it isn’t a step in the right direction…. but it is after all a just a step.
the dialogue in this video may represent another step… but even this is couched in anthropocentric terms…. i believe the essential question is: “how to be more than human?”
I see Ton. So for you we must first have an ecologic consciousness and that is more important than having a human consciousness. Now I understand you. Thank you for at last sharing what you think the priorities are.
It reminds me of a program on T.V. I saw yesterday with a man in Africa who has to look after one of the parks that one of the international organizations protects and he says: here we are dying of hunger and all you do is help us look after these animals but do not care about our lives. We have an arm and the permission to kill any of our people if they try to hunt animals.
So yes, I continue to believe human consciousness is the priority. All is One includes that consciousness of nature that is so significant to you. Everything else this man says is included in what I’ve been understanding. It is not new, I am just clearing myself about it and hope that in the process the tremendous confusion and isolation that was implanted in so many of us in the Fellowship cleans itself out somewhat.
About this substances, you must know I am a Colombian, some of them are born here or rather we are born with them here! By the time I was eighteen I decided that I was interested in finding my own way of becoming the catalyst.
Thank you for sharing.
This wasn’t quite the song lyrics that I wanted to search for and share…..my day and the sharing of dreams stated working and going to fulfilment had a high-point with a broadcast on Radio in Bob Harris’s of Beth Chapman’s song ‘How we Love’ investigate it until it moves you – intelligent lyrics and mellifluating melody. Her pasted a hint of how she affected me…..
Seems like after all we’ve been through
We would have learned by now
Never to fight for gets the last word
It doesn’t matter anyhow
But ’round and ’round we go in circles
Trying to work things through
And sometimes it feels like miles between us
But I keep coming back to you
CHORUS:
And it’s rough
And it’s tough
And it’s harder than anything I’ve ever tried to do
But I love you so much that in spite of the struggle
I keep coming back to you
Hold me now, just think about this room
That we have shared so long
We’ve studied that map of cracks on the ceiling
Talking till the break of dawn
There is something strong as history
Telling me this love is true
They say “Follow your heart and you’ll be happy”
So I keep coming back to you
74
“I see Ton. So for you we must first have an ecologic consciousness and that is more important than having a human consciousness. Now I understand you.”
dear elena,
no, apparently you don’t understand me, you would like to THINK you understand but that’s where understanding stops…. you see elena, understanding is not “thought terminating,” understanding is another of those ongoing lifelong processes, it doesn’t stop and if it does, it’s no longer understanding. it’s obvious to me that you really don’t understand, you are more interested in being “right” and thereby “in control” than you are in understanding. you surmise: “ecologic consciousness is more important than having a human consciousness” — no elena, you’re thinking in ‘black OR white’ when in fact they’re integral, one does not negate the other. i’m surprised at you elena, you with all your grandstanding about “ONENESS” and being connected… your limitation lies in how you define what being human means. one thing is certain, and for many this is a very difficult lesson to learn because the illusion is so deeply ingrained: the universe does not revolve around you and “yours.”
“About this substances, you must know I am a Colombian, some of them are born here or rather we are born with them here!”
i asked about your actual (personal) experience but you’re avoiding the question… a friendly word of advice: you shouldn’t speak of which you know not.
all the best
Hi Ton and All,
At least I am not negating your premises as you have done with me rejecting whatever I say as not good enough. You just seem to be turning around trying to get the upper-hand over me but really saying the same things that I am saying only the technique is, negating them, saying I better go and research more and when I did and offered them to you, you said I was on the right track but still not good enough.
Good enough for what? Not complete enough for whom? Is a dialogue supposed to be enough, the totality? Why would you expect the mind to grasp more than is allotted to it? Why do you expect the intellect to supply what you yourself must provide? The love and the meaning and the wish to communicate healthily?
About those substances they are children’s play compared to the real thing. I’ll extend on the real thing in a different post if you wish. They have traditionally been used only for initiation rites for they are only a glimpse of their reality and not one we should have gotten lost in en masse as generations are doing today. No one should take these substances more than a handful of times. Have you seen how passive people who have taken marihuana for decades become? Passive and self-conscious and paranoid? And how people in cocaine can’t stop talking? Or in the cow dung mushroom, stop laughing? Or the horrors of “crack”?
The amanitas muscaria or Flykiller is the sacred mushroom in the Rig Veda. That is another story and still they themselves let you know not to mess around with them. And then there is the cacao sabanero. You can take it if you want to know what hell is like- many never come back from it. I’ve seen wonderfully smart people become like vegetables. There are official places here where you can take ayahuasca for twenty five dollars and the guidance of a shaman. Many people are profiting not only from connecting to ayahuasca but from connecting to the native cultures and shamans who have wide knowledge of this practices. All these substances when abused depress the I because they become active in the I’s realm and have to shun it. When the individual is not ready for the experience (and they are never ready if they are having to have it induced, which is why it is only an initiation rite), the drug lives itself out on the individual himself and while it gains power over him he loses power over his own self as we have clearly seen not only in every drug addiction but in every cult addiction, including the regular forms of “falling in love” that are so humanly practiced. That “ love intoxication” is in reality enough for us to deal with, without having to indulge in the abuse of substances.
I did not extend myself on this in the last post because I didn’t want to repeat myself. I have already spoken about these things somewhere on this blog before and thought you were aware of them.
I would ask you kindly to make an effort to keep our conversation to the realm of ideas without treading negatively on each other’s very personal realm. This is very difficult indeed and I have probably been the one who most strongly does it which is why I am asking you to help me. Being able to have a profitable conversation is an expression of the “being” of a community and in this blog-community it is clear that we go from people who agree with everything and cannot have a dialogue to people who disagree in everything and cannot have dialogue. People who cannot go beyond the personal attacks to the realm of ideas or people who are in the realm of ideas and cannot extend them to their personal sphere. All these “disconnectednesses” are aspects of our state of development as a community or “group” if you would rather, for yes, we are far from being a community even of human beings.
Recovering our selves from the cult’s destructiveness, rigidity and expressionless will certainly mean recovering the capacity to participate socially from our own self and not again from an imaginary made up mask that is buffering the possibility of being that self. It is very difficult for any one of us to expose our selves when we are afraid of being shunned, ridiculed or made sarcasm of, when not directly insulted, instead of simply being heard even if there is no agreement. We are not here to agree but to be and help, (if that is ever possible), members inside the Fellowship cult, be. They are not being right now, they are sacrificing themselves in a self-destructive cult.
When people are very vulnerable as many of us are and by vulnerable I mean, people who are not comfortable in themselves, they are desperately needing self affirmation but precisely because we are not comfortable with our selves, we come out as confronting and opposing the other person, which is what we can clearly see in Ton’s and my recent interaction and almost every interaction I had particularly previous to being banned.
Surely we will continue to live this out (if we give ourselves the chance) for quite a while still but if we take a look at the history of the blog, and see ourselves, all of us have become a lot less aggressive than we were when we started. Bruce doesn’t just FUCK everything and everyone all the time, (no matter how accurate those fucks seemed to be), those that only insulted all the time have mostly left and while I was out, few were left that talk but barely dialogue with the blog promising to disappear. Can we “be” and communicate? Disappearing is of course a possibility and being identified with the life a blog is not the cult we are in now, but I am personally much happier in a blog where we have already tried our selves than looking for other people to start again and still think this one can be a viable reference for those still under the grip of the Fellowship cult.
I give you my word that I will try to make my posts much shorter in the future or at least twice as effective if I cannot avoid the length. I am definitely here because I appreciate our background not only in this blog but what we share in common about the System as much as about the Fellowship cult and LIFE, always LIFE.
“I did not extend myself on this in the last post because I didn’t want to repeat myself. I have already spoken about these things somewhere on this blog before and thought you were aware of them. I would ask you kindly to make an effort to keep our conversation to the realm of ideas without treading negatively on each other’s very personal realm.”
elena,
well thank you for extending yourself, what you’ve written is revealing something… and by the way, when have you ever balked at repeating yourself? although it sounds like you’re wanting to change the subject, (and i realize that this may be a little bit of a sidetrack), please indulge me just a bit more as i follow a thread in the hope of getting at the truth, because i believe that an important part of being able to have a “profitable conversation” (as you put it), requires an implicit integrity and honesty.
it feels to me like you’re wanting to change the subject here because you’re backed into a corner, it sounds like you have no actual first-hand, personal experience with these “substances,” and no, living in columbia is not what i mean by an actual experiential encounter… it sounds like you may know something about the subject from an outside perspective but that you really don’t know it intimately, that is. from the inside out… and that’s ok, i’m not going to “judge” you because you’ve never eaten one of these compounds, and i’m certainly not here to convince you to do so… but, what i would suggest is, that you don’t have to dissemble and give vicarious, second and third hand accounts and expect it to be a substitute for the experiential. it’s better just to admit – at least to yourself – when your knowledge is limited to a certain extent… it’s more honest that way and with honesty we be able to proceed with a more “profitable conversation.”
you see elena, you may be fooling yourself but you’re not fooling me when you mix-up and group all these “compounds and substances” into a single category as you do, to me that’s a telltale sign… it shows that from an experiential perspective you don’t really know what you’re talking about. if you’d had an actual personal encounter with ANY so-called “entheogen” then you would know better than to lump it in with drug abuse or any so-called “recreational drugs.”
Elena-
You talk too much.
Ton: elena, well thank you for extending yourself, what you’ve written is revealing something… and by the way, when have you ever balked at repeating yourself?
Elena: Thank you for thinking that a dialogue is worth between us and asking me to extend myself. I am balking now at repeating myself because I will no longer give too much time to something we’ve already tread on. Repeating our selves viciously is another way of recurring and destiny evades us.
Ton: although it sounds like you’re wanting to change the subject,
Elena: I am not only wanting to change the subject but wanting to not over-impose my own views in this forum by sheer quantity. And I am also not interested in proving my self RIGHT to you. I understand I may be wrong and can still be here and that is enough for me. People who agree to everything that is happening as we did in the Fellowship cult are as dangerous to life and freedom as people who are unable to agree on anything and must look for something to prove the other person out. Rightness is not the same as righteousness and every time we are right to each other we strengthen each other’s being. The capacity of “resilience” is not only possible in individuals, it is just as necessary in communities.
Ton: (and i realize that this may be a little bit of a sidetrack), please indulge me just a bit more as i follow a thread in the hope of getting at the truth, because i believe that an important part of being able to have a “profitable conversation” (as you put it), requires an implicit integrity and honesty.
Elena: I tell you right away that you will only get as far as what is true for you and not truth and that will already be plenty. Your tone and words and persistence in trying to prove me out shows a pathological ingredient in you for you do not converse or in any way share your own experiences about the subject and enrich me or anyone else with them, you are here simply to prove that I am not being honest or that everything I say is not enough or that as you have tried before, that I am not in a condition to speak and should be banned. Let me tell you right away that my freedom to speak here does not come from you but from my love for Freedom of Speech.
Ton: it feels to me like you’re wanting to change the subject here because you’re backed into a corner,
Elena: backed into a corner by your ridiculously aggresive behavior, convinced that you are the only truth here? Don’t give yourself so much credit.
Ton: it sounds like you have no actual first-hand, personal experience with these “substances,”
Elena: Do you? When you can’t even relate to the very specific ones I’ve mentioned?
Ton: and no, living in columbia is not what i mean by an actual experiential encounter… it sounds like you may know something about the subject from an outside perspective but that you really don’t know it intimately, that is. from the inside out… and that’s ok, i’m not going to “judge” you because you’ve never eaten one of these compounds, and i’m certainly not here to convince you to do so… but, what i would suggest is, that you don’t have to dissemble and give vicarious, second and third hand accounts and expect it to be a substitute for the experiential. it’s better just to admit – at least to yourself – when your knowledge is limited to a certain extent… it’s more honest that way and with honesty we be able to proceed with a more “profitable conversation.”
Elena: No Ton, I do not have to prove anything to you or tell you of my personal experiences with these substances to convey to you that I know what I am talking about.
Ton: you see elena, you may be fooling yourself but you’re not fooling me when you mix-up and group all these “compounds and substances” into a single category as you do,
Elena: If you cared to read carefully enough you would realize that amanitas muscaria, the sacred mushroom of the rig Vedas, was clearly differentiated from the other substances I talked about.
Ton: to me that’s a telltale sign… it shows that from an experiential perspective you don’t really know what you’re talking about. if you’d had an actual personal encounter with ANY so-called “entheogen” then you would know better than to lump it in with drug abuse or any so-called “recreational drugs.”
Elena: a “telltale” sign Ton? So are you now going to go and tell on me so that you can shame me publicly? Wouldn’t you be delighted if you could do that here again where shaming people is the very essence of what we’ve been feeding on when we have exposed the abuses so common in the Fellowship of Friends. I am so good at it myself Ton, why do you think I would fail to recognize it in you? Shaming people for their actions is what people in anger do and I was so very angry with the Fellowship and so vulnerable but I am no longer in that state and going beyond angering and shaming people is what is necessary to understand the beauty beyond the tragedy. If we are to heal as a community who suffered together, we would do good in taking that step.
I understand this is a forum where people can have a conversation and not a court where people are being tried for crime so I will kindly ask you to stop acting as if you had any right to ask of me things that I do not owe you. If what I am offering you is not good enough for you that is your problem and not mine, that does not give you the right to call me dishonest, thank you. If we had moderation here you would be called on for the absurd attitude that you are unkindly expressing. With all due respect fofblogmoderator, with all due respect and gratitude, the role of a moderator is to protect the participants and help them understand each other, I ask you to do so by intervening when people label someone as being dishonest when there is nothing dishonest about their participation.
Now let’s look at entheogens not for the sake of proving to you that I know what we are talking about but for the sake of the subject itself which is beautiful.
From wikipedia: An entheogen (“creates god within,” en εν- “in, within,” theo θεος- “god, divine,” -gen γενος “creates, generates”),[1] in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts. Most entheogens do not produce drug dependency.[2] With the advent of organic chemistry, there now exist many synthetic substances with similar psychoactive properties. Entheogens are tools to supplement various practices for healing and transcendence, including in meditation, psychonautics, art projects, and psychedelic therapy.
I personally do not agree with the definition of entheogens as substances that “create god within” I would define them more as substances that reveal the God within. And would insist that these are initiatory substances and NOT substances to be abused as we’ve seen in our present societies. They are certainly different in quality, marihuana and cow dung mushrooms are not as “godrevealing” as amanitas muscaria but they nevertheless enter realms beyond our habitual consciousness and expand our perceptions beyond the “known” senses. I have no “scientific” knowledge of these substances, what I am telling you is from personal experience. I would still affirm that amanitas muscaria and ayahuasca are not substances to be taken for anything other than “ritualistic” purposes and that the God within that they reveal can be reached without them. The experience of Godliness when experienced through these substances does not imply that the person will connect to his own self for a prolonged period or that they will know how to reach it again without it. Any one of these experiences when induced with a substance are a before and after event in anyone’s life and yet they are child’s play when compared to the real thing. The “real thing” only has to speak to you once for you to never stop hearing it… or talking about it… perhaps that is why I am so insistent in the need of connectedness.
This is my last post to you Ton. You and I are only two of the many voices here, it will be very good to hear others on many other subjects. I will not indulge in further conversation with you until I hear a more sympathetic tone in your posts and a willingness to give rather than demand. You have no right to demand here- that is not a healthy attitude. We are not forced to be here, we are here willingly. You have a right to share in a conversation but not to position yourself as the judge of whoever is speaking. A blog can be an art-form of love between people or a school forum of immature teenagers to lynch those who the group marginalizes. That is exactly what is happening in society where the poor blokes just take up a gun and shoot everyone around them as protest. If that is what you choose for yourselves it would be no surprise, after all, that is what was widely practiced in the Fellowship cult and people were thrown out like rotten food when they protested. I will leave this one as joyfully and willingly as I left that one and you can carry on with your dictators of how you like things to be. No wonder this blog is dying like the Fellowship, such places don’t carry any life. If we are willing to take a different direction we might one day reach the Golden Age of the Fellowship and be remembered for our amazing ability for resilience or regeneration and not for the repeated failures to act as human beings.
Thank you 2010, you on the contrary, talk too little.
elena, why so defensive? i’ve “demanded” nothing of you… and of course you don’t have anything to prove to me…. a point i’m trying to make has to do with honesty…. because i consider it to be important. let’s briefly review… this thread started when i suggested that there are limits to the anthropocentricism of a doctrine you’ve been espousing which we’ve identified as “humanism.” i did not suggest there was anything wrong with the doctrine or that there is anything wrong with you for supporting it… i merely indicated my opinion of the limitations of said doctrine and in the process suggested avenues of research that have influenced my own perspectives. after your “in depth” research (apparently you perused something by mckenna), you came back with your “informed” conclusions regarding the “REAL magic” — that it’s “in the human being” and etc… i pointed out that this sort of ego-centric species-bias was in fact at the root of the problem and at that point i questioned whether you had ever actually ingested one of these compounds that you so blithely dismiss, because from what i could gather in what you wrote, you didn’t really grok the experience nor the wider implications. i questioned a type of arrogant and blind anthropocentricism which IS the problem… i suggested that you consider the relational aspect in nature which the human species ignores at it’s own peril and destruction….
now back to the point, which is honesty… and i am not accusing you of anything, i am not trying to “shame” you, (i will say that shame implies one has something to hide), and i am certainly not “angry” as you say, i am simply trying to understand where you are coming from…. yes i did read carefully enough to see that you mentioned amanita in the context of the vedas…. now is that supposed to imply that you’ve actually ingested amanita? because that’s not what i took from your history lesson. is there a further point to this little tidbit from the annals of time ? you don’t seem to me like the type of person who would be ashamed of admitting to experimentation…. so i wonder what are you ashamed of? i’m curious to know…
and i really do hope this is not offending you…. that’s truly not my intention… look, i’m not ashamed of my experiences with these things… by the way, i think i’ve related the story here about the night of my 21st birthday, but here it is again briefly: i did ingest one of these substances, i left the party and spent the rest of that balmy july night nestled in the arms of a great elm tree overlooking the lake illumined by a nearly full moon…. as the sun rose, i came down from the tree, and i resolved to search for a “natural” way to experience the profound state of merging – what maurice bucke termed “cosmic consciousness.” soon thereafter i found a “workbook” with one of those insidious bookmarks in it… i telephoned the number, and the rest, as they say, “is history…”
all the best
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Maurice_Bucke
No Kid,
Hey Hon, good work posting. Hugs. A.
Thot Plickens #200
I simply wished to express a gratefulness to nature for bringing Spring to the area ( after a historical winter of snow) and wish fellow ex-members to look forward to a future with positive prospects with my post. I guess you felt a need to devalue this wish, and why? Maybe we all now need to write under an artificial name and surrender our whole life stories in the FOF as “suffering ” to receive a notice in your mind as an authentic memory , and perhaps as well to many other posters . As you may now know, I have been on the GF site for 2 years. I already know your questions and have lived them for 40 yrs. We do have work to do. But, for a moment, for a day, check yourself and study the gifts we have. An appreciation of spring flowers. For Yourself.
Sorry, for the neg. explosion to you today. I’ve got a lot of current problems to work on here on the farm which keep me up all hours and am a bit “ruffled”. Also, No Kid gives me reminders of my youth. .A.
Thank you Ton, that is a much more workable tone. I am glad you’ve gotten a grip on yourself and realized that we’re just trying to have a conversation here.
If I remember correctly my account of those experiences is already here somewhere in this blog. To satisfy your curiosity, the first time I took a little of amanitas I realized it was very powerful and it wanted me to clean up so I prepared for two weeks before taking it again, then I went back to that marvelous place for they only grow in particularly beautiful forests, usually pine forests in my country. It wanted to teach me how to breathe! So this army of mosquitoes started walking around my face and the idea was that they could only walk through the bridge of my nose if I breathed properly!!! It took a long time before one of them actually crossed the bridge and I was ecstatic of course and Godlike but it made me very exited so I began to breathe too fast and they again couldn’t cross the bridge so we started again each time with more intense Godliness!!! It’s very funny now but I must admit, my first gurus were mosquitoes!! I was lying on a bed while this massage was going on and a friend who was also up at the farm walked by and saw all these mosquitoes on my face and got the fright of his life thinking I’d died and the mosquitoes were already getting at me! Oh it’s so good to laugh!! So he started moving me and getting the mosquitoes out and I was so disappointed but I knew he wouldn’t understand if I told him to leave my gurus alone!! I was much surprised though when looking at a book years later, saw that they were called, amanitas muscaria or amanitas matamoscas which means mosquitoe killers.
It invited me into the sacred but what it conveyed to me very clearly was that everything I had experienced belonged to it and that my job was to get there without it. In another occasion I not only took a little more but gave my beautiful golden retriever two petals which was very little and after a while he sat there and looked at me for a long time. THAT was difficult. Dogs do not hold their site to humans for too long but Arrow just stared at me and what he told me or rather asked me was, why did you give me this, what do you want me to do with this, I am a dog, as if he were literally saying, you want me to be conscious of the fact that I am a dog? It was very “painful” not because there was anything wrong with being a dog but because he couldn’t do much with it anyway. I very much regretted having given him any. Fortunately it eventually wore off and we went back to being a dog and a seventeen year old on her way to study in Belgium and away from the all too intense highs of Colombia.
This is why I love writing and sharing because this story made me realize that when I experienced the real thing there was also suffering like for Arrow. That suffering. That very particular kind of suffering in which one knows that one might just die in the experience and that it is alright to do so, that one wouldn’t stop it for a second. I was thinking after that post that after you connect with the real, it wishes to penetrate everything like water, burn like fire, give life like Earth and breathe like air. It is like the power of love: life.
Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through. I was only totally paralysed for two days the first time about three weeks after I joined the Fellowship but they say Ezequiel would spend years in bed. I guess those are the states the masts live in. I haven’t actually experienced such states for years. Shortly after I started living with Girard and working, working, working for the sake of working, working, working on being Fellowship “efficient”, they stopped happening and I soon became another conformist automaton.
So good to be out! Cheers!
“Thank you Ton, that is a much more workable tone. I am glad you’ve gotten a grip on yourself and realized that we’re just trying to have a conversation here.”
elena,
you’re confused, it was you who lost your grip, not i….(“This is my last post to you Ton”).
you’ll have to forgive me if the “conversation” here is not to your liking, but i feel compelled to respond to you as honestly as i can… and i don’t need to point out that this format does not conform to the norms of conventional “face-to-face” conversation and social interaction… there is a certain freedom that the relative anonymity of the situation provides… one CAN ‘speak’ in a different way here, responding more freely and expressing feelings that might not be spoken of in a ‘normal’ formal face-to-face encounter. so i’ll ‘warn’ you now, i will continue to convey my honest responses based how i feel after reading your posts and if it rubs you the wrong way, then so be it.
speaking of ‘tone’ — there is a general impression i often get when reading your posts… you’re dismissive of another who happens to challenge or disagree with you, you attempt to marginalize and diminish the other, seemingly in order to feel in control and “superior” to… you feel the need to be in control… we all do to some extent, but some more than others… i think that the need to control can be an over-compensation based on the fear of a loss of control… what do you think? i think leaving the cult behind represents a tremendous loss of control… the structure that formerly helped give a sense of self are suddenly gone… it’s a difficult adjustment, it takes time.
even though you’re not revealing much, here’s an example of a situation in which it sounds like you lost control and it scared you:
“Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through.”
maybe it’s just me but, another impression i often get when reading your posts is one of condescension…. when i read the above, to me it suggests or implies that the reader does not understand or has no experience with “the real” as you put it… that “the real” is something that you are specially privy to, that “the real” is something the reader will understand only by you telling him about it… maybe you wanted to explain or say more about it? maybe it’s a language thing…? but i don’t think so, your command of english seems better than mine and i’m a “native speaker” — so if it’s not an issue with the language then what i’m sensing is an attitudinal thing… an inferiority/superiority complex…. but which is it, inferiority or superiority?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_complex
Hi Ton and All,
Thanks Ton for the ongoing analysis, I also believe it’s a worthwhile one. So let’s see.
In this last post and the one before you are engaging with me, not demanding of me as you were in the previous ones. In the one before this one you still had a demeanouring attitude but it was already much softer than in the ones before so I complied as generously as I could.
If you take a look at our whole conversation maybe you’ll notice that we actually stand for the same things but the antagonism comes in how I or you are doing it. We should have already learnt this in the Fellowship: that standing for the same ideals does not mean that in our daily life we actually practice them: Robert is just another human being trying to live out his life but ended up enslaving thousands who shared similar ideals. I think he had the talent for it and we helped him a great deal. As if immature “essences” in adults in idealistic cults lead to criminal pathologic relationships.
The healthy attitude that I think would have been possible for you or is possible for you and us in the future is that when one looks at a post and thinks one can enhance it with one’s understanding then one enhances it as you are in fact doing in this one without ridiculous little personal attacks or ridiculing the other person which is what I mean by getting out of grip about what is actually happening. If we don’t assume that the other person is participating in “good faith” we are already failing to grant them a “human” condition.
It’s good that we are clear about the fact that even if posts are not of our liking, we can still share in the conversation as equals.
Ton: speaking of ‘tone’ — there is a general impression i often get when reading your posts… you’re dismissive of another who happens to challenge or disagree with you, you attempt to marginalize and diminish the other, seemingly in order to feel in control and “superior” to… you feel the need to be in control… we all do to some extent, but some more than others…
E. Sure, I’ve probably done that plenty and the more I look at it the more it seems to be an aspect of having been very weak and vulnerable after leaving the FOF and the lack of a strong family and social environment but if we look deeper we can see that the tapestry of our conversation is in fact much deeper than the tapestry of our convictions. I don’t quite know how to put it but I’ll get there. We clearly struggle with each other even if we substantially agree about the principles and where that “struggle” happens is where the real thing is. We are all think we are human but when we confront each other our inconsistencies clearly appear.
Ton: even though you’re not revealing much, here’s an example of a situation in which it sounds like you lost control and it scared you:
“Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through.”
Oh yes, one definitely loses control in those states, like with entheogens, only that entheogens were in my case mild enough to not create suffering. Definitely scary no matter how wonderful, like winning a huge lottery and knowing everything about life will change.
Ton: maybe it’s just me but, another impression i often get when reading your posts is one of condescension…. when i read the above, to me it suggests or implies that the reader does not understand or has no experience with “the real” as you put it… that “the real” is something that you are specially privy to, that “the real” is something the reader will understand only by you telling him about it… maybe you wanted to explain or say more about it? maybe it’s a language thing…?
E. No, I can see where and why you would feel that and yes, that is probably the other side of not feeling strong within myself and at the same time in the context of how you presented the conversation in which what I was understanding was that for you entheogens are the culminating wonder of creation (being a little sarcastic about it), I was trying to convey the difference.
Ton: but i don’t think so, your command of english seems better than mine and i’m a “native speaker” — so if it’s not an issue with the language then what i’m sensing is an attitudinal thing… an inferiority/superiority complex…. but which is it, inferiority or superiority?
Elena: This is important because what I’ve noticed is that we all give each other these acts of superiority/inferiority roles. We are all competing for credibility, space, acknowledgement, love, friendship even if we all agree about the basic tenets. We are talking in a definite context Ton and the things we’ve gone through here are extremely complex. Let me round this off quickly here so that we have an ongoing analysis and I don’t try to pack it in all in one post.
I think we each have a strength, a life and a direction and we are each powerful in that area. I have, like every one of you, a few and what has traditionally happened here is that they are dismissed and instead of us taking on an analysis of what is being said, we’ve ended up violently attacking each other. The downside of those attacks is that we are all pretty hurt but the up side of them is that, imho, we’ve shed a great deal of unnecessary luggage. We’ve almost skinned our selves clean. What we’ve shed and will continue to shed is a lot of the imaginary picture we had about what it means to be American or Colombian, this or that class, education, etc. All that should have happened in the Fellowship had it been a real School because the opportunity we have now is to deal with each other as human beings and live out that ideal in our interchanges. If we limit ourselves to being friendly to each other because we share the same programming and essence, then we can leave this Forum and each go and join our nation and feel good about our selves in it but the times are dry for that crop. I believe we live in a time in which our particular strengths and conditionings need to come up to what is human in them and we can share even while disagreeing. The subjects we are dealing with are not easy, they are extremely painful, or at least those are the ones I am not willing to avoid. I believe we have learnt something crucial about inhumanity in the Fellowship cult and can put our grain of sand in the current of a more human world. Were I to think that you are not the best recipients of my understandings around it, I would not be participating here. Were I not to value your strengths and understandings, I would not attempt to work with you.
P.S. Another nicer way of putting the inferiority/superiority roles complex is that we are each struggling for space in each other’s being. When that love is denied to us by hierarchic justifications and acted out in concrete manifestations of inequality, we legitimately struggle. That is what life is about!
Big hug!!!
elena,
“in the context of how you presented the conversation in which what I was understanding was that for you entheogens are the culminating wonder of creation…”
you see, here is where we run into problems over and over again. it has to do with the fact that you’re reading things into what is being conveyed… this is not just a problem with you, it can be a general problem in communication…. there is a message but the interpretation distorts it.
so let’s be clear, if you go back and review what i have written here, i’ve never said or even implied that “entheogens are the culminating wonder etc.” in fact if you follow this thread back to around 71, you’ll find that it was YOU who first brought up the subject of ingesting these substances, so in the interest of keeping our facts straight let’s go over this again…. how did we get to this point?
from the beginning, i suggested that ‘humanism’ has it’s limitations, not that it is entirely bad, but that there are certainly biases connected to the doctrine… i suggested alternatives in the form of authors, who imo take a broader perspective than the one you are espousing and representing… (is that possible elena? is it possible that someone may have a broader perspective?). i mentioned a number of philosophers but you latched onto something you picked up in a superficial reading of mckenna… and yes he is well known for openly talking about “entheogens” and yes that tends to get a lot of attention because it’s still a “taboo” subject in many respects…. but taking “enteogens” is not the point i was trying to make… so you missed the point, do you see? we got sidetracked here because i questioned your experiences when you seemed to present yourself as expert enough on the subject to casually dismiss the “entheogenic” experience as inconsequential compared to what YOU consider to be “real.”
now i’ll suggest maybe you should go back and really do a little more research on some of the other authors… spinoza, whitehead, thomas berry or wendell berry for example, in their own ways they come to similar types of “conclusions” as mckenna but with absolutely no mention of “entheogens” — see you miss the point when you latched onto the “entheogens” and i still question whether you really understand the deeper implications… (when one has a fearful or unpleasant experience, the natural / “easy” thing to do is to somehow try to bury it or dismiss it).
i will say that if you really took the time to get past the surface and give a more in-depth look at the work of mckenna, you might have discovered that it’s not all about taking “entheogens,” that’s really “the tip of the ice-burg” and such a small part of his philosophical discourse. you see elena, it’s about changing your perspective and thereby changing behavior…. but when you are so convinced that you are “right” in your convictions then changing your perspective will be the last thing on your mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death
It is interesting how you think that I don’t acknowledge the whole of what you are saying but here again all you are saying is that I fail and fail and fail and that I have to research and research and research to come to something that you understand but are unwilling to tell us about. I think I would rather fail if you think that I have to go and read all the authors you’ve read to be able to have a conversation with you.
Thank you very much for your time.
dismissed… again.
How does REB give a submarine a blow-job?
He creeps up behind it and sucks all the seamen out. n.
and by the way folks – elena not allowing ton to support and nourish…..
truth stands,as the soul (activating higher emotion) thrusting supportively the spirit (higher intellect activated) of itself and knows that when the present unticks the tock of the clock and times of experiencing the present are so knit together that one can no longer not be, really and individually, not according to syetem or dogma there is no need for attack or defence…..Nigel.
Yes Ton, the difference is that I dismiss you after I hear you and you dismiss me before we even start.
There are already in the little we’ve talked so many new things that you are missing that what is the point of going on? And then you treat my offering a perception as if it were a finished theory when from the beginning of arriving here I said, I would like to present these ideas so that they can be looked at and destroyed if necessary but instead you say they are not good enough and that I have to work and work and research because I might be wrong but you don’t even look at them in detail, you don’t even consider them seriously. If you really understood what you read, you would be able to share it without evading the question repeatedly.
That is fine. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to hear. One day someone who wishes to understand will take it home.
Nige, “elena not allowing ton to support and nourish”, if you think someone manipulating you like Robert did with the idea that you can’t know anything, that you’re not good enough until you do everything he says is nourish and support, no wonder you jump back and forth without knowing where to stand. Trust your self Nigel, trust yourself so that you are not swept away by each wave.
2. Elena –
“I would like to apologize… for the obnoxious behavior I managed to get to in my frustration with this whole issue that led to my banning and ask to join this conversation again.”
Elena, can you clarify what you meant by ‘this whole issue?’
Sorry Elena
But I have no difficulty in bruising the ‘id’ so that the ferment of getting to grips with one’s blaming others for what cannot get to grips with in oneself. The log in one’s own eye…..if you remember the Christian Book?
In pleasant ICT terminology, you are in ‘a loop’. In a personal bruto-description of my Immortal Reality Making…..
Your head is up your rectal orifice.
Does that answer your request for being a holder of the flame of truth. and by the way I was already doing what you wanted me to do
Engage brain before hitting keyboard
Don’t, woman, wear the petty cloak of masculine bad ideas for bullying people out of there basic ‘Vita Brevis de Veritas’.
We Were There, your name says it clearly, we were there! That issue.
Not finding mechanisms that would lead us to a clear action to stop the Fellowship from hurting more people was very frustrating. I do wonder why others sit and watch people sacrifice themselves and don’t try to understand what happens but try to stop those who do. We are each marked in our lives in such a way that our compromise cannot avoid some issues and on the contrary, find in them a road to our self.
Nigel, deep thanks. We flower more fully each day. Keep trusting yourself no matter what anyone says.
look elena, it may seem that i’m picking on you but i’m going to continue to respond because, although the same old familiar patterns are emerging (why do you suppose that is?), nevertheless i hold out some hope for you.
this IS a “conversation” elena, even though it is not to your liking… when the “conversation” here is not to your liking, that is, when your sense of authority is questioned or challenged, you become defensive and accusatory which prevents you from “hearing” what is being “said” — so we end up going ’round and ’round and ’round… but i’ll keep at it for a while.
you say i “treat your perception as if etc…” but i NEVER treated your perception as if it were “a finished theory,” that’s just plainly absurd when quite the opposite is true. you say that you “would like to present ideas so they can be looked at… etc.” well, you have done so, and i have responded to your ideas… and i never said the ideas you’re so “identified” with “are not good enough” — what i did was to offer sources for some alternative perspectives…. and yes i have looked at your precious ideas “in detail” and i have considered them “seriously” — seriously enough to respond, but you don’t like the responses you’re getting and that’s ok with me because i’m not here to please you.
as for my understanding of what i read, you have no idea, but here’s another clue that will help you more than trying to know what i understand: you would do well to be more concerned about YOUR OWN understanding, or rather the lack thereof. what you should understant is that i’m not here to spoon feed you, i’ve tried to encourage you to grow up and do your own homework… but that annoys you, so you lash out. maybe it comes from walking so long in lock-step with your fellow cultists, but i really think that what you want is nothing more than someone who will agree with you, someone who will support your fragile, inflated ego. as long as the other person agrees with you or doesn’t challenge you, then everything is love and kisses, but when your sense of authority is called into question, the daggers come out… this little spat with nigel is the latest case in point.
i’m NOT here to massage your ego elena… why do you think i posted that link on “ego-death” ? that was intended for you my dear, did you study the topic in any depth, or did you simply ignore it? elena, here’s a bit of tough love for you — your problem is that you’re on a major ego-trip… it’s past time to get over yourself, but it’s not too late.
Now elena robust happiness on the blog has been at this juncture achieved i have a dream that requires your financial commitment and my commitment to your enlightment because of your 9th lifetime role. The bishop blaize pub on exeter quayside has an example of our ‘city of robust love’ walt whitman, the complete poems penguin edition page 164 . gay pride had a massive coming out of the woodwork this friday gone and i flirted with the radical babes in the pub – you don’t need to have sex in bed to really have sex in its full, nourishing capacity – i would be so happy to introduce you to my ‘nighest’ friends. The cutain of doubt will be lifted…..trust…..trust…..trust.
Chapman spent her youth moving frequently due to her father’s Air Force career. Teaching herself to play guitar on an instrument that was intended as a gift for her father, Chapman wrote her first song at age 11. While singing in clubs in… Read More
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Sorry, but I have no time for diplomacy. The Elena experiment is over. If people don’t like it, someone can volunteer to take over the blog.
fofbm
And I am gritting my cross-bite malocclusion mouth on the end of the rope. Steve,,,,,my email address is nhprice@gmail.com if you can buzz me operating method/conduct/requirements. I have medium haul psychological patience.
“Leaders approach chaos and order with the authority of personal magnetism legitimized with a commitment to their own destiny”
Abraham Zoliznic – Business Magazine – June 1989
fofblogmoderator, 99
This people likes it. Thank you.
Now that the lateral shock has helped us ‘fly through the endless rings and never be quiet again’ ww song of the answerer…..
Can we have a little subject to a hungry heart wishing to heal with – perhaps – a personal agony that can go with the peer teaching to an achievable goal
“Teach people how to succeed and they will love you for it; set up obstacles to that succeeding and you will incur hatred”
Abraham Zulanski .?.?.
(MY Vocation and my training as a Post Compulsory Education facilitator)…..n
fofblogmoderator,
Thanks for the job you are doing – well.
Yes, well done fofblogmoderator!
flogmoderator,
i’m the one who should be apologizing here… my intention was not to incite elena but that seems to be the effect which comes of not being in agreement with her. i apologize for my part in taking the exchange to a ridiculous extent but i thought it was “important” not to let the other party get away with “running roughshod” and twisting things to her own “satisfaction.” i know i have my own blind spots, we all do, so i’m probably missing something, that is, other than the ability to deal tactfully and diplomatically with what i perceive to be foolishness…. and for that too, i apologize.
thank you for doing an oft thankless task
99. fofblogmoderator:
Thank you for your continued moderation. As colorful and exciting as the discussion became lately, it was really running roughshod wide of the mark – and becoming a somewhat personal dialog. Thanks again.
Please, Steve, let’s have no more of these experiments. Thanks for all you have done here, and I hope will keep on doing. The blog, for all the dross, has been amazingly helpful in the process of groping toward a genuine valuation for ordinary human experiences, squalor, inanity, and so forth. And you are the major factor in making it so.
“Easy days of peace may come and go; and time and tide may force us far apart: but you who shared our savage yesterday will have the highest places in our hearts.” Memorial – Exmouth, Devon, Celtic Divine, England.
Thanks Moderator
I almost stopped reading the blog. I do not have the energy or want to spend my time reading so many words that I do not comprehend.
Thanks for doing what you are doing.
This blog helped me to heal myself I feel so more free.
Thanks all of you.
If we’re seeing some insanity in Elena’s words, let’s try not to miss our own contribution to that. It’s probably good for her to get a break from this anyway — at least as much as some of us need a break from her.
The main issue for me is coherence of thought — having a point and stating it clearly and relatively quickly without leaving everyone guessing what you meant, or (in the case of the Blog Shills) without any passive agressive bullshit or obvious propagandizing — i.e. lying, misrepresentation, and disinformation, and so forth.
I don’t know Elena. And I haven’t read 20% of what she writes (which is maybe true for much of the blog anyway), but I can obviously see that she gets carried away. It’s hard for me to read, and I start thinking to myself — “Whoa, I hope I don’t sound like this.” Because I get carried away sometimes, too. I mean, for Christ’s sake, this is an extremely emotional set of topics.
I was glad she gave her thoughts to the blog, and I’m also glad some people pointed out what they perceived to be flaws in her thinking, and that some asked her to be calm and to try not to get carried away. However, it seems we’re going just a tad beyond what’s needed here. Elena is shouting from the hilltop mostly. Can’t say I blame her for that. Shouting from the hilltop usually does piss off the neighbors. At some point, the shouting needs to subside and become more coherent, and more even in tone. And I think probably Elena — like all of us — is far from processing a lot of the nonsense that we subjected ourselves to in the FOF. But the fact that she’s shouting — that I completely understand. Elena, I hope you write your book. Doesn’t matter whether it’s published, or how many people read it. Get your thoughts out. I sense something good in there.
I love you all.
Elena is smarting from this and if she is still reading the blog because her lower parts are out for revenge contact for personal me is…..
cellphone…..0797 222346
landline…..011 (44) 1392 462103
“Ease her pain” Fuiled of dreams” directors cut…..n
By the way, if only Robert Burton weren’t a sociopath with multiple personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder who manipulated his followers for sex and money with the delusion of being a prophet on the spiritual level of Jesus Christ, the Fellowship of Friends wouldn’t have been that bad.
If only things were just a little different…
“The devil is in the details”…..
You have no idea how evil I can be, for the right reasons, with a kind heart
but I have ‘evideled’ (there, a brand new invention) I CAN BE FOR ALL…..
“To pray means to open
your hands to God.
It means slowly relaxing
the tension which squeezes
your hands together (into fists)
and accept your existence with
an increasing readiness
This acceptance not only means
that you ready to look
at your own limitations,
but that you excpect the coming
of something new
“With Open Hands”
Henri J M Nouwen
a Dutch Protestant
my role of tradition with which to “Imagine” J Lennon
is eceumenical (look it up!?!?)n.
From ‘Ulysses’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson…..
“I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch, wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.”
“Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
How beautiful upon the mountains,
How beautiful upon the downs,
How beautiful in the village post-office,
On the pavements of towns-
How beautiful in the huge print of newspapers,
Beautiful while telegraph wires hum,
While telephone bells wildly jingle,
The news that peace has come-
That peace has come at last – that all wars cease.
How beautiful upon the mountains are the footsteps
Of the messengers of peace!
Alice Duer Miller, American war poet…..
Somewhat in addressing the recent flood of rambling postings to this blog, and also what Thot Plickens said in post 111 on this page: If I wanted to read endless amounts of words that barely are comprehensible, my choice would not be to come and read those recent, somewhat private, conversations on this blog. I would read Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson by G. I. Gurdjieff. But, I don’t. Why? Because it mostly would be a waste of precious time. And, so it is with those posts to this blog.
113. Thot Plickens:
‘If only things were just a little different…’
Everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate.
Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go.
If people were different everything would be different.
They are what they are, so everything is as it is.
ISOTM, P. D. Ouspensky
Or, in short:
If things could be other than they are, they would be.
I’m watching the blog very carefully to cure my living nightmare…..
“I cannot die, McLeod”
In the beginning
If anyone can remember back that far
Was unfathomable womanhood.
By chance of Original Sin
Which became Ultimate Intelligence;
‘The Absolute was lonely so he created the Universe’.
This supports the Big Bang theory
Since the word of the Ultimate is the cry – I AM,
First account for me.
Creation was implosion
Then ap Rhys (impetuous one)
Throwing out too far (infinite dispersal of galaxies);
Then rolled back the tide to hold
Our solar system together.
Who knows? This may have been the time and place of all experience.
(nhp) 1996
118. WonderingWhosWatching
What I wrote about Burton in 113 was humor. The quote you took out of context was the punchline. The point is, the FOF never was the “school” that many of us believed it was.
“If only Robert Burton weren’t a sociopath with multiple personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder who manipulated his followers for sex and money with the delusion of being a prophet on the spiritual level of Jesus Christ, the Fellowship of Friends wouldn’t have been that bad. If only things were just a little different…”
It was a joke. But unfortunately, it also reflects something absurd about the FOF, about Burton, and about our beliefs in relation to it all.
Pomplamoose!Thank you Bruce!
Yeah, thanks Bruce.
I just got through listening to several of the pieces they do.
There is just something so unpretentious and innocent about their approach.
They make me remember why it is called ‘PLAY’, as in ‘playing music’.
Great stuff.
Brought back, once again, by popular demand on Wikileaks:
Censored Fellowship of Friends cult letter from former legal council D@v!d Spr!ugf!.ld.
Get your .doc file here:
http://mirror.wikileaks.info/wiki/leak/david-springfield-letter-2009.doc
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed–
I, too, am America.
~Langston Hughes, 1925
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I, too, am spiritual.
And on an ascending octave.
And guided by angels.
And beautiful.
Where does this leave us?
Well, rather than us leaving you,
We run laps around it,
We turn the thought on its ear:
It is really you with the chance to join us.
You too are guided by angels,
No matter where you are,
Or who you are with,
Or what you believe.
You, too, can laugh, and eat well,
And grow strong.
yes
16. ton
No forgetting of course. That’s not possible.
I have been there for many many years man…over 20…and I remeber it all. The good and the bad.
Letting go is an inner action, though sometimes it might require some external actions.
Not too long ago, a few people in the state of Texas started throwing around the idea of seceding from the U.S. They weren’t serious, but they obviously wanted to make a statement. They wanted to articulate their disapproval for what was happening in the country — you know, with those pinko commie socialist Democrats taking over the country and all.
So, last year, I saw a bumper sticker that looked just like the Texas state flag. But it also had some text superimposed on it:
On the top line, it read, “Secede:”
On the bottom line it read, “Please.”
~~~~~~~
Someone, I hope you get my point.
Associated Press. 123. Thanks for bringing us back to the topic.
It’s beyond belief that we contributed time and money to this organization.
127. Thot Plickens
I get your point completely. Don’t get me started on Texas.
thot,
“…the idea of seceding from the U.S. They weren’t serious…”
i think they probably were/are serious….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
someone said:
“I think of the heart and mind of some folks here who left 20-30 years ago and are still full of bitterness.”
dear someone,
please and by all means speak for yourself, but please don’t presume to speak for others.
i’ll paraphrase 16 for you – regarding your “encouragement” to “let go” —
it does not mean forgetting, forgetting would be the equivalent of eating a meal and just shitting it out, without deriving any nutritional value. forgetting an incident which is a real, true and therefore valuable “life lesson,” would necessarily lead to repeating the experience. “letting go” is a process, it requires firstly and ultimately, the digesting of experience. digestion implies making something part of what you are, this “something” becomes part of the individual constitution…. digestion implies putting an experience into a proper perspective and seeing it in the context of one’s overall biography. you might look at this site as representing a part of the process of digesting these experiences.
in order to really “let go” it’s necessary to forgive one’s self. and forgiveness only begins with digestion of the experience. with forgiveness of yourself, the “blame game” and projections can take a positive turn and some measure of wisdom is distilled from the experience…. when viewed in the larger context of one’s life, gratitude might even be a “byproduct” that comes from an otherwise seemingly “negative” episode in the journey.
“letting go” requires an understanding of one’s own feelings; this includes the “bitterness” of life experiences, this bitterness is the literal and metaphorical medicine contained in the “pills” of life… the question is what have you learned ? life is bitter, life is sweet, the question is are you willing to acknowledge and embrace it all ?
“someone” — are you ready to speak for yourself ? or would you rather simply criticize “some folks here” who YOU see as “still full of bitterness…”
“It’s beyond belief that we contributed time and money to this organization.”
I had a FOF nightmare again last night. One in a series.
Presence Valley Sunday
The local cult group down the street
Is trying hard to learn their song
They serenade the weekend guru, who just came out after mowing his lawns
Another Presence Valley Sunday
Quiche is burning everywhere
Rows of ‘students’ that are all the same
And no one seems to care
See Mrs. Gray she’s proud today because her roses are in bloom
And Mr. Green he’s so serene, He’s got a Card in every room
Another Presence Valley Sunday
Here in Guess the Symbol Land
Students complain about how hard ‘work’ is
But their kids just don’t understand
Creature comfort goals
They only numb my soul
And make it hard for me to see
So we pretend we’re not the same,
And that we’re far away
But we’re the same in every way
Another Presence Valley Sunday
Quiche is burning everywhere
Another Presence Valley Sunday
Here in Guess the Symbol Land
Another Presence Valley Sunday…
From the book: Frequency – by P. Peirce
The increasingly popular trend toward thinking we can
intentionally create or materialize our life,
or things in our life, is fairly radical, when you consider history’s long emphasis on people being helpless victims
of the gods and their fate.
It means we’ve evolved to a level of knowing
where we can see how our internal states
of spirit, thought, and emotion affect our physical reality
how the non-physical actually gives rise to the physical.
Materializing – or manifesting- is the idea that one can
by force of will, desire, and focussed energy,
make something come true on the physical level.
WhaleRider 131.
I like what ton conveyed in 16 and 130. No surprise that you’re still having nightmares about the FOF years later… I’m still digesting the experience, too, which is why I’m pounding away at the keyboard right now.
I sometimes wonder how some people fared in the mid-1970s or 80s after saying “bye” to Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends. No blog, no greater fellowship site, no contact with anyone in many cases. Alone, far from their old friends, wondering what hit them. I imagine it took them a while to digest things, too, and maybe a lot longer in some cases.
First, there may have been feelings of guilt and self-doubt. Then the sense of feeling stranded and directionless. Sure, anger, too. But I think what the blog shills fail to recognize is that this anger is — by far — pointed more inward and not at the fof. Eventually, a healthy step is to point it toward Burton a bit, and maybe toward some of those who blindly help the guy. And then eventually to not be angry at all, but definitely critical and wary of anything that calls itself They Way, or anyone who preaches that they can show The Way. And all the while processing the experience and — yes — letting go of it, while building a new life simultaneously.
What has been good therapy for me is realizing that maybe — maybe — there’s even just one cult member reading this right now who also feels alone and stranded and directionless, and not quite sure how to build a new life. I still think it’s ironic that the most profound act of awakening, and the most profound “transformation” in the Fellowship of Friends — is the act of leaving it behind.
I remember when Asaf joined the FOF- for those who don’t know Asaf, he is a young (30’s) venus-mercury (if that means anything to you) that was a biblical scholar (or something like that) from Israel that has a talent for memorization. He moved to Oregon House and became Robert’s new “boy”. The two of them were leading meetings together and Asaf gave off the impression that he felt equal to Robert in his level of understanding. I thought to myself, well if this is not an arrangement from influence “c” then I don’t know what is. How could you possibly explain this wunderkind hooking up with the fellowship and willing to become Robert’s “boy” and having so much “being”.
It was dumb shit like that that I used to justify my staying with this cult. Cult members love to say that when you can’t chalk it up to coincidence, you have to realize it’s influence “c”. So anytime a set of coincidences occurred (which still happen for me all the time) I would think to myself- there you go…it’s influence “c”. Even the palm tree madness was something I used to convince myself that this was a real school. I mean who else would think to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars transplanting hundreds of palm trees just to raise the level of impressions? Either a conscious being, a genius or a madman.
Luckily I kept all my “life friends” while I was still in. I just kept two sets of books. When I left the FOF I only lost a small percentage of my “friends”.
2010
sounds like you got out easy…. i burned all my bridges and the escape pretty nearly killed me… probably should have, but apparently it didn’t…. i can only wish that there was a resource like this available, way back in ’83.
plickens, thanks for the thots… i like to think that what we post here might contribute to someone’s, anyone’s escape… and from the accounts of several posters here the blog has been a contributing factor in prying a few folks loose.
134. Thot Plickens:
‘What has been good therapy for me is realizing that maybe — maybe — there’s even just one cult member reading this right now who also feels alone and stranded and directionless, and not quite sure how to build a new life. I still think it’s ironic that the most profound act of awakening, and the most profound “transformation” in the Fellowship of Friends — is the act of leaving it behind.’
Quotation heard the other day, as it were, from out of mouths of babes come words of wisdom:
‘When the student is ready, the teacher DISappears.’
The Teacher has always been there inside of you. Learn to recognize it, if you haven’t already. And, if you are unsure, as Jiminy Cricket said, ‘Let your conscience be your guide.’
‘When the student is ready, the teacher DISappears.’
I like that.
I stood behind Peter Tork at an NRBQ concert at the Kennel Club in S.F. sometime around ’96/’97. Judging from the vibe he threw off, I’m pretty sure he’s awake.
Dear All
Busy, moment to gloss over the blog and wishing you all well.
Dreams and pain and fof.
Time is a factor.
This morning I pondered how it must be for fof ers. So many people still in OH, so much more info. Even parents and grandparents can google and check what the fof is. Believe me they do just like Gloria’s family.
All these activities in OH and all the students. They will see each other so often, post office, in town, library, stores restaurants etc.
In the 70/80 it was so different. Now with the internet. Being in or out we can connect again and work through “issues”.
I feel soooo much more healed, free, and wish all of you the same.
Please search, ask for support and it will come. I went through it.
Enjoy the sun or clouds, every moment.
Thanks moderator and all of you.
When Good Cults go Bad!
Case File Opened: 4/19/10
Code Name: ASAF
Field Reports due now.
Sincerely,
Richard Boone
Underground Tunnel Discovered
YUBA COUNTY- (USA) Authorities at the guru complex and headquarters of the Fellowship of Friends, Inc., a quasi-religious California Corporation, recently unearthed a sophisticated tunnel under one of their border fences that runs along the remote outer regions of their rugged and mountainous land.
The tunnel, equipped with its own state-of-the-art highspeed WiFi Internet connection, had apparently been used either to illegally smuggle non-members onto its property or for current members to escape out into the larger outside world.
The guru with the complex in the small northern Californian hamlet of Oregon House reportedly “speaks to paid standing room only crowds”, says one member, “…so it is not a far reach to imagine that outside people and former members are sneaking in to hear the great guru’s priceless lectures and attend his exotic dinners” (and thus dodging the stiff fees extracted from the loyal flock just for being allowed in the divine guru’s proximity) “…which is one reason we believe our income stream has been drying up lately, people have not been paying enough for their higher states” said David Springcleaning, former spokesfollower for the cult, at a recent shareholder meeting. “Closing down that tunnel to the outside world, along with other loss prevention measures should help improve our bottom line moving forward into the second quarter.”
FOF stock traded lower in afterhours trading today.
I am one of those members who left 20-to-30-years ago (28 to be exact) and, look, I’m here looking at all of your feeback and responses to each other and listening and appreciating and judging. I really do appreciate the care some of you have taken to consider what it was like to leave the FOF without help, without friends, without money. I like this forum because it even helps someone like me who still has little bitty pieces left to put together and this forum helps make those pieces better integrated.
I am one of those former students who left 20-to30 years ago (28, to be exact). I like this forum and all the other Fellowship Discussions forums because even the rancor and disagreements help, to say little of the kindness and understanding that also strengthens and supports.
RINGS A BELL?
Tuesday night, Frontline ran a story about Afghanistan’s ancient child sex trade, bacha bazi. Poor families sell young boys to powerful, wealthy men who train these children to serve as sexual entertainment.
You can watch it here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/view/
What struck me the most is how the abuser has absolutely no guilt
feelings rather the opposite
from the Guardian:
It’s an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as “mistresses”.
“Look at him…complete trusting innocence. It’s a form of slavery….It’s a form of sexual slavery. We have to insure that we take them out of that reality, since it is terribly exploitive of them.”
~UN Special Representative on Abused Children speaking out in “The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan”.
143
horrible! what amazes me is the abusers do not seem to have any sense they are doing something horrible. Some parts of the world are really like hell. We can have hell right here, not in an after life.
http://gawker.com/5522324/the-quasi+catholic-sex-cult-that-requires-yogurt+smeared-sex-in-public
I wonder what Benny Lava would say.
#133: Wow, my favorite book just popped up on the Blog. Anyone truly interested in empowerment and developing intuition should read this book. I have it by my bedside and refer to it all the time.
I feel one of the truly devastating outcomes from staying in a school that denied personal empowerment and belittled it calling it the instinctive center also denied intuition of any kind would benefit from reading this wonderful book.
Frequency – by Penney Peirce
An amazing book.
Below is an excerpt from an interview with an American soldier who was stationed in Iraq and was part of the video that circulated recently on wikileaks showing the murder of Iraqi civilians. Some of the parallels that are found between the group think of the american military and the group think of the Fellowship are uncanny. The link to the whole interview is also below.
“When I enlisted, I kind of bought into all of the rhetoric that I would be making the world a better place and would be spreading freedom and democracy. I grew up pretty religious, and there was a lot of religious language attached to the arguments that were made as to why this war was a good thing. So from the advice I was given from people that I trusted at the time, I believed I would be doing something positive.”
At what point did those beliefs begin to break down?
“There were different things that came up in training that would definitely trouble me. But I would always excuse it and say that it really didn’t matter, as troubling as it was.”
“You go through an experience like we went through and try and come back and reintegrate; a lot of times it’s very challenging. As conflicted as people might be about staying in the military, for one reason or another they don’t feel that they can properly transition back into society, that they lack support or that people can’t understand them.”
http://wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/stie-a23.shtml
Please do not think for a moment that the Fellowship of Friends has in any way opened up and moved away from its cult thinking. Sadly, things are as sinister as they have always been there. Here is a message to all Fellowship members from Friday, April 23, 2010:
“This is a reminder of the exercise to avoid socializing with former students. While a courteous attitude is encouraged, The Teacher has asked not to casually socialize with former students; by not spending time with students that have lost the School, one gives them the chance to experience the absence of Influence C and therefore, the opportunity to return to it. Naturally, business relationships as well as interactions with close family members are fine.
G.R. for the Apollo Directors”
Thanks Ollie!
can we copy and paste the message a couple of times? It summarizes the meaning and existence of the FOF…
“while a courteous attitude is encouraged…” meaning smile and move on pretending you are fine with the former member… Lie to yourself, lie to your neighbour in order to have Robert Burton and his “inner circle” collecting their monies, keep on existing, collecting their pensions, keeping their numerous agendas… And this on the name of “spirituality” and “awakening.”
A Cult is a Cult is a Cult
Ollie, yes, no surprise. It’s an old rule, and it’s the same old spin on the old rule:
“… by not spending time with students that have lost the School, one gives them the chance to experience the absence of Influence C and therefore, the opportunity to return to it.”
But they always forgot to add the following:
“Note: We’ve enacted this rule only because we’re protecting former members who may have a chance to return to our Beloved School — not because we’re concerned that former members may help us think differently about Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends. Therefore, it’s completely fine to spend casual time with former followers who have burned their bridges, see through our bullshit, and therefore have no intention of ever returning to the cult. You don’t have to worry about these people ever returning, so go ahead and socialize with them, Facebook them, meet them for coffee, invite them to parties, etc. They’ll never return anyway. Have at it.”
I think many bloggers here have avoided talking about this — partly because they endured such a heavy dose of pretentiousness from Burton and the FOF. And maybe they also endured a lot of this pretentiousness through other cults and religions they’ve encountered in their lives.
But I will say something about it here, since once again Burton is indirectly making his commentary about “Influence C” and former members…
Here’s my personal testimonial: More than ever, life outside the confines of the artificial environment called “the school” continues to be filled with beauty, mystery, spirituality, uncertainty, challenges, friction, suffering, redemption, transformation, changes, failure, success, growth, and happiness.
No one knows — no one at all knows — what happens to us when we die. No one knows if there are angels, or if there is indeed anything that resembles “Influence C” or “higher forces,” or a Ray of Creation, or Heaven, or Hell. No one knows. No one has “verified” or confirmed or proven a thing. We just guess. We just fantasize.
We live life with a sense of mystery, hopefully following our conscience as well as possible, and hopefully being eternally open to new possibilities, new ways of thinking, and to inspiration and healing — to health of mind, heart, body, and soul.
If there is guidance from above and beyond, this “ex-student” doesn’t want to bore anyone with the idea that he’s “verified” it. But what he does believe is this… that it remains strong and profound as ever for each one of us.
143 & 144 are new
No talking to former members?
Yes, this is interesting we can only do business? You mean support the fellowship of friends and help them when they need?
Help them to bring in more money for the fellowship of friends?
Following the community meetings, there was one a few weeks ago, with a group of fellow shippers and non fellow shippers.
Very strange meeting and it did not go well. Many locals are very suspicious regarding the intent of the this group.
No interactions only business with fellow shippers?
Sharing? Mutuality? We more then they?
Time to grow up.
Who fits the shoe wears it.
156. another name:
‘Who fits the shoe wears it.’
If the foe sh!ts, wear it any way.
GURU PAPERS
“…Asserting that one human being fundamentally knows what’s best for another is authoritarian. If this is accepted, it sets up a chain of inevitable relational patterns that are detrimental to all players of the game.”
Disciples usually become more attached to the psychological state than to the guru, whom they never really get to know as a person. Repudiation of the guru (or even doubt and questioning) means a return to earlier (before joining) conflict, confusion, and meaninglessness. The deeper the surrender, and the more energy and commitment they put into the guru, the greater their emotional investment is. Disciples will thus put up with a great deal of contradictory and aberrant behavior on the guru’s part, for doubting him literally means having their world fall apart.
“Fostering promiscuity, impersonal sex, and interchangeable sexual partners accomplishes the same agenda as celibacy. It trivializes sexual attraction and undermines coupling. Casual, disconnected, modular sex eventually leaves people satiated, jaded, and often hurt. They become fearful of forming deep relationships, which fits neatly into the guru’s need to have disciples detached from everything but him.”
SO MUCH DAMAGE IS DONE IN THE FOF!!!!!
This is why many who are involved in authoritarian surrender adamantly deny they are. Those who see the dissembling in other gurus or leaders can find countless ways to believe that their guru is different.
THE RULES:
1. No deviation from the party line is allowed. Anyone who has thoughts or feelings contrary to the accepted perspective is made to feel wrong or bad for having them. (As we saw when students started to explore the likes of Adishanti and were asked to leave the school)
2. Whatever the authority does is regarded as perfect or right. Thus behaviors that would be questioned in others are made to seem different and proper.
3. One trusts that the leader or others in the group know what’s best.
4. It is difficult to communicate with anyone not in the group.
5. One finds oneself defending actions of the leader (or other members) without having firsthand knowledge of what occurred.
Gurus, like fathers, are in a context that gives them enormous power because of their disciples’ needs, trust, and dependency.
Sex with the guru is similarly incestuous because a guru ostensibly functions as a spiritual father to whom one’s growth is entrusted. Having sex with a parental figure reinforces using sex for power. This is not what women (or men) need for their development.
When the guru drops them, which eventually he does, feelings of shame and betrayal usually result that leave deep scars.”
SO MUCH DAMAGE IS, AND WAS DONE,
by ‘Guru’ ROBERT BURTON!!!!!
Thanks Ollie, you’re a pal.
“This is a reminder of the exercise ((mandatory rule of all cults)) to avoid socializing ((sharing your experiences, engaging in debate, freely expressing your opinions and beliefs)) with former students ((ex-followers exploring their own paths)). While a courteous attitude ((snooty, elitist, aloof, disingenuous, self-absorbed)) is encouraged, The Teacher-Leecher has asked ((who?…everyone who follows him)) not to casually socialize ((share your experiences, engage in debate, freely express your opinions and beliefs)) with former students ((ex-followers exploring their own paths)); by not spending time with students that have lost the School ((ex-followers who no longer support the Rape Factory)), one gives them the chance ((can manipulate them to rejoin by playing upon their human weaknesses)) to experience the absence of Influence C ((the absence of which has never been proven to those with eyes that see)) and therefore, the opportunity to return to it. ((by paying an exorbitant amount of money)) Naturally, business relationships ((anything that produces income, boys, or weed for the cult)) as well as interactions with close family members are fine.” ((Yes, “interaction” with close family members is OK, but make it business-like; they are on the same level. Interaction is fine, but still no socializing allowed with close family members either, unless they are not opposed to being raped in some way by this organization..if they are opposed, avoid spending time with them. They, too, will feel the painful absence of your attention, parenting or love and they want to join just to be near you. Learn to withhold yourself only for the cult, for the sake of the cult. The cult is your extended family and only social network now!!!))
The clincher is this: “…by not spending time with students that have lost the School…” This could be very revealing.
Please check your sources Ollie, or did you cut and paste? Did the FOF blurb say verbatim, “student that left the school”?
Cuz…if I am not mistaken, the correct grammar is “students who left the school”.
Using the word “that” to signify a person, a human being, suggests to me they are unconsciously regarding the so-called “students” as interchangeable, nasrcissistic objects and not individual people. Go figure.
William Shakespeare’s words:
“…This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man…”
From Ollie’s note:
Robert Burton to his “beloved” “students” (read… slaves… men and women lost in another man’s illusions…)
“This is a reminder of the exercise to avoid socializing with former students. While a courteous attitude is encouraged, The Teacher has asked not to casually socialize with former students; by not spending time with students that have lost the School, one gives them the chance to experience the absence of Influence C and therefore, the opportunity to return to it. Naturally, business relationships as well as interactions with close family members are fine.
G.R. for the Apollo Directors”
What a sad imitation of living… I think however “free” some chaps feel when they are still paying their payments for the FOF, it is highly possible that they are trapped in a serious damaging group. Not even two years out of there and I still feel the toxic consequences of having been for so many years surrounded by hypocrisy and people who were “pretending” they were free spirits whereas they (including myself) following the outrageous rules and regulations of a disturbed individual.
It is damaging.
Life is sweet and there is nothing like enjoying the people we really care for and love. We cannot just stop loving them when they leave the Cult, when they do not “believe” the same stuff we believe…
I am hoping that whoever is still sitting on the fence will see this as their sign to finally jump out. As for the rest, I don’t know what it would take.
A friend recently said that she stopped trying to figure out reb. I wish I could also do that. Yet, I keep wondering whether he is simply a sick man or very evil. That’s his power; he keeps us guessing, and he probably doesn’t care a bit.
At times, we may think we are healed, or close to being healed, and then, something like THIS comes along that shows how deep the wounds still are, at least for some of us.
Whalerider 159: You are mistaken. “That” and “who” are equally acceptable usage when referring to people.
One more thought:
“by not spending time with students that [who] have lost the School, one gives them the chance to experience the absence of Influence C and therefore, the opportunity to return to it.”
How many ex-members have “returned to it”? In my 31 years in Fof i am only aware of three, one of which left again. If FoF had a total membership of 20,000 in its history, and it’s now ..who knows…around 1500, it could mean that the percentage of people who would have returned to it is…so small, almost non existent.
Once one has a climpse of the true nature of existence, who wants anything to do with FoF and its leader.
“This is a reminder of the exercise to avoid socializing with former students. While a courteous attitude is encouraged, The Teacher has asked not to casually socialize with former students; by not spending time with students that have lost the School, one gives them the chance to experience the absence of Influence C and therefore, the opportunity to return to it. Naturally, business relationships as well as interactions with close family members are fine.
This indeed was the scariest part of leaving the FOF; the fear of losing my connection with the Gods. And I have one thing to say about that. OMG, that is such bullshit and yet another FOF spin on who has the corner market on the angels. When you have truly verified your connection to yourself you don’t need someone telling you what to do and who to talk to.
Yes Josianne it may be difficult to draw distinctions between what is sickness and what is evil. I suppose they are just labels for something or someone where things have obviously gone horribly wrong.
Both those labels appear to be appropriate for a man by the name of Paul Schaefer who died today. He was cult leader. He had to move from Germany after WWII when it was discovered he was abusing children in his church flock. He fled to, and set up camp in Chile and for the next 40 or so years sexually abused many, many more children, and in other ways a number of adults.
The article that the link will take you too has some parallels that will unfortunately sound familiar to people who spent time in the FOF.
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-torture-colony/
Whalerider, thanks for the completely accurate translation. Some may think you’re being sarcastic, but you’re simply helping us understand what was truly meant by that paragraph vs. what they wanted people to believe they meant.
Regarding the use of the word that vs. who: That’s always been my understanding, too:
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/whoVwhVt.asp
“Who refers to people. That and which refer to groups or things.”
Zannos, there may be some English scholars that disagree with the above and there may be some grammar books who disagree. But nitpicking the grammar was not really his point.
josiane,
“How many ex-members have “returned to it”?
a good point.
the “exercise” of course has absolutely nothing to do with “helping” ex-students to see “the error of their way” — the “exercise” has absolutely nothing to do with “helping” the ex-student to return to the flock… that’s just plainly a line of disingenuous bullshit.
the “exercise” is designed and intended to keep the sheep “in the fold” so to speak. the “exercise” is just another tool used for mind/behavior control: the “good litttle student” who naturally and unquestioningly “practices” the “exercise” with a sense of religious zealotry and diligence, will remain closed-minded and closed-hearted, thus reducing the likelihood that they’ll “stray” and increasing the likelihood they’ll stay.
Mariposa #83 & #84:
Did we know one another? I give you reminders of your youth?
You sign your posts A. Hawaii after the farm? Born ALJ?
No Kid
josiane, ton (163, 167),
“How many ex-members have [actually] “returned to it”?”
Great points both of you.
This is what Osho had to say about dogma.
Religionless Religion
by Osho.
Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Mohammedanism — these are only ideologies, dogmas, creeds; they are only cults. The true religion has no name, it cannot have any name. Buddha lived it, Jesus lived it — but remember, Jesus was not a Christian and Buddha was not a Buddhist, he had never heard of the word. The truly religious people have been simply religious, they have not been dogmatic. There are three hundred religions in the world — this is such an absurdity! If truth is one, how can there be three hundred religions? There is only one science, and three hundred religions?
If the science that is concerned with the objective truth is one, then religion is also one because it is concerned with the subjective truth, the other side of the truth. But that religion cannot have any name, it cannot have any ideology.
I teach only that religion. Hence if somebody asks you what my teaching is, in short, you will not be able to say — because I don’t teach principles, ideologies, dogmas, doctrines. I teach you a religionless religion, I teach you the taste of it. I give you the method to become receptive to the divine. I don’t say anything about the divine, I simply tell you “This is the window — open it and you will see the starry night.”
Now, that starry night is indefinable. Once you see it through the open window you will know it. Seeing is knowing — and seeing should be being, too. There should be no other belief.
So my whole effort is existential, not intellectual at all. And the true religion is existential. It has always happened to only a few people and then it disappears from the earth because the intellectuals immediately grab it and they start making beautiful ideologies out of it — neat and clean, logical. In that very effort they destroy its beauty. They create philosophies, and religion disappears. The pundit, the scholar, the theologian, is the enemy of religion.
So remember it: you are not getting initiated into a certain religion; you are getting initiated into just religiousness. It is vast, immense, unbounded — it is like the whole sky.
Even the sky is not the limit, so open your wings without any fear. This whole existence belongs to us; this is our temple, this is our scripture. Less than that is manmade, manufactured by man. Where it is manufactured does not matter much — beware of manufactured religions so that you can know the true, which is not manmade. And it is available in the trees, in the mountains, in the rivers, in the stars — in you, in people that surround you — it is available everywhere.
Science is the search for truth in the objective world and religion is the search for the truth in the subjective world. In fact, they are two wings of one bird, of one inquiry — two sides. Ultimately there is no need to have two names. My own suggestion is that “science” is a perfectly beautiful name, because it means “knowing.” So science has two sides, just like every coin has two sides. Knowing in the dimension of matter you can call objective science, and knowing in the dimension of your interiority — of your inner being, of your consciousness — you can call subjective science. There is no need for the word religion.
Science is perfectly good — and it is the same search, just the directions are different. And it will be good that we make one supreme science, which is a synthesis, a synchronicity of the outer science and the inner science. There will be no need of so many religions then, and there will be no need then even for somebody to be an atheist. When theists are gone, then there is no need for atheists — they are only reactions. There are believers in God so there are disbelievers in God. When the believers are gone, what is the need of disbelievers?
There is no need to believe in anything — that is the fundamental of science. That is the scientific approach to reality: do not believe, inquire. The moment you believe, inquiry stops. Keep your mind open — neither believe nor disbelieve. Just remain alert and search and doubt everything until you come to a point which is indubitable — that’s what truth is. You cannot doubt it. It is not a question of believing in it, it is a totally different phenomenon. It is so much a certainty, overwhelming you so much, that there is no way to doubt it.
This is knowing. And this knowing transforms a man into a buddha, into an enlightened one. This is the goal of all human growth.
This article was excerpted with permission from Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic by Osho. Published by St. Martin’s Press. ©2000.
Robert not always so charitable. On the leaving of an ‘important’ ‘older’ student, Robert once remarked very seriously; “Fairy tales DO come true. It is just that SOME people simply turn into witches and POOF!”
And we have all noticed that, as if in a game, that Robert’s interpretations of influence “C” trump all other interpretations of influence “C”!
It means that because you cannot trust yourself, you can NEVER leave!
You may remain helpless your whole life, depending on “guidance” from someone who sees creating pain in others as ‘the way of love’.
Learn again to trust what first brought you.
When people learn to trust their inner guidance they will leave the fellowship and that is available to anyone, not just a select few.
sally and silentpurr (a.k.a., Loud Roar), I ALWAYS like your posts.
=====
Slightly different — but very much related — topic…
“There are in fact many reasons why bystanders in groups fail to act in emergency situations, but social psychologists have focused most of their attention on two major factors. According to a basic principle of social influence, bystanders monitor the reactions of other people in an emergency situation to see if others think that it is necessary to intervene. Since everyone is doing exactly the same thing (nothing), they all conclude from the inaction of others that help is not needed. This is an example of pluralistic ignorance or social proof. The other major obstacle to intervention is known as diffusion of responsibility. This occurs when observers all assume that someone else is going to intervene and so each individual feels less responsible and refrains from doing anything.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
Recent national news broadcasts have shown some startling examples of this from security cameras. A man in New York came to the rescue of a woman being attacked early in the morning. He was then knifed several times by the attacker, who then ran away. The security cameras showed the good Samaritan running after the attacker and then collapsing on the sidewalk. As the good Samaritan bled to death, 20 different people walked by the man — a few them even stopped to stare directly at him — and then continued walking. One hour passed before anyone tried to help him.
Because of the bystander effect, the more people who are present, the less likely someone will respond. According to psychologists, people want to fit in socially and don’t want to be the uncool guy who calls 911, administers first aid, and calls for help.
A same or similar effect is occurring with Burton. Many followers ignore (or ignored) the Red Flags partly because of this phenomenon.
When Burton walks by with 7 or 8 young men in his presence — one or two of them looking sad and confused, and slightly embarrassed and sheepish — it’s a bit like seeing that man bleeding to death on the sidewalk. The cult follower (and I’m talking about me several years ago) tunes it out and just assumes that if others are not obviously concerned, there’s no reason for “me” to be concerned. And my god — the worst thing in the world is to call 911. What if that’s not actually blood on the sidewalk, and I’m overreacting? How embarrassing. How uncool.
Ah… overreacting. Whatever you do, don’t overreact. Be cool. Don’t be that guy who calls 911. Don’t respond. Don’t be affected. It’s negativity. It’s identification. Don’t believe the ‘I’s.
Except for the ‘I’ that says don’t believe the ‘I’s. You can believe that one.
When I left the FOF in 1994 (Wow, long ago!) I left in a blaze of anger. Then un-brainwashing myself (releasing the system) was yet another 5 years of not feeling like I belonged anywhere.
Now I have to say that it was all well worth the exit. The FOF is a cult and like any other cult people remain within it because they are scared to venture out.
I just got tired of being scared of everything. Anyone can leave at any time. No one is being held in bondage. It’s everyone’s choice.
And the great thing about not being scared anymore is there are many more choices for me now that were not available to me before.
There is great freedom in letting go of fear. Sometimes fear disguises itself as intuition. It’s such a limiting factor in ones life and completely stalls any type of personal empowerment and growth.
Come on guys it’s time!
Just think of all the great things you could do with all the money you’re saving!!!
The purpose of this “exercise” reminder is quite clear:
1. To isolate physically, emotionally and spiritually FOF members from non-members, ideas and people outside.
2. Thereby rendering members ever more dependent on FOF for their physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
Et voila!: a life-time supply of money and free sex for your beloved leader.
Do not change a winning game, as REB is fond of saying.
171. Silent Purr said,
You may remain helpless your whole life, depending on “guidance” from someone who sees creating pain in others as ‘the way of love’.
Not I. Not you.
If I were a ‘Student’ (or a potential ‘Student’), I think that Silent Purr’s description of ‘Teacher’ Robert Burton’s methodology, would give me pause. I would reflect, re-assess, and leave.
Very well put, Silent Purr!
Sally: “Just think of all the great things you could do with all the money you’re saving!!!”
Yes, exactly. One of the great things you can do is build a retirement savings. You can go to the dentist to have your teeth cleaned, or repaired. You can make several trips abroad — to Europe, to Egypt, to Israel, to the Yucatan, to the tropics — and invite a loved one to join you.
Museums and special exhibits that you couldn’t afford in previous years, you can now afford. You can feel freer to invest your money in learning a new art, craft, or trade. You can go back to school and finish your degree, or go to graduate school, change your career. You can buy a book with a leather cover.
You can join Meetup.com and attend events anywhere in the world where you can meet new people and make new friends who have similar interests. You can buy that motorcycle that always seemed a bit too expensive before. You can pay $275 for a university extension course. You can treat someone to lunch, and make a new friend.
The list is endless — limited only by what a person believes is possible.
Why have a meddling guru in your life to point out your inconsistencies and hopefully help you evolve when you can have kids…(I’m really, really glad I had mine way after I left.)
Who needs to pay for extra friction or intensity in life when there is marriage and divorce…and places like Yosemite to hike in.
178/Thot Plickens
Love it. Well said.
meow!
174. sallymcnally
From my experience fear is just one factor. Habitual state of mind, comfort and close friends are also reasons for members to stay.
No matter what one’s opinion on current members might be, it would be lack of intellectual integrity to state that there aren’t any members who stay because they truly believe that the FOF an RB’s teaching is their way.
176: The purpose of this “exercise” reminder is quite clear:
1. To isolate physically, emotionally and spiritually FOF members from non-members, ideas and people outside.
2. Thereby rendering members ever more dependent on FOF for their physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
YES..BUT…
The REAL purpose of the “exercise” reminder comes from a jealous and pathetic RB upon hearing about the arrival of ex student
Carl-s Carunch- in Oregon House.
Rock that boat.
Both statements could equally be true. That being said, Carl-s had already left, 5 days or so before the reminder was sent to members… I will not disagree with you that REB is petty and vengeful enough to have been prompted by Carl-s’ visit.
I can remember ‘remaining loyal’ to Robert as ‘older students’ ‘dropped’ away.Feeling snug in his confidence…his reassurances.
But then,at that time, I didn’t possess a certain bit of the Fellowship Puzzle.
The piece in the shape of a business card that states the order of Robert’s priorities. ‘Robert’s lifestyle’ is at the top of the list.
The ‘no gossip’ exercise was overkill and in industrial strength
.An old proverb:The words of the tongue should have 3 gatekeepers.
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
I can also imagine that over time, the constant struggle with a dreaded truth that RB can never really be ‘trusted’ must be tiring.
“It’s not supposed to be easy!” (except of course for Robert himself).
Students, when they came aboard the Fellowship did not expect to have to struggle much with their own budding conscience. Their creative self is lying somewhere dessicated, waiting to be watered with truth.
For myself, it isn’t about the fact that Robert is ‘gay’.Not at all.
For me, it IS about the fact that HE cannot accept who HE is
.He is most unkind to himself
.And since he is making the rules, EVERYBODY SUFFERS!
In fairness, Robert’s motives, since they do tend to be PREDATORY, should be openly discussed……
Fellowship Women! Contact your OWN Inner Goddesses! Stand up for your lives and the confused integrity of the uninformed, unsuspecting but sincere newer student, the families!
Go ahead, gossip. it’s necessary.
According to the current member Robert was asked (a few months ago) how one can deal with the fact that so many people now are leaving the school. He replied – use your common sense. This is why many FOFers have opened their doors to the former students. This new “reminder” is a shock for the students as well as for the ex-students. It increases paranoia and is bad news for many people.
Tatyana, Hello!
the same occurred a few years ago. There was even an email that circulated before the “official” announcement. He had also used the expression “common sense.” But this is exactly what everybody who is part of a cult lacks… So, dad needs to come and remind one of the fear of “C-Influence.” It is amazing that adults need a father figure to tell them what to do with their friends, family and professional relationships… Amazing but true…
I am not sure whether the “common sense” is accurate. What I know from about 2 years ago is that the “master” himself had then no idea who was leaving and who was still a member. In any case, manipulation runs high in the “inner circles”. The message is even worse when you pretend you can tell one to use “common sense” and then serve the “C-Influence” dish again…
I met a current member by accident the other day. She turned pale, turned her head on the other side, could not look at me in the eye… What a miserable place to b,e right? When a few years ago she and her spouse were in some serious difficulties we helped as much as we could… But you do these things and you move on… I would not expect something back… How rude and dishonest is to shun people… What a prison… Secrets and lies…
184. That being said, Carl-s had already left, 5 days or so before the reminder was sent to members… I will not disagree with you that REB is petty and vengeful enough to have been prompted by Carl-s’ visit.
5 Agonizing days for RB. What he hears through the grape vine or
rather, spy-vine, is how Carl-s is welcomed with open arms, parties and dinners galore are organized by current and ex students.
RB is fuming, his golden boy, dream prince, half of the Royal Couple, his role as ‘grandfather’ to C and E’s children, all gone, vanished, humiliating to the bone and it must have driven him nuts! BEWARE This man RB does not like to lose!!!!!
But can you really set the clock back? After the freedom of being at parties and dinners with ex and current alike, will one actually obey this new exercise? It be interesting to see if he still has the power to dominate and control the current students.
Sounds like quite the soap-opera. Who needs TV?
I posted many pages ago, and was driven off by some of the more aggressive posters on this site (in fairness, my diplomacy skills could use some polishing).
I’m returning because of the revival of the ancient diktat nixing contact with former ‘shippers — or rather “discouraging” it, with a huge wallop of velvet-gloved dominance. I suspected that the new policy of “openness” was a temporary ruse, and would change without warning. It did. This is the only way I know to speak to current FOF members en masse — so may I borrow the bullhorn for a moment?
I used to defend this “no contact” policy. It was harsh, but utterly necessary to create a “pure” experiment of consciousness – after all, you wouldn’t expect someone who left the monastery to come back during his lunch hours to hang out with the monks. It was an important decision: you were either in or out. If we were indeed trying to create a culture of higher consciousness, it helped to work with a petri dish that had been washed and sterilized, with no unexpected elements that would muddle the results.
This is true. And it worked. The experiment was kept pure. And as a result I can now say with certainty: The results are in – *and the experiment is a failure!* No “higher consciousness” was created – or at least not any kind of consciousness that is beneficial to the individual, or to society as a whole.
If you go back through this organization’s ancient texts, you will see page after page of aims for the organization that has failed. There were no “six conscious beings.” There was no “seedbed of civilization” – in fact, there was a highly skewed and petrified notion of what culture is, as filtered and distorted through one poorly educated gay man. There was no civilization that survived an earthquake, or nuclear war, or anything else beyond county taxes, and that barely. In fact, if you look around the FOF property, you will see a series of unfinished octaves: the burned-down bistro, the red-tagged theatron, the concrete winery that was never finished, the dilapidated “Apollo d’Oro,” the neglected vineyard. Your Teacher could not “be the words.”
Conscious? My foot! What was considered “consciousness” was in fact an apotheosis of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) behaviors, meticulously focusing on spotless shoes and microscopically-measured table settings. (Not to mention Viennese curtains and chandeliers in trailer parks — you see, I am even trying to embarrass you out of the FOF by appealing to your good taste!) Being conscious “in the moment” was used to buffer conscience, to avoid taking responsibility for oneself, and to circumvent “being the words” from one moment to the next. Gurdjieff, after all, said the measure of man’s being is reliability. Reliability happens *over time*.
This is the nasty truth: every single one of you was a better person when you walked in the front door. Those who are still, in a common-sense meaning of the term, “good people” are living off their diminished principal; they were once *better* people. Every single person that I observed had some big, fatal flaw that became and enlarged and distorted in the FOF beyond normal human bounds – be it lust, greed, laziness, self-importance, self-regard, whatever. (The people who were “closest to Robert” had the highest degree of personal distortion.)
Me too. My natural tendency to duck a fight became outright cowardice, an exaggerated unwillingness to face hard facts, an unwillingness to draw logical conclusions from what I saw (the comment about “bystander effect” in #173 above is a painful reminder), a distended ability to rationalize what I saw with mobius loop kinds of thinking and mental shell games. When I finally saw that the whole showboat was taking people to an isolated desert island – I left.
The hour is late. Now you folks are in an endgame. The drawbridge is going up, but the troops are diminished. You are running out of bucks, and the times are against you. The truth is, any nation that has any substantial internet penetration does not attract new FOF members. And the internet is everywhere.
So you find more and more remote nations to recruit – places where people are too poor to have a water heater, let alone the internet. And you are drawing in students for whom the FOF, in all its garish vulgarity and kitschiness, is a much better prospect for a lucrative future than anything they will find at home. These are what you call “magnetic centers.”
In any case, fresh meat won’t save you: These people will not bring money into the FOF, though they will continue supplying you with sexual partners (a.k.a. prostitutes) beyond what your native skills would attract. The dollars are going to go down, once you’ve finally exhausted the coffers of people who were once householders, or who once leached off people who were householders.
Let’s face it: If you had read the stuff about Robert’s behavior before joining — you would have kept a wide berth, too! This is the miserable secret truth no one will talk about in the FOF. Most of us who joined in the 70s and 80s didn’t know, and once we did know, we were too heavily invested to bail. The only way left to us was denial.
I was taken to task in previous posts for not using my real name (how many of you do?), yet here’s something I would not say to current FOF members if I were using my real moniker: I have a dear relative with Alzheimer’s, and honestly, it’s easier to deal with the Alzheimer’s patient than you! There’s less denial. When I am with you, I have to pretend that I do not see you teetering on a terrible precipice – morally, financially, spiritually, psychologically.
But still I meet with you. Still I talk to you. I’m waiting. I’m waiting for you to bail. I’ll be there for you when you do. You’ll need as many friends as you can find. You’ll need your whole psychological rolodex to reconnect with jobs and housing. It will be one of the toughest things you’ll ever do to reestablish yourselves – but the sooner, the better. Really. It won’t get easier if you wait another five years — leave, before they carry you out feet first! Even if you can’t leave now, start building bridges out. At least start thinking aright. Make an aim. Start now.
You are welcome to cut me out of your life with the latest diktat. Believe me, you need me a lot more than I need you! My friendship is one I won’t withdraw on anyone’s say-so. You will need a few of those. I know. I’ve been there.
‘This is a reminder of the exercise to avoid socializing with former students. While a courteous attitude is encouraged, The Teacher has asked not to casually socialize with former students; by not spending time with students that have lost the School, one gives them the chance to experience the absence of Influence C and therefore, the opportunity to return to it. Naturally, business relationships as well as interactions with close family members are fine.
G.R. for the Apollo Directors’
Besides the various takes on the appearance of this message that have already shown up in this discussion and with regards to the visit of C. C. of the ‘Royal’ family, consider this please:
Robert Earl Burton is a bully (read: king of the mountain) and will use whatever means he has at his disposal to punish persons that he feels may have offended him. And, like the bully on the school yard, if he cannot directly punish the one who is the target, then a surrogate will be substituted. Wielding this ‘exercise’ is one of the typical ways he demonstrates his displeasure with the dearly departed student, punishes the whole fellowship membership, and makes some circumstance an example so that others might not similarly incur his wrath. It might also be added that this is the way he gets in his ‘parting shot(s)’ and justifies, in his thinking, that he is always right. Beware the negative attention of Robert Earl Burton.
Furthermore, one’s relationship with Influence C is personal (between you and God; God and you) and there is no way Robert Earl Burton could know whether or not a person is, or will, ‘experience the absence of Influence C.’ By the fruits you shall know them.
It reminds me of the scene from the sci-fi movie “Dune” in which this bad guy is holding this other guy prisoner and has surgically installed a plug directly into his prisoner’s heart…to which the guy has a tether attached.
If the prisoner makes one false move or doesn’t do what the guy says, the guy threatens to yank the tether and pull the plug to his heart, causing him instantly to bleed to death.
Such is the case with Burton’s tether. One false move and he yanks on the cord, pulling the plug on your FOF membership and your socio-emotional network, and down the drain you get flushed.
You can crawl back, for a price.
Luckily, upon leaving his matrix, you find Burton’s plug fooled you; the clever device was really just a suction cup on your heart through which he milked you…and it was only your own fear that made you his slave.
Spot on WhaleRider!
An exciting day! Two mighty religious organisations, the Church of Scientology and the Fellowship of Friends, are locked in a head-to-head race today. Both are speeding ahead, going somewhere, nobody knows where. Who will get there first?
“The pace of the School has increased, and our being has increased because of it.”
The Fellowship of Friends (from “Daily Card”, April 28, 2010)
“When you do your Scientology Grades at Flag, you are in the center lane and the only road that leads to freedom, traveling full speed ahead.”
Church of Scientology (from “Destination OT Flag” brochure. Looks like a scientologist once lived at our address, almost every week a piece of CoS junk mail arrives at our doorstep…)
#189: Sounds like quite the soap-opera. Who needs TV?
Drama is a good way to create so much diversion so as to silence the inner voice.
Strange how the new of Robert’s exercise does flare up some pain. A friend told me: I wish I had not heard of it. Now I am looking at students checking if they will talk or not. Another ex fellow shipper is “upset” Old pains surfacing?
Greg H-lm-n who is the new director and at the same time is in the local community project to make Oregon House a gated community with stucco houses and tile roof, with beauty committees and inspectors who will inspect your house.
Boundaries widened and fire break walls to be put in, paid by? The locals and ex fellow shippers?
It is strange to see trust being violated and at the same token is this committee with P-t-r M-r- and K- Kr-h-r really honest and interested in a mutual improvement in the Oregon House Dobbins?
The hunch Robert reinstating the rule not to socialize with ex members after C-rl-s Ca left is not that strange. Has happened before in different varieties. The scary aspect is that Mr RE Burton calls these decisions “Influence C or from higher directed.
Members of the fellowship, wake up, and inform yourself.
Thanks Arthur. 194
193. Ollie
He’s been saying that for nigh on to 30 years. One would think he would have produced a “conscious being” by now, if every time he said it it was true.
191 whalerider and all
Glad to be back to the blogsite after a brief two weeks in the ‘asylum’, having my medication re-adjusted. So much common sense spoken herer from people who REALLY ARE. Hope to blog some more in the next few days…..Nigel
“Drama is a good way to create so much diversion so as to silence the inner voice.”
Haldol is another way to silence the inner voices, right nige?
BTW, can you get Clozaril in the UK? Been there, done that? Ask your Doc. If you’re having a difficult spell, it seems to have less side effects than most, but you have to have a blood draw to have your liver levels checked every week or 10 days or so.
193. Ollie – April 28, 2010
“Two mighty religious organisations, the Church of Scientology and the Fellowship of Friends, are locked in a head-to-head race today. Both are speeding ahead, going somewhere, nobody knows where. Who will get there first?”
————————–
Though this comparison seems quite appealing, the two organizations are quite different from one another.
I have a short experience with Scientology and though it has been really long ago, there is no comparison.
Scientology has been blunt and quite aggressive for me.
The FoF creates for most of its members a great deal of pleasantness.
So if one seriously wants to reveal what is wrong with the FoF, comparing it to Scientology is missing the target.
190, 197 & 200 are new
201. Someone
“… comparing it to Scientology is missing the target.”
No, it isn’t.
Another one of your pronouncements from lala land. YOUR experience is the ONLY experience YOU can address with any credibility. Why not just “move on” Someone, as you say?
201. Someone
“The FoF creates for most of its members a great deal of pleasantness.”
Pleasantness…are you serious? What about the high control, judgemental, money grabbing, emotional and sexual abusing, etc., and etc. …
Ok, I get it…
You must mean the “Remembering Oneself”, fresh flowers, attractive friends from all over the world, focus on highly refined art and music etc. parts, right?!
But what about the high control, judgemental, money grabbing, emotional and sexual abusing, etc., and etc. …
Thanks William
Do not forget we need you too. Especially now with the no talk to ex member exercise. My healing is shaken..did not expect it. Signaling somebody out and cut of “real contact” is very hurtful at least for me.
Strange process.. life it, forgive, me myself and others….
Sigh.
George Orwell said:
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
190. William:
‘Conscious? My foot! What was considered “consciousness” was. . .’
Your foot may be more conscious than a teacher who is primarily conscious of penis. During the years the teacher was in his ‘retirement’ mode – not actively teaching at meetings (mid 1980’s to early 1990’s, I think it was) – he was primarily interested in continuously partying, mostly with his boys. (He still did teach at the teaching dinners during that phase.) He regretted, and probably regrets to this day, having to give that up in order to keep the FoF from collapsing around him.
190/William
The Agency has an opening for you.
Sincerely, Richard Boone
200 Whalerider
I think Cloziryl is available in the UK. But you probably realize that all these medications have minor to major side-effects. When I was in my first week this time in the ‘looney bin’ they cranked up the dosage to the max on Lithium, Olanzapine and Haloperidol which had the effect of Parkinson’s Disease (caused by low dopamine flow across the neuro-transmitters). This admission was certainly not as aggressive as last year – I did call the poilce and ambulance to get myself admitted (1 police lady and 2 lady ambulance crew came and decided I did not need arresting and then 2 ladies from the Crisis Resolution team arrived and took me to the ‘asylum’). My dad, at meetings, tries to get an answer to ‘getting to the root of the problem’ and does not realise it is an ongoing disorder that I have, caused, ususually by stress, that I will have as long as I am alive. Nigel
Dear Some one
What about all the lies you lived? Do you have a conscience? Do you not wake up and ask yourself “what did I supported/support?
Dear members.
Do you see what you support? A sick man RE Burton who wants your money and sex?
Special powers? Your verifications?
Go work in a psychiatric wards and interact with psychopaths and psychotic patients, they see right true to you and give you incredible states”photographs. Cheaper and you will be in “live” working and making money.
The “teacher” appears were ever you go.
190. William
Powerful. Thank you!
The Princess speaks
204. Golden Veil
Due to superficial childish posts like yours, this Blog has turned out to be completely impotent in terms of actual legal results.
Yes, there is a lot of pleasingness in the FoF form. That is why it is so appealing to some people.
There are places in the world that dinners of high standards are very appealing for members – like for instance in China.
If you cannot deal with facts and can only repeat the usual bla bla about the FoF, than you are not a very intelligent person.
Even when I left there wasn’t so much visible control besides the usual standards. There was no pressure about money besides TP and I am telling you from my own experience that it was relatively comfortable for most people there in OH.
For 80 percent of the FoF members in OH there is almost no pressure of any kind. You get good friends, in most cases good food and good wine for reasonable prices, nice countryside view, good looking women and nice guys and quite available sex.
Start dealing with facts as they are and not with cliches.
The FoF is worthy of hash criticism and not childish talk.
213. Someone
“If you cannot deal with facts and can only repeat the usual bla bla about the FoF, than you are not a very intelligent person.”
I am surprised that you would stoop to this sort of abusive ad hominem personal attack. You insult me: I am not factual, I just repeat the usual bla bla cliches and am unintelligent.
You, on the other hand, would never speak in cliches, especially about the “pleasingness” of certain superficialities you avidly list regarding the FoF form:
“You get good friends, in most cases good food and good wine for reasonable prices, nice countryside view, good looking women and nice guys and quite available sex.”
You say, “The FoF is worthy of hash criticism and not childish talk.”
Well, as I said, “But what about the high control, judgemental, money grabbing, emotional and sexual abusing, etc., and etc.”
To expand upon one of my harsh criticisms (in order to be less bla bla), I choose ‘judgemental.’
This is not a superficial aspect by any means. Judgement is pervasive throughout the Fellowship of Friends experience. The Fellowship of Friends world is defined by a class system made up of “life people,” students, center directors, inner circle, young men entourage, and teacher. An atmosphere of judgement is diffused through each of these: students look with disdain upon the “life people” still under A influence. They “photograph” each other, and are encouraged to not only inform on each other, but also on themselves.
The defacto influence of this blog has been repeatedly demonstrated by many facts posted here by ex students; and not been in expectation of any “legal results”. Posting on the blog is more often a resource for healing for ex-students, and also a cautionary resource for prospective students. While I will not argue with your stated fact that “For 80 percent of the FoF members in OH there is almost no pressure of any kind.”, I will say that I think these “pleasantness” enjoying members must be very busy, intently buffering the darker side of the Fellowship of Friends.
I agree, “The FoF is worthy of hash criticism and not childish talk.” !
205 & 210 are new
thanks wiliam for 190:
“The experiment was kept pure. And as a result I can now say with certainty: The results are in – *and the experiment is a failure!* No “higher consciousness” was created – or at least not any kind of consciousness that is beneficial to the individual, or to society as a whole.”
but according to “someone” 213:
“…You get good friends, in most cases good food and good wine for reasonable prices, nice countryside view, good looking women and nice guys and quite available sex…”
the “experiment” was never really about creating “higher consciousness” anyway… in fact from “someone’s” description it sounds like the experiment was really just another type of country club… which calls into question the whole idea of false advertising… personally i wouldn’t have wasted my time with it had the fof portrayed itself as a country club for ‘new age’ snobs rather than falsely promoting the image of a ‘school’ for developing ‘higher consciousness.’
Here’s a quote from a financial blog I was just reading regarding Goldman Sachs and Lloyd Blankfein. From what this blogger describes, it sounds like like Lloyd would be the perfect CFO for the FOF.
“We all have a tendency to see ourselves as doing good, spreading the wealth, marching towards the betterment of man and mankind and anything we do can be explained away as part of this grand and noble cycle. In my typical long winded manner, what I’m saying is that Lord Blankfein truly does believe what he is saying. His is the most dangerous type of scoiopathy because he’s suffering from the delusion that he’s correct, whereas most sociopaths don’t even think about the morality of their actions except in relationship with how to use someone else’s moral makeup against them.
He has passed over into the insanity we all flirt with, where we sometimes create a world within a world and we occupy that world and reinforce that world to perpetuate our own insanity by believing not only that we are sane but that we are doing God’s work, that our (in)sanity is benefiting those around us. The perfect positive feedback loop that pure insanity represents”
—————————————————————————————–
#213 Someone– Your comments sound way off base. I think you misunderstood Golden Veil.
FOFian’s Index
Approximate number of Fellowship of Friends members in December 2009 according to the FOF: 1,500
Approximate number of Fellowship of Friends members in 2009 who had “plenty” of consensual sex: 20
Number of Fellowship of Friends members who can afford to travel abroad in 2010: 150
Number of young male members in 2009 who “traveled abroad” or “spent a lot of time” with Robert Burton: 150
Chances that some of those men contracted the Herpes virus: 99.999%
Chances that a young handsome man who joins the Fellowship of Friends will be propositioned by Robert Burton: 100%
Number of Fellowship of Friends members who say they’ve “verified that Robert Burton is conscious”: several
Number of Fellowship of Friends members who believe they have found the one true path to consciousness, awakening, and enlightenment: several
Approximate number of people who have left the Fellowship of Friends: 15,000
Percentage of former members who see striking similarities between the Fellowship of Friends and other cults: 99.9%
Percentage of income donated to the Fellowship of Friends in 2009 by one 55-year-old member: 65%
Total amount of money stored away in that member’s savings and checking accounts: $35.77
Total amount of credit card debt for that member: $65,100
Number of Fellowship of Friends members filing for bankruptcy between 1995 and 2009: several
Percentage of FOF members who are familiar with the concept that “payment is a principle”: 100%
Number of meetings in the Fellowship of Friends devoted to providing sincere financial and career advice to its members: 0
Chances of getting “removed” from the Fellowship of Friends if you criticize Robert Burton: 100%
Chances of being invited to dinner by Robert Burton if you are doing well financially: 100%
Chances of being invited to dinner by Robert Burton if you are doing well financially and if you “say all of the right things”: more than 100%
Chances that dick moron’s video (212) is a nearly accurate account of a conversation between Robert Burton and one of his enablers: 100%
Number of people who say they will never leave the Fellowship of Friends no matter what Robert Burton does: several
Number of people who say they will never leave the Fellowship of Friends as long as they continue “gaining something”: several
Number of people in the Fellowship of Friends who believe they could “gain something” from any experience: 1,500
Statistics available that describe where the money is spent that members contribute to the Fellowship of Friends: 0
Number of Fellowship of Friends members who express their own opinion at a Fellowship of Friends meeting: 0
Number of prospective members of the Fellowship of Friends who are told they must contribute a minimum of about $600 per month: 0
Number of prospective members of the Fellowship of Friends who are told they must pay significantly more than the above to participate regularly: 0
Number of prospective members of the Fellowship of Friends who are told that Robert Burton “teaches” by having sex regularly with his students: 0
Chances that a Fellowship of Friends member will go to the dentist in 2010: not good
Chances that a Fellowship of Friends member will add to his/her retirement account in 2010: very unlikely
Percentage of prospective members of the Fellowship of Friends who are told that Robert Burton predicted World War III for 2006: 0%
Percentage of prospective members of the FOF who are told that Robert Burton predicted that California would fall into the Pacific in 1998: 0%
Percentage of prospective members of the FOF who are told that all non-members of the FOF are spiritually doomed: 0%
Chances that a person can live a happier, healthier, more productive, and more spiritual life outside the Fellowship of Friends, AND have more fun: ______
No statistics available. You decide on that one.
2010
What do you know about Loyd Blankfein to judge him as insane. Why do you assume he is not doing good. What do you know about his reality? Is it because he is one of the highest paid executives on Wallstreet? Do you think that is easy? Don’t you think you need full attention to handle that?
SILENCE IS WHERE THE MIRACLE IS BORN…. THERE YOU ARE!
SILENCE IS WHERE YOU FIND YOUR SELF AMONG THE MANY.
SILENCE IS WHERE WE ARE ALL ONE WITH EVERYTHING THAT IS !
YOU ALL WILL FIND ME AT THE END OF THE WORLD….JUST WHEN YOU ARE READY, ARE YOU READY ?? “THEN THIS IS IT”. !!
“EVERYTHING FOUND SILENCE”.
LOVE
LOADING…
http://www.universal-link-up.com/
TO BE LOVE IS BEING YOUR SELF AND BEING YOUR SELF MEANS ?
YOUR ARE AWAKEN!!!
WE HAD NEVER BEEN ASLEEP BUT FOR SOME REASON WE FORGOT…IT ! NOW THANKS GOD WE REMEMBER IT!
THIS IS IT !
#212: Dick Moron, I needed a good laugh this morning and I have to say that video was hysterically funny! Very creative and clever you are. aloha
#190: Excellent post. Mahalo
218, 219, 220 and 221 are new
2010 (217), very good comparison.
Joining the Fellowship of Friends was an investment. The question was, what were we investing in? Like many people in the past decade who invested in “doomed derivatives” and fell for numerous other schemes, we didn’t really ask that question with any depth. We simply believed that we were investing wisely, because someone told us we were. We verified nothing. We believed.
I heard recently that the best sales scam is when the scammer convinces you that anyone would be a complete idiot to pass up the opportunity (i.e., you will otherwise end up in Hell and lose all possibilities, and there’s only one Fourth Way school on the planet, and you have a chance to board “the ark,” etc.).
“…we sometimes create a world within a world and we occupy that world and reinforce that world to perpetuate our own insanity by believing not only that we are sane but that we are doing God’s work…”
Invest wisely. How? Ask questions. A lot of questions.
#219 Peter-
I would hope that you are kidding with those questions. I stated up front that what I wrote was a quote from another blog that I had read. Those weren’t my words, I just copied what someone else had written. However, if you look at all the phone calls that took place between the US Treasury, the Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs during the month of September 2008, you might find a lot “insider trading” going on right there. You might also want to look at why Lehman Brothers was allowed to (forced) to declare bankruptcy and why AIG is still standing. Goldman (Lord Blankfein) was responsible for those two occurrences.
Pyramid Power
Oregon House, CA
AP News
Seymour Truth
Fellowship of Friends Headquarters and Robert Earl Burton’s new home:
The six-story-tall, 17,000-square-foot 24-karat-gold-plated Pyramid House has to be one of the most bizarre homes ever constructed. It’s located on an island and is surrounded by a giant moat; includes enormous statues: a 50-foot likeness of King Tut and driveway lined with 80 stone sphinxes, metal palm tree and a three car garage topped by three smaller pyramids.
I expect that must be one of the most often asked questions – “Why did I join the Fellowship of Friends?”. It is hailed in the light of the fact that, now out, we realised we were ‘scammed’. Personally, I never had any previous contact with cults, having joined the FOF at the tender age of 21 and was fiercely interested in making contact with Higher Consciousness (Higher Centres). I had a ‘life aim’ before I joined the FOF and it continued throughout my membership and, with an intermission of 14 years where I was not doing anything much artistic, I am now being hailed as a ‘master silversmith’ by my students and experiencing many moments of a Higher Nature (synchronicity and serendipity with much meaning interlaced). I wonder, if I had not had my membership of the FOF brought to a halt by financial failure, whether I would still be a member. Moot point, I believe, since there is an element, a great element, of Fate involved that I cannot back down from. I feel this original question ‘why did I join’ should be one to which great subject matter might be applied, both by current members, who are held by the fascination of ‘the high life’ and all that costs, and ex-members, who are reviewing what was achieved and may be retrieved from the unravelling of experience…..Nigel.
Elena maybe this will help you get a little but more insight about IT !
Understanding Aspects and Walk-ins
Master Guide Kirael, through the mediumship of Kahu Fred Sterling
http://www.kirael.com
KIRAEL: The higher self will usually aspect itself into a trinity created of three aspects, although there is no guarantee of having any other aspects on the Earth plane at any given time. Spiritual seekers normally have at least two of their potential aspects on the Earth plane. However, when the higher self sees that a planet is about to undergo a new kind of shifting process, the higher self wants to garner as much knowledge of the experience that it possibly can. Hence, it arranges that all three of its aspects be on the plane at the same time. At a certain point, the higher self can decide to bring two aspects home to the Creator’s Light and leave one on Earth, or it can decide to have all three on entirely different planetary systems. But most often the higher self will focus three aspects of itself onto a single plane simultaneously, forming a trinity light formation from which to learn. [See also Guide to the Unseen Self by Fred Sterling, 2002 Lightways Publishing.]
Aspect Transference
There are many cases in which the human soul energy has completed all it came to learn and it is ready to return to the Creator’s Light, while still having a highly functioning body system. In these situations, the higher self will enter a new aspect of itself into the perfectly healthy body. This new aspect will have a whole new set of lessons to learn that will amplify the evolution of its soul family. Thus, if people awaken one day, feeling as though they are someone different, they likely experienced an aspect transference or a walk-in.
These processes can sometimes take months, even years, to complete. At other times, it can happen overnight. A walk-in transference can also occur during a traumatic incident in which the physical body becomes so overwhelmed that it chooses to shut down. What people might think is a coma could be the higher self that is transferring a new aspect into the body. When this occurs, the person has little memory of its past upon awakening from the coma.
There is another kind of walk-in, which takes places when the higher self can no longer motivate its human aspect to evolve. For example, this occurs if a human vibration gets caught in a repetitive lesson and chooses to re-enact its journey over and over. Then the higher self will place as many different possibilities as it can to break the spiral. If the spiral cannot be broken, the higher self has another option. The higher self can remove this non-evolving aspect of itself from the human embodiment and allow an aspect of another higher self to use the body. This special transaction will further enhance the journey of the soul family. [See also Kirael: The Genesis Matrix by Fred Sterling, 2001 Lightways Publishing.]
The Hierarchy of Energy
Now that you know the definitions of walk-ins and aspects, I will lay out the so-called “hierarchy” of energy involved in your journey when a walk-in comes in or when another aspect of your higher self exists either in this dimension or another. Your physical presence is the vehicle that gets you through this journey. It is connected to your emotional, mental and spiritual bodies, your higher self’s other two aspects, your higher self, your monad, and ultimately, the God Creator.[1] Just above your physical body is your spiritual body, and just above your spiritual body is your higher self-a beautiful journey of love and light that is in control of almost everything in your journey. Above the higher self is the monad, a beautiful ring of light that contains all of your disincarnate soul family. So the monad is between the God Creator or the Creator Force and your higher self. Aspects and walk-ins come from the monad through your higher self, which brings them into this journey. With that said, I believe you have sufficient groundwork for questions.
Q: What purpose do aspects serve in our evolution?
KIRAEL: Aspects, which are always part of your journey because they are part of your higher self, have different levels of awareness that help balance out your journey. Those of you who are going through the Shift in Consciousness are the youngest of your higher self’s three aspects. When I say youngest, I am referring to the level of awareness or soul age. If your higher self has aspects that are space beings, say, one on Andromeda and one on the Pleiades, you would be considered the youngest aspect, because aspects from the other realms are generally more evolved than you. They are way above your awareness level here on the Earth plane, because they operate in a more unlimited capacity, having a much higher brain capacity. They are not restricted by the yin/yang journey, and their DNA is more expansive. If you have an aspect in Japan, who sits on a mountaintop meditating 22 out of 24 hours, or an aspect in Africa who is the queen of a remote tribe, it too will probably be much older and more experienced than you, because it will be more spiritually evolved.
As the youngest of your higher self’s aspects, you have chosen the full third-dimensional journey, not only to experience the balance of yin/yang, but to age the soul and participate in this shifting process. When an aspect of your higher self incarnates on the Earth plane, it will reduce its power by acquiring the ego, or what we call the veil, and it will use only 10-12% of its brain, because it operates with only two strands of DNA. That’s all you can handle on this third-dimensional journey of moving from fear to love. You came here specifically to do the third-dimensional journey, and your level of awareness has been lowered to enable you to experience this duality.
When the time comes for this Great Shift in Consciousness and you move from the third to the fourth dimension, the energy will be so overpowering that your higher self’s other aspects will automatically cease to exist in their current form and will download their information and knowledge into you, expanding your awareness.[2] Although you are considered young vis-à-vis your other two aspects, you are not considered young in the larger picture. In the larger picture, you are considered medium-aged souls and you may fall into one of three categories: young-medium, medium-medium or old-medium. You have to be at least a medium-aged soul to get through the Shift.[3]
Q: Is the higher self in control of all of its aspects?
KIRAEL: Your higher self is the main force of this journey and when it splits off aspects and sends them to the Earth plane or wherever else it wants them to go, it’s still in control of them. So it doesn’t matter if one is an Earth aspect, another is in the Pleiades and still another in Andromeda; all three work with your higher self. Your higher self is listening to us now and interacting with its other two aspects.
Aspect Awareness and Vibration Levels
Q: What percentage of the higher self is an aspect?
KIRAEL: That is a linear question that cannot be answered. Your higher self’s energy cannot be quantified, because no separation exists between you and your higher self and its other aspects.
Q: What determines an aspect’s level of awareness? Does brain capacity have anything to do with the level of awareness an aspect has?
KIRAEL: An aspect’s level of awareness has to do with its soul age, and its soul age is reflected in its choices through many lifetimes, not its number of lifetimes. For instance, an aspect who has spent most of its lifetimes in the aboriginal energy will probably be more spiritually evolved than an aspect who has had few such lifetimes.
With respect to brain capacity, as the human aspect, you have 10-50% of your brain power available at this time, yet most of you are using far less than 50%, more like 10-22%. At the time of the Shift in Consciousness, you will have 50-100% of your brain power available to you; whether you will use all 100% will depend on your own evolutionary journey. If you practice meditation on a daily basis, you will more likely be using a higher percentage of your brain power, because when you meditate, you can tap into your higher self and be at its level of understanding, which is 100%. You don’t usually tap into that full potential because it’s too taxing on your brain, which will shut down. A daily five-minute meditation throughout the day at different intervals will help you to get your brain accustomed to higher levels of awareness.
Walk-ins help accommodate a greater level of awareness because they are generally a higher vibration than the energy they replace. Most often the rise in awareness will unfold over time. President Obama is a walk-in at the apex of brain usage here on the Earth plane. He might be the smartest man in existence right now. You say, “Well, that can’t be right. He can’t be that smart, because he wouldn’t be making as many mistakes as he’s making.” He’s not making that many mistakes. He’s doing everything he needs to do to get this Earth ready to go into the shifting consciousness. You just don’t realize it yet.
Q: Are new walk-in energies always of a higher vibration than the previous aspect or soul in a body?
KIRAEL: It’s pretty obvious that it is always a higher vibration. Why would your higher self go to the monad and say, “Come on down. I want you to get into this body and go backwards.” The higher self would never do that. Your higher self is so filled with wisdom that it will send in a walk-in aspect that will expand your journey and enhance your evolution. You will find yourself having amazing conversations with yourself, and it may freak you out, so to speak.
Your higher self would never send you a lower energy, because it would be a terrible waste of time. It is a lot of work for the higher self to send in a new energy, and sending in a lower energy would cause the higher self to have to spend so much more time with you than it wants to. Although it is at your beck and call, your higher self likes to travel while you do your journey. If it sent in a lower energy, it would need to supervise your journey more and that would cut into its travel time. In the time of this Great Shift, when everything is being accelerated, sending in a lower vibrating soul would not enable the kind of growth necessary to facilitate your shift.
Recognizing a Walk-In
Q: How do we know if we’ve had a walk-in?
KIRAEL: If you have a walk-in, you will probably gain more brain power. Remember, the walk-in is higher vibrating, which means you will have something to work with in order to learn, and as long as you’re learning, you will expand your brain power. So you might know things that you didn’t before or you might find it easier to understand things that were once difficult.
To determine whether or not you’ve had a walk-in, you can also look for changes in yourself, no matter how subtle. If you have something that you’d like to change about you, and you get a walk-in, you will feel this need to change, because the walk-in is a higher vibration than you. You might wake up one morning and find that you like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, when you never have before; or you might look in the mirror and think, “I look good, but I’m fat. How’d I get so fat?” and suddenly you start working on your body, when you never have before.
If you have a walk-in and you know it, pay attention to your life for about six months. You will find that you’re growing in knowledge, and understanding things you never have before. Of course, that also means that you will have a harder time adjusting to life, because you will be giving up old habits and learning new ones.
On the other hand, if you get up in the morning and think you’d like to change something about yourself, but you don’t do anything about it, then you probably haven’t had a walk-in. If you haven’t had a walk-in, you will not experience those life-changing growth spurts and you will be happy to maintain the status quo, because you will be supporting your ego, not a walk-in.
The Walk-In Process
Q: Is there a standard procedure for walk-ins?
KIRAEL: The procedure is so involved that your third-dimensional brain can’t understand it. Your higher self decides when you will get a walk-in. It knows how you will live, how long you will live, and what you need and when you need it. When your higher self decides to give you a walk-in, it has taken everything into consideration-your life purpose, your blueprint, how much you’ve accomplished, how well your body is, if you require more knowledge, and so forth and so on.
Let’s suppose that one aspect of your higher self wants to go back to the monad to retrieve a completely new aspect or walk-in. Let’s also suppose that you have a good body with plenty of light, but you’ve lived out your blueprint and you still don’t understand a lot of the spiritual laws or concepts. Your higher self may decide that you can do more to raise your awareness level, and because your body is still in good shape, it will go into the monad and pull out a spirit that will expand your spiritual journey. Your higher self may also decide you need a walk-in when your journey is stalled because you are stuck in a repetitive self-destructive pattern.
When your higher self determines that a walk-in is necessary, your body must agree to the process, since it is the receptacle of this new energy. When the walk-in happens, you will be moved out of the way. Hence, you cannot be walking around or driving your car when you receive the walk-in. The entry of the monad particles can make you feel the loss of your original energy. Spiritualists generally take walk-ins well, but some do not and will feel the loss, just as those who are going through the Shift but don’t have adequate spiritual knowledge will feel the loss. It is not easy for your higher self to get an aspect from your monad to embody as a walk-in. Those who are in comas or who have had strokes take walk-ins easier than those who are aware and in good health. The latter have the opportunity to resist the walk-in. If you resist a walk-in, your journey will be bumpy. There are exceptions to this rule. For instance, my medium had a stroke, and in the process, he took on a new walk-in from his monad, but it was a grueling process getting that walk-in into him, because he was and still is fighting it.
Once the walk-in is in the body, you may still have some of your old light in your body. If so, it was left there purposely by your higher self and we, the guides, work it out for you. That old energy is there to help you finish up and ease out of the prior journey. You don’t need a walk-in to get ready for the Shift. Just keep the splinters coming in.[4] If you do get a walk-in, your higher self will usually make sure you retain all your old memories, etc. Every now and then, the walk-in is so strong that you will experience personality changes and even memory loss, but that is rare.
The Effects of a Walk-In on the Body
Q: Can we die from a walk-in?
KIRAEL: You can’t die from a walk-in. One hundred percent of your life is controlled by the higher self. The higher self can reduce or expand your soul energy. It can take you out of this journey in an instant, either by death or de-particle-ization. Your higher self has that kind of power. It doesn’t de-particle-ize your body, because it loves you so much and wants to give you all the time you need to do the journey. That’s why, if appropriate, it uses walk-ins to extend your journey.
Q: What happens to our acquired knowledge, behavior patterns, etc., when a walk-in comes in?
KIRAEL: The new soul or walk-in will assimilate the knowledge of the leaving soul. The transfer of knowledge, memory, and even behavior patterns usually happens smoothly. I can hear an unspoken question among you. You want to know whether the knowledge transfer is a loss to the leaving soul. It is not. That acquired knowledge is part of the Akashic records and is recorded there for the leaving soul. Sometimes the amount of light the walk-in carries, and its choices, intent and purpose are so different from the original soul’s that eventually the old patterns of behavior and personality disappear, sometimes quickly, but usually over time.
Q: What happens when the physical body is damaged and a walk-in enters? Does the walk-in heal the body or does the body remain in its damaged state?
KIRAEL: The new soul has the capacity to infuse new life into the body. However, the cells are part of the physical body and whether or not they rejuvenate or heal is within the domain of the physical body to handle. That is not to say that the new life force energy won’t have some affect on the healing process. It will, but only the body knows how much it can or is willing to heal. If the brain is damaged and a walk-in happens, more than likely some loss of information will occur. How much healing occurs depends on the state of the brain, the body’s healing ability, and the will and power of the walk-in. Many factors determine how much a physical body heals when a walk-in enters, and in each person, it will differ, depending on the circumstances.
The Role of the Higher Self in Aspect Transference
Q: Is there an average number of walk-ins in a human lifespan?
KIRAEL: No set number for walk-ins exists. You may get none, or as many as you need. It’s up to your higher self. Twenty-five or more years ago, you didn’t hear much about walk-ins, because no reason existed to bring them into this journey. You had plenty of time to work on the shifting process. Now the Shift is close and walk-ins are more prevalent. If you’re a true spiritualist, you’ve probably had a walk-in.
Q: Does the energy of a walk-in come in quickly and fully? What role does the higher self play in getting the walk-in into the body?
KIRAEL: A walk-in could have been living in the monad energy for a hundred years. So, when it’s picked to embody, it has to make a long journey to get here. When the higher self goes to the monad or soul family, it has to pick the right energy to get into you. Once it does, it takes that energy into itself and then negotiates it into this journey. The energy does not go willingly. It leans back toward the monad, because it wants to go back home, but when the higher self calls, the monad energy answers. The higher self is never turned down. When the walk-in gets here, even though it may try to back up a little bit, it won’t leave the journey for which it has been picked. The walk-in wants to bring all of its energy in at one time, but the higher self will rarely let that happen. The walk-in will come in slowly to give you time to get used to its energy.
Me medium’s walk-in is designed to slow him down some, among other things. The medium will complete healing from the stroke he experienced in 2006 in about 2011, assuming he continues to move forward in his journey. He has about a year and a half of healing still to go. He’s not happy with that prospect. He wants to be whole now, but he has to learn to slow down, slow down his voice, etc. When he slows down, you will know that the walk-in has fully settled in.
Q: Does the ego play a role in these walk-ins and can it reject a new walk-in?
KIRAEL: If you’re doing anything on this journey, it’s approved and tolerated by your higher self. That means that your ego is part of your journey. No separation exists between your ego, your four-body process and your higher self. Your ego is the only reason you can be here in this dimension. Without it, you would fall apart. Your higher self has a firm grip on your ego throughout the four bodies. Hence, when new soul energy walks in, your ego is part of the picture. It still interacts in your journey. You cannot be over here without it and having a walk-in doesn’t change that. Your ego can resist a walk-in, but it cannot eject it or stop it from coming in.
Learn to slow down your ego and be aware of what it’s doing. You can work with your ego, but first you have to recognize when it is active. It is active when you are complaining about your journey. When you’re aware of the ego, not only can you control it, but you can have fun with it. Having a walk-in makes it easier to control the ego, because the walk-in is a higher vibrational energy with a higher level of awareness.
Closing Statement
You are an aspect of your higher self as well as the receptacle for the knowledge of your higher self’s other two aspects, and you are here to experience this Great Shift in Consciousness. Before you can move forward into the fourth light, you have to get your third-dimensional journey straight and the walk-in energy will make it easer to do that. Pay attention to your journey. If you are suddenly able to do things you never could before or if you are capable of being someone or something you couldn’t be before, rejoice in the fact that you may have had a walk-in and go with the flow of that energy. Locutus of the Borg said it best in the Star Trek series: “Resistance is futile.”
©Kahu Fred Sterling
About Kahu Fred Sterling
For more than 20 years, Kahu Fred Sterling has served as the exclusive medium for Master Guide Kirael, a seventh dimensional guardian spirit. He is the author of several books, including Kirael: The Great Shift, Kirael: Lemurian Legacy for the Great Shift and Kirael: The Ten Principles of Consciously Creating and shares his messages around the world via workshops, articles, audio recordings, and webcasts on Kirael.com. Kahu Sterling is also a master healer and pioneer of the Signature Cell HealingTM modality.
——————————————————————————–
[1] The monad is usually part of the ninth dimension and above.
[2] No two aspects of your higher self will ever come together in the same space; otherwise, the energy of the cellular consciousness would implode.
[3] True young souls are those beings who wantonly engage in negative behavior, such as killing, stealing, torture and terror. These souls cannot find or are unwilling to take in the light that is offered to them.
[4] Splinters are downloads of energy from your higher self, usually containing specific information required for your journey. The scope of a splinter is usually not as broad as that of a walk-in, but some splinters are big enough to be considered walk-ins.
****************************************************************
what is going on is as follows: inner world(s) are being exteriorized. The world is a reflection/projection from within.
…so The Human “thinks” he/she needs “the pathway to presence, while The Being is Presence ITSELF! so when Little Human reaches presence we got what we know as The Human-Being…in the present moment. so, no matter how far we travel back to the past or far beyond future conciousness is always PRESENT! By the way, there is no such thing as good or evil, there is only High Vibrational Frecuencies and low vibrational frecuencies, High-ones produce sharper sounds ( harmonic ) and the colors are brigther, Low-ones make sounds, sound distorted and colors less brighter. but even both belongs to “ALL THAT IT IS” embrace them both with Conscious Love and become what you are not what it seems.
What ever it is you want it to be changed on the “world”, change it within, first.
Liquid Spectrum, 4200 words of unverifiable nonsense, IMHO. Maybe your last sentence had some merit, if I understand you correctly. But Ghandi said it better, “Be the change you wish you wish to see in the world”. And if Kahu Fred Sterling claims to be any kind of “exclusive medium”, tell him to fuck off, from me!
Back after a while, and I see that Elena has come and gone, ‘Someone’ is still steadfastly not following his/her own advice about ‘moving on’, and Burton is still in ‘control freak’ mode. No surprises there.
As William pointed out, Burton’s experiment, not that it was ever designed as such, IMO, was and is an abject failure, yet another in the long list of his failures of every kind, spiritual and temporal (except in matters of feeding his bloated ego and material and sexual appetites). And as Bruce reminds us, Burton has been using the ‘accelerating pace’ meme since the beginning; it works to make the followers feel special—until it doesn’t. Since none of Burton’s claims have panned out (not withstanding Girard Haven’s hagiographies, which are the most decorative intellectual turds that have floated to the top of the cesspool, but turds nevertheless), that does indeed leave just the moderately successful ‘Country Club’ atmosphere and lots of palm trees. Not much to show for so many wasted lifetimes of efforts (mostly the wrong kind, unfortunately) and something in the order of $200 million I’d guess?
Associated Press (#91-123), thanks for reminding me again about the infamous ‘David Springfield Letter’, released initially courtesy of Black Marker and Wikileaks, which officially entered the public domain last year when it became part of the record in the case of Minne et al. v. Stroomberg et al. in Sacramento last year (see #75-37 if anyone is interested in more details).
I had another look at the letter, which I downloaded at the time from site where the court records are stored, and was struck afresh by some of David Springfield’s words, such as:
“In my opinion, serious crimes have likely been committed and are possibly continuing to be committed by current members on the Board. “
And:
“You have knowingly allowed having a system in place where the CFO is made responsible but essentially helpless and without authority. The CFO is not being consulted in important decisions. The Fellowship’s financial activities, in my opinion, could be seen as criminal conspiracy to commit tax fraud and private inurement benefiting Robert and a number of other individuals (including possibly some Board members) and could be considered a fraud on the government.”
And:
“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. “
And much more…
So, thanks, David, for telling the truth, and thanks again to Black Marker (hopefully you were never caught and still give David and Abraham Goldman plenty of headaches wondering if you are going to stick it to them again!)
Regards to you all,
Ames
P.S. I found out that Wikileaks is in financial trouble, so I sent them $100 in gratitude for hosting the letter, as well as for exposing a lot of other matters that need exposing, a notable example being the recently released gun–camera videos showing the murder of the Reuter’s reporter and cameraman in Iraq.
229. LIQUIDSPECTRUM:
LIQUIDSPUTUM!
OMG! It’s an extraterrestrial invasion!
229. LIQUIDSPECTRUM:
Unbelievable. Boy, have you come to the wrong venue.
230 is new
“By the way, there is no such thing as good or evil, there is only High Vibrational Frecuencies and low vibrational frecuencies, High-ones produce sharper sounds ( harmonic ) and the colors are brigther, Low-ones make sounds, sound distorted and colors less brighter.”
Tired of listening to the same old tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing?
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So, little human, call in this present moment and get yours TODAY!
WOW! IT SEEMS THAT THIS RUBBER EARNS $ BURTON, REALLY FUCKED YOU ALL UP. 1ST HE TOOK ALL YOUR MONEY, PERHAPS ALL YOUR LIFTIME SAVINGS ( PIGGY BANK ) MADE YOU INVESTED IN HIS WOUNDROUS COUNTRY HOMO-CLUB. 2ND YOU WERE ( OR STILL ARE ) SO NAIVE THAT HE FUCKS YOUR ASS FOR MORE THAN 10/20/30 YEARS MAKING YOU THINK ( IF IT HAPPENS YOU THINK ) THAT , THAT WAY ( ANAL SEX ) IS THE PATHWAY TO PRESENCE, THE ULTIMATE SYSTEM TO AWAKEN YOUR SLAVE SOUL FROM “HELL” THEN YOU BECAME A CUM-EATER THINKING THAT IS THE ELIXIR OF ETERNAL YOUTH AND AFTER A LOT OF TIME YOU APARENTLY REALIZE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN A RETARDED IDIOT FOLLOWER, THAT MAKE SYOU ANGRY AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN. POOR LITTLE BASTARD ONES, REVEREND BURTON HAS FOREVER YOUR SOULS, SINCE I RETURNED TO THIS BLOG AFTER 5 YEARS ( JUST WHEN BLOG STARTED ) AND SEEMS EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY THE SAME, EVERY BODY BLAMES RUBBER-T BURTON, EVRYBODY HATES F.O.F ETCETC, BUT NOTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN, I HAVENT SEEN ALL THIS POSTS ON HEADLINE NEWS, OR ON NEWSPAPERS OF YOUR LOCAL CITIES, NO ONE HAS BEEN CAUGHT AND PUT IN JAIL AND F.O.F SEEMS TO BE OPERATING AS WELL. I RUNAWAY FROM SCHOOL WHEN NOTICED ABOUT RUBBERT SUES AND LEGAL PROBLEMS, AND SENT THAT WEBSITE THRU MAIL TO MY OLD FRIENDS ON MONTERREY, MEXICO CENTER AND IT WAS TAKEN AS GOSIP I WAS CHARGED $$ FOR THAT AND A CLICK HITS ME AND REALIZE THAT IT WAS NOT MY PATH, THAT
ORGY.KNEES-ATION BUT AT LAST BUT NOT LEAST I THANK THE F.O.F AND RUBBER BURTON BECAME ONE OF THE BEST TEACHERS I HAVE EVER HAD BECAUSE HE TEACHES ME HOW SHOULD I MUST NOT BE ,AS WELL AS THE SYSTEM OF THE “SCHOOL” SHOWS ME HOW AN STRUCTURE CAN FALL APART AND AUTODESTROY ITSELF . BUT ALL THIS ENFORCES ME TO CONTINUE THE SEARCH OF THE MIRACLE AND I FOUND IT ! PERHAPS IF YOU ALL START ACCEPTING YOUR EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL ASPECT MAYBE YOU WILL REALIZE WHO YOU ARE, WHERE YOU CAME FROM AND WHERE YOUR GOING?? STOP POSTING, STOP HIDDING YOUR SELF BEHIND THE BLOG AND USE YOUR FIST AND NOT YOUR MOUTH..SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!!! I DARE YOU TO STOP RUBBERTS EMPIRE AND HIS ATROCITIES , EXPOSE HIM ON T.V HEADLINE NEWS, ON NEWS PAPERS, USE THE MEDIA FOR GOD SAKE…. CAN ANYONE STOPS THE MECHANICAL MADE??? DO, DO , DO !!!
F-ORNICATE
U-NDER
C-ONCENTIMENT
K-ING
P-EOPLE
U-NITED
N-OT
K-INGDOME
I LOVES YOU ALL NO MATTER WHAT….BECAUSE I CREATES YOU!
THE MORE POWER ( LOVE ) YOU GET, THE HUMBLE YOU BECOME.
235, 236 LICKSQUIDRECTUM
Hey amigo, tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo. My humble advice to you: Get a good bottle of tequila, swallow a handful of whatever drugs you have been taking, look in the mirror, and stop taking yourself so seriously.
Sounds like Greg trying to be someone else. All capitals…must mean seriousness.
“When we fall under the spell of a charismatic figure, areas of the brain responsible for skepticism and vigilance become less active. That’s the finding of a study which looked at people’s response to prayers spoken by someone purportedly possessing divine healing powers.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627574.200-brain-shuts-off-in-response-to-healers-prayer.html
Prayer deactivates brain sectors
LICKSQUIDRECTUM
priceless
Uptalking…something Robert Burton has always used as false humility, and the sheep use excessively to emulate him. One of the more irritatingly obnoxious affects of cultism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/may/02/uptalking-ironic-annoying-tv
I see Bruce got that “prayer turns off brain” article up first:
“this explains why certain individuals can gain influence over others, and concludes that their ability to do so depends heavily on preconceived notions of their authority and trustworthiness. It’s not clear whether the results extend beyond religious leaders, but . . . brain regions may be deactivated in a similar way in response to doctors, parents and politicians.”
Insert saturn joke here.
From the third aspect,
walter.tanner@gmail.com
And William: Cheers! Leaving the FoF does not mean rejecting the things that brought us to the FoF (well, if Daddy-issues brought you to the FoF, then you have to give those up).
walter.tanner@gmail.com
Why did we join? Right time, right place, combined with a deep awareness of something missing maybe
I don’t complain about joining. What’s done is done.
I do wonder sometimes what I would have done with all those years
Having an addictive nature would I have; become a stoner,
or had 6 marriages? moved to Bali? became famous? became a hermit, had lots of friends or maybe had non….
I do know I wanted to belong to a group of like-minded people; a brotherhood–a community of creative ‘spiritual’ oriented people, who’s love of learning, and appreciation of the arts in all it forms, was on par with mine, a wish for people on the same wavelength
I agree that “leaving the FoF does not mean rejecting [all] of the things that brought us to the FoF.” Many of us joined — and maybe stayed for a while — partly because we wanted to live good and honorable lives. We wanted to “examine” our lives, in the spirit of “the unexamined life” not being worth living. We thought we were being honest with ourselves, and that we were not taking the easy path, in the spirit of “holding to the difficult.”
But… I’m not sure I’d use the word “reject,” but I think it’s good to be wary of at least some of the attitudes that made the FOF sound appealing when we first attended those “prospective student meetings.”
A huge character trait that brought many of us to the FOF — maybe all of us — was the “ego.”
Nothing appeals to the ego better than the idea that we are not only the best people on earth, but that we’ll survive catastrophes unlike the other [supposedly] lesser people on earth. Another thing that appeals to the ego is believing and professing that we’ll go to heaven when we die (or transported to another advanced lifetime), while all of those other losers languish in hell when they die, or are cursed to be “driven from vessel to vessel” as Burton has stated.
I don’t think a spiritual or religious path (fourth way, buddhism, catholicism, whatever) necessarily implies these types of attitudes — i.e., the desire to feel separate from and better than others — but if someone is sincere about living their life “examined,” then examining the ego has to be one of the top examinations on the list. And while we’re in the middle of our examining, it’s always a good rule of thumb to evaluate how much we’re attracted to organizations that appeal to fear (hell, war, earthquakes, and other disasters), and that appeal to the ego (higher level of being, immortality, etc.).
—
Walter, regarding brain regions potentially being deactivated in a similar way in response to doctors, parents and politicians… I think many people are aware of the striking similarities between cults (lies, propaganda, disinformation, etc.) and politics (lies, propaganda, disinformation, etc.).
IMO, the Fellowship of Friends / Robert Burton is a concentrated example of larger societal issues. Some of the most interesting posts here are the ones that draw comparisons.
Regarding the parent comparison… The more friends that I meet, the more I can see that parents can be one of the biggest inhibitors to personal growth and creativity. Not to analyze why that is, but you definitely see the same phenomenon within cults.
By the way… In that last paragraph (245), I’m referring to parents who are more neurotic in the way they relate to their kids, and not referring to families that are healthier and that allow exploration and risk-taking. In the extreme, kids in some dysfunctional families are discouraged from leaving home, making friends, trying anything risky, and especially trying anything that the parent(s) themselves wouldn’t try. It’s almost as thought the entire point is to prevent growth and to foster dependency. It’s manipulative.
Dysfunctional families and cults have numerous similarities.
the blog is rocking! : )
The FOFion Sues The FOFian for Name Infringement
NEW YORK (ARK) — An upstart publication that calls itself “The FOFian” is reeling Wednesday after learning that The FOFion — a mega-publication supported by numerous multi-national corporations with unlimited funds at their disposal and several thousand attorneys — has launched a lawsuit for name infringement.
“They had some interesting comments in their first issue,” said the publisher of The FOFion in a prepared statement, “but they can’t do that. Also, not to be too nitpicky, but they didn’t cite any sources for their statistics. That’s just not good journalism. We don’t want any of our readers to mistakenly associate us with such an amateur operation.”
The FOFian has agreed to cease publications.
In Other News
The Fellowship of Friends has announced that the last student “who lacked true valuation” has left the school.
“It’s a day to celebrate,” said Chief Executive Officer Robert Burton. “Now we can get down to business.”
Several thousand former FOF followers, meanwhile, continue to stand “at the back of the line” according to Burton.
“Losers,” Burton said.
Other sources cite evidence that no line ever existed.
246 Thot Plickens
Your description of ‘dysfunctional families’ has made me think. That risk-taking subject caught me in light of how I had to persuade my parents to allow me to go to art-college. My parents were probably in the mould of ‘firm but fair’. I always wondered how other parents were ‘dealing’ with their offsprings’ belonging to the FOF. What about how those who were affected by REB’s homosexual activities? Could be a great deal of subject matter here…..Nigel.
Number one reason Robert Earl Burton is not the person you think/believe he is:
‘[I]t must be understood that any serious irregularity or abnormality in the sex function makes self-development and even self-study impossible.’
The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution
P. D. Ouspensky
#168 No Kid,
You got me. I’m on the GF site. One of the first to join. AR
#168 No Kid
Remember the Mariposa lily from the mountains of the farm? I love that flower. And the soap root.
Spare change anyone? A deluded old gay guy wants to have another piece of jewelry for his collection. For God’s sake, it’s his birthday! Here it goes, a message to all members of the Fellowship of Friends:
“On Wednesday, May 12th we shall be celebrating our Beloved Teacher’s 71st birthday.
For his birthday gift a beautiful twenty dollar 22k gold coin, minted 1927, has been selected. The gold coin was designed by Augustus St. Gaudens, a Mason, and has the message: Lady Liberty walking, modeled after the statue of Liberty that in turn was modeled after Athena and Isis – card 21 (Higher Emotional). Rising sun with ’13 and 13′ rays (First wordless breath). 4 fingers on an olive branch and 4 on the torch. The wind blows to the right lifting up 4 locks of her hair.
The setting (Bezel): fabricated by R_in W_rd with 6 jewels (5 donated by a student) and the configuration was conceived by Robert. There are three white diamonds, one emerald, one ruby and one sapphire (all esoteric colors). The first diamond followed by an emerald signifies purity from imagination during the sequence (green, like green pastures). The second diamond followed by a ruby signifies the purity from imagination during Long BE, combustion. The third diamond followed by the sapphire signifies the purity from imagination during the Four Wordless Breaths. The loop that is above everything else has seven divisions (Seventh Heaven, Presence).
Jewel Box: Ivory round box, empire around 1810 with a hand painted portrait of a young lady with 6 and 4 beads on her diadem and two squares (one on the head and one on the girdle).
To commemorate his 71st birthday you may send a card to Robert, and, if you wish to enclose a gift, a check can be written to: Fellowship of Friends and note that your check is a gift. (…) If it is more convenient, you may leave a card and gift in the mail box outside the Galleria kitchen. Please remember to put your full name and your center on the card. All gifts are appreciated.”
253 ollie
Interesting that it is all ‘take, take, take’ with Robert Burton. Nothing charitable exudes from his person and very little useful…..Nigel.
253. ollie
Funny, they seem to be hoping for ‘purity from imagination’, and yet some strange variety of grotesque imagination looks like one of the only things they seem to have left.
The idea that some colors are ‘esoteric’ while evidently some are not is hilarious.
Part of the prison appears to be some sort of bizarre faith-based, magical thinking where you put ornate labels and interpretations onto almost everything in sight, which then produces the illusion that you are not only ‘special’, but deeply involved in secret things, and must mean that you are most assuredly moving closer to even more hidden and secret things.
I am going to make a wild guess that there is no end to that trail.
Humorous and sad at the same time.
http://southpawbeagle.com/2010/05/06/world-stunned-by-homo-sex-activities-of-anti-gay-guy/
253. ollie
My 4’3″ Jewish Romanian grandmother would have said (Oy, such a fagala.”
253 ollie
Now why in the world would Robert Burton want to possess another thing? This is so old! including the fact that May 12 is not his real b-day, or so I heard. It’s all seems to be so theatrical!
258. It’s greed, birthday boy has a massive GREED FEATURE.
Cited as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, greed is about never being satisfied with what one has, always wanting and expecting more. It is an insatiable hunger.
Medieval Christian thought viewed the sin as most offensive to the spirit of love.
Dante accordingly shows no mercy-unlike his attitude toward Francesca (lust) and Ciacco (gluttony)-in his selection of GREED as the capital sin punished in the fourth circle of hell (Inferno 7). He viciously presents GREED as a common vice of monks and church leaders (including cardinals and popes), and he further degrades the sinners by making them so physically squalid that they are unrecognizable to the travelers (Inf. 7.49-54). He defines the sin as “spending without measure” (7.42)
259. rock that boat
In the latest version of the Inferno Robert Burton will spend eternity (in one of the “outer circles”) having his head knawed on by Alex Horn.
Rock, 259, right on. With all of the talk about ‘chief feature’ over the years, does anyone remember a meeting on the ‘topic’ on Greed’?
Ever? And with Burton there?
www, 250, that’s another topic that didn’t get much air time: “irregularity or abnormality in the sex function”
Can you imagine Burton sitting up front and saying [after the usual pause to make the room silent for a couple of minutes] :
“My dears, the topic for the first half of our meeting is sexual dysfunction and how it affects our precious energy that we need so dearly for awakening. In the second half of our meeting, we’ll discuss the chief feature of greed and how it undermines our work.”
—-
Nige, 254, so true. One of the fall-outs from my time in the FOF is an embedded attitude that donation of my time to charity (volunteer work) was a waste and even foolish on my part, and that donating my money to charity is wasted on those who do not value Influence C, etc. etc.
Not that I ever said it that way to myself, but the attitude was there, hiding and lurking beneath the surface. I’m still shaking myself loose from it — that persistent notion that volunteer work is somehow unnecessary or would serve no purpose.
From everyone I’ve talked to who volunteers regularly, the experience is extremely fruitful and rewarding in many ways. And what little I’ve done myself, I have to agree. It beats thinking, ME, ME, ME, and ME and my work, and my school, and my teacher, and my evolution.
If the truth were taught …. not many would want to take on the sacrificial status to what is referred to as the Cross …. it would be like saying ….. pull off your rich clothes and wear rags ..
Or give up your Fine luxurious Cadillac and drive a putt-putt ..
In truth of the mater … would almost be just like that … for the physics of science governing powers and principalities of this matrix which was altered by the satanic regime … sort of guaranteed the sacrificial status of anyone not wanting to be a part of this world govern by the electron negativity of this world …
Some facilities and their personas, by design … had a the ability to easily choose the adapting to the electron negative energy of things … because their facilities receptors and receptors of intellect consciousness …were already designed to function as a negative kind, but not of the electron kind … but other facilities and personas were not as fortunate…
These such who were not … have been referred to as the Seed of David
For these facilities to have changed over to the negative flow of things … they would have to submit to a very strenuous change over … in this manner their personas would have had to totally submitted to negative activities … and would have had a major character changeover … most were not willing to do so ….
Because of this … those who were not willing to undergo this major character change over … remained shunned by the matrix … as they were not unable to attune themselves to the new matrix design which had been altered by the satanic regime …
In so many ways this matrix would have treated them as an enemy of the system ….
Yet after the matrix was infiltrated … all powers and principalities of this world were designed for the guaranteed success of the Satan Regime and any of their followers …
If you’re plugged in to their satanic power source, or somebody who’s pulling for you is plugged into it …. you will be successful in this world … as long as they are pulling for you …
Such a success has to do with the frequency receptors of an individual intellect … and the capability of the intellect frequency to tap into the central power source which make success happen … but nevertheless … this altered matrix control system and all system linked to it …. is now failing … and their worlds are now collapsing ……
So now that the suffering of the Sacrificial status is nearly over …. I’m allowed to tell you these things …
Know that before the satanic take over … there was a much more bearable transition which is referred to as “picking up the cross”…
When the Star Visitor came into this world referred to and the Jesus persona and the Christos Star Facility …. they did come as to establish that which was necessary …. to make lives of those who had not … much more delightful …
But the enemy got the best of even this situation …. and that is a long story within itself …
Yet from that point on … an individual persona taking up a cross, also took on those rules governing the nature of the Positive Energies of Love …
Such a conscious intellect commitment would have automatically put a cosmic facility plasma core and persona life force energy …. in a sacrificial status … which would have had an effect on the facility’s mass core and the persona’s atomic physical self …
As in the heaven so in the earth …
Such a sacrificial status … would have been necessary in order to began a purging process of negative electron sin-ions from both the cosmic facility and the persona …
The first rule of the Positive Energies of Love … is to thoroughly examine our past … and make a list of things that have cause another hurt or harm of any kind … be it directly or indirectly …
First we need to began to make amends to purge all ions of sins ….. we need to identify all such negative deeds done which have caused hurt or harm to another ….
The amending process will began the flushing out their negative electrons … now you don’t have to flush them out of your Chakra system if you don’t want to … but the purging process takes a lot longer if you don’t … and since time is short … I would truly suggest … we do some flushing out right quick fast and a hurry …
Now everybody’s sacrificial cross … is different one from the other … our own grade of electron ions … will sort of establish the manifestation of a cross … .
Believe me when I tell you … if you have truly decided to pick up a sacrificial cross …. your body and/or life conditions, are gonna feel some pain ….
And those who teach differently … are like a Shepherd putting on a blindfold himself …. and then putting one each and every one his sheep … for the truth of the matter … as long as we are down hear … we’re in a mourning period of the sacrificial cross ….
And as long as this period last … we should live as moderately as we can … and stop striving for the negative gotten riches of this world …. these riches are not of the Higher Positive celestial Kingdom of Heaven …
And if we don’t do it ourselves … truly picking up the sacrificial cross …. will sort of do it for us … and we should actually be very grateful for this …. for if we are chastened we are Loved …
Know that the very moment one will pick up this sacrificial cross … the very elements of this world will began to treat you as a virus confined without growth …
I‘ve heard some people who took up their sacrificial crosses in the path of the Positive Enlightenment … to have lost their jobs … some even lost their wives … others lost their husbands … cars started running bad … some lost all their money …
Well a lot of that seems to be going on now with no fault of the people … the world has now been given it’s cross ….
I’ve often heard people say … that no sooner than they started to live right … everything else started to go wrong …
Know that the life of a sacrificial cross .. is by now way pretty … some pick it up … and put it right back down … some were born into the life of the cross, simply because of their celestial DNA ….
But for those who picked it up … and put it one …. and then keep it on … things sort of leveled off and got a little bit better … but we are in the end of electron day … and things will get a lot worse before it get professionally and completely better …
Yet those willingly to have chosen right over wrong …. seem to settle and accept, more quickly the sort of low grade living of the sacrificial mode of their lives … some people call this the low middle class or the low class of society …
And the way it looks … before it’s over …. we will allllll be sharing that same bench in the lower class of society … and will do so … until alll things are put in order as alllll things are redone …
But the joy of those who walk in the Love Light of Positive Energies … is carried over into a celestial home one day ….
The story of Job was just a witnessing account …. and a written record to Job’s new transition over to a Brighter Star and a more profitable Positive Life … Job was a “good” persona …. and he still suffered dearly for the transition over to this state of an accelerated Brighter Positive Light ….
If it were not for the Cosmic Positive Elements showering down from the source of the Positive Star .. now-a-day …. which acts as a counter aid to the purging of electron ions … not many of humanity persona’s or their celestial cosmic facility …. could withstand the purging process of this transitions …
And as long as we are in this reality … the electron ions and Positive Ions will be at war with each other … and this war will have some visible effect in the life and or a body …
But such an oppressing of these worldly elements upon us … will be only for a short time longer … as we will all meet on the upper high side …. and our joy will be eternal, as personas and facilities exist in the same reality of a new constellation region of Stars …
Live simple, be happy and stay Positive … and keep your sites on higher celestial ground
262. Osmosis
As they say in the South….
Come again?
263 dickmoron
Yeah. I was quite discombobulated by that post, too…..Nigel.
It’s copied and pasted (apparently word for word) from a cult website — a combination of Heaven’s Gate and Scientology, and more. The end is near, and we have the answers. Follow us.
I’ll spare everyone the URL. But some people will throw anything on the page just to change the subject.
265. Thot Plickens
or…But some people will throw up on the page just to change the subject.
osmosis=licksquidrectum.
“For his birthday gift a beautiful twenty dollar 22k gold coin, minted 1927, has been selected. The gold coin was designed by Augustus St. Gaudens, a Mason, and has the message: Lady Liberty walking, modeled after the statue of Liberty that in turn was modeled after Athena and Isis – card 21 (Higher Emotional). Rising sun with ’13 and 13′ rays (First wordless breath). 4 fingers on an olive branch and 4 on the torch. The wind blows to the right lifting up 4 locks of her hair.”
Hey, I just got one of these from the Franklin Mint. The ad at the back of Parade Magazine said it was a limited edition…limited to the number they can sell. Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
“For his birthday gift a beautiful twenty dollar 22k gold coin, minted 1927, has been selected.”
Sounds like a continuation of the “Coin Octave” which began in July, 1971:
http://bit.ly/da7cKN
Why did we join….many of us from a far away country not satisfied with the current, looking for a more “real”live. Joined a center and ended up for a while or longer in OH.
Looking for like- minded people to help each other to become more what we really are?
The “fof the pathway to presence” was a big deviation and suck a lot out of us what we were not really willing to give if we knew what it had been used for.
Now healing the pieces slowly, and still trying to become what we are?
Dysfunctional families? Do you have netflix? Search for Jef Gazlet dysfunctional families. Please let me know what you think about the comparison to dysfunctional families and cults and there prevelance.
Please inform me if you are part of a “healthy family”.
One of the things Burton does a lot is to always say “we”. Whenever he addresses a group of people or sends out his daily cards he is fond of saying: “WE wouldn’t give up our gift of awakening….” or; “WE are more and more comfortable with silent presence…..”
This strikes me as being a psychological tool to keep the herd in line. It’s one of the things that made me do a 180 and pack my bags. It always made me really question just what “we” (read; me) were really thinking/feeling/understanding. Most of the time I never felt part of the “we”.
When I read post 253 and tried to follow their description of the esoteric meaning and significance behind the design of this “coin” it brought me back to the feelings that made me leave the cult. This guy Burton is hardcore. He’s truly insane. This is NOT a fourth way school (whatever that is). This is a religion/cult.
“The second diamond followed by a ruby signifies the purity from imagination during Long BE, combustion. The third diamond followed by the sapphire signifies the purity from imagination during the Four Wordless Breaths. The loop that is above everything else has seven divisions (Seventh Heaven, Presence)”
Really? I think WE are out of our minds.
270 2010
Just to bring ‘me’ into it – I agree with you. I truly believe I have a mental health disorder. And I truly believe Robert Earl Burton is pathologically, criminally insane. There is a difference…..Nigel.
262. osmosis:
Pure drivel; as best it comes.
268. Jomo Piñata:
‘“Coin Octave” which began in July, 1971′
Thank you for that reminder. Yes, coinincidence demonstrating that it is orchestrated by Influence ”See’ I can make money.’
271. nige:
You pegged it: FoF = Insane Asylum.
On the Children’s house:
There was a man who came to “babysit us” at the “Children’s House”. soon after it was placed in site. Now ,I think the site is ‘ Lake Nancy’. A “brother” ? of one of the first wave of students when the farm was purchased. He was called “the Tongue” by us kids , because when he gave us the required “kiss” on each side of the cheek , he stuck his tongue in our mouths and we had to just divert his attention and wiggle out to escape his embrace…. We ended up crawling under the “Children’s House”, and braving the rattlesnakes to avoid him when someone gave a ‘heads-up’ with his arrival on the wooded path to our “house.”We actually kept a watchman for spotting him coming in the distance , among us, me , the oldest, at 14 yrs. This man was asked to leave the farm some time later in the summer / fall of 1972. I don’t know why…except he couldn’t pay the $35.00 each month to remain a student. Memory, 1972. AR
My memory of the site name is wrong. Lake Nancy is in Dobbins, so the valley that the Children’s house is located just below the the Winery, and filled with ponds..
Didn’t we always think RB’s Chief Feature was Greed /Vanity and Dominence? Has anything changed in the last 40 yrs.?
Everyone “knew” it, regarding greed. Probably all of us “knew” every single word written on this page — in a certain way. But rarely did anyone talk about greed or his sexual contact with who-knows-how-many of his “students”, and especially in front of Burton, so the “knowing” never left much of an impact.
Everyone also knew “the emperor had no clothes,” but no one initially said anything. But with regard to greed and Burton, we’re not talking about a benign “feature” that one needs to “observe.” Burton’s greed had fairly large effects on numerous people, and the inability for those people to talk about it exactly what enabled it, and enables it.
This idea that “everyone already knows that” is a huge “buffer” in the Fellowship. When describing experiences with Burton, the first response was often a nod and “I know”, and “I’ve heard this many times,” and a quick change of the subject. It prevents anyone from speaking about it, as though you’re somehow not very cool if you speak about something that everyone already knows.
The omission of the “topic of greed” at Burton’s meetings and all of the sub-meetings is one of the most bizarre factoids about the FOF — especially when you consider that “features” were the daily fodder for gossip and “photographs” and so-called self-observation, and “seeing oneself.” Some amount of introspection about one’s own weaknesses was a given for everyone — except for Burton. Odd, isn’t it? (being the conscious being and all, you’d think that would be no problem for him.)
It’s bizarre because this self-described evolved, conscious, and enlightened man knew that he couldn’t have people actually addressing the topic. If they did, it would send the attention directly at him — and obviously create a whole new line of questioning and reflection about whether it was wise for anyone to be there.
Image of Greed, from Dante’s Inferno
http://yfrog.com/j4greeddantej
Remember ‘The portrait of Dorian Gray?
The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form.
Does RB sleep at night? (Without boys, booze, downers and uppers)
Mariposa:
Lake Nancy is not in Dobbins, that is Lake Francis
The ponds on the FOF property have held various names over the years. At the beginning, from top to bottom it was “Milton pond”, “Elizabeth lake” and “Christ waters”, in all simplicity. There was a lake Nancy just outside the vineyard and below the cemetery. Christ waters was changed to something else at some point (all things Christian were disallowed at some point). There is yet another pond next to the Town Hall (Swan lake?) and one at the bottom of “Shakespeare meadow” where the old valley oak tree stands (“Goethe oak”). None of those dead people was required to give their permission to have their name used. I wonder if any of them would have consented.
THE END OF THE WORLD YOU PENDEJOS! IS NOT OTHER THING THAT BEINGNESS ( AWARE OF YOUR SELF AS A GAME MASTER ) YOU BECAME THE PLAYER AND THE OBSERVER AT THE SAME TIME. IT IS NOT THAT SHIT ABOUT FOLLOW ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE. THE END OF THE WORLD IS STOPPING AT WILL THE CHAOS OF MIND…ANY WAY IT SEEMS YOU DONT WANT TO UNDERSTAND AND RATHER GIVE TOO MUCH ENERGY TO ROBERT’S INSTITUTION AND SO, THAT THIS BLOG HAS BECOME AN ATHEM FOR HIM. HASTA LA VISTA NACOS.
AND YES LIQUIDSPECTRUM OSMOSIS AND WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL ME I DONT GIVE A Kg OF SHIT, DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL, WHAT MATTER IS THE MESSAGE.
BY THE WHY WHEN SOME ONE SAYS WE ITS TALKING ABOUT HIS SOUL FAMILY HIS HIERARCHY AS YOU ALL KNOW RIGHT? WE ALL HAVE IT.
METALUP YOUR ASS.
273. Mariposa (AR)
274. Mariposa
Re: Lake Nancy
Lake Nancy used to be a lake that was half way to the FoF back gate – rather remote and, yes, over towards Dobbins. (There is a Lake Francis in Dobbins but not on FoF property.) Later, the same name was applied to a lake that is below the winery and the ‘Old’ Lake Nancy got a name after a figure in ancient China, I believe it was, but people still called it ‘Old’ Lake Nancy.
Did you read this: ‘On the Children’s house’ ?:
’90/273. Wouldnt You Like To Know – March 28, 2010
Re: Lower House
By about 1977, or so, it was called the Franklin Complex. It housed, as No Kid said, ‘store/salon/studio:’ M.M.’s gift shop, hair and nail salon (beauty shop), architect office, bathroom, possibly more. It was a rudimentary mobile home situation that, within about a decade, was removed entirely to make way for the terraced hills of the vineyard and a series of ponds, known as, in descending elevation order from the Lodge: Milton Pond, Christ Waters, and Lake Nancy (may have different names now). The old (antique restoration/wood shop) barn was also razed about the same era – parking lot is near that spot lately.
That was a good location for the ‘lower house’ (appropriate FoF euphemism). Children would have been out-of-sight and out-of-mind there.
Now, ‘Lower Self’ has become the name applied to the place in a person where the desire to procreate comes from.
It would also be the ‘Lower Self’ that is interested in reading this blog – as FoF would see it.
Of course, the ‘Satyriasis Cult’ behaviour, practiced by the Teacher, does not come from the ‘Lower Self,’ but from divine inspiration!’
[It is possible that what 278. Opus 111 said, re: pond names, was/is/are the names. Names have been regularly changed to protect the guilty – as one would say in FoF speak.]
275. Mariposa:
‘Didn’t we always think RB’s Chief Feature was Greed /Vanity and Dominence? Has anything changed in the last 40 yrs.?’
Yes, all of those features are certainly possibilities (they are obvious), however, I would suggest that they are masking features that are deployed to hide the true Chief Feature: Fear. I say that from up-close and personal experience of the person for years. Additionally, that is the ascribed Chief Feature of the type: Saturn-Mars, significantly Martial. One main fear is the fear of returning to being just Arkansas Bob – which is what he has been all along, hiding behind a façade. There is also the fear of being exposed for the fraud that he is. There is also the fear of being alone and having to address conscience, if that is possible any longer. There is the fear of knowing the nothingness at the center of being. ‘Fear’ explains why those other features are so grotesquely played out and are difficult to limit. Oh, there is also one of the major lessons that Influence C has chosen to try to teach RB: how to overcome fear of failure. That is why so many of the so-called predictions and ventures have been failures – in that way, failures become successes, when looked at from the Work point of view – fear of failure gets conquered.
In any case, it is said by some, that ‘Fear’ is, supposedly, everyone’s last feature to be conquered because it is the last feature standing immediately prior to one becoming featureless. Then, the Emperor, themselves, realizes that they are naked and there really wasn’t any new clothes after all.
Notwithstanding all the information that’s freely available here and elsewhere on the web, the advertising efforts of the Fellowship of Friends are still bringing some results. Here are some recent stats:
Total people joining (Jan 8 – May 8, 2010): 39
Asia
Shanghai: 4
Ahmedabad: 2
Middle East
Tel Aviv: 4
Beirut: 2
Istanbul: 2
Eastern Europe
St Petersburg: 4
Moscow: 3
Kiev: 3
Minsk: 2
Bucharest : 2
European Union
Rome: 2
Florence: 1
Milan: 1
Ljubliana: 1
London: 1
South America
Campinas: 1
Santiago de Chile: 1
USA
Oregon House: 1
Sacramento: 1
Total people leaving (Jan 8 – May 8, 2010): 63
Total membership (May 8, 2010): 1,540
279, 280
CHINGEN A SU MADRE — a Mexican expression meaning go f**k your mother.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
or in this case, would simply smell…..
“MOTHER F****ER” or “LIQUIDSPUTUM” or “ASSMOSIS” or whatever you like to be called, thanks for your insightful and uplifting “input” here.
Ollie, assuming your stats are accurate, more customers are canceling their subscriptions than signing up. If I were an investor, I’d be concerned: Two straight quarterly losses with layoffs on the horizon. Sales are down. Not sure how you conclude that any advertising is working.
(They may want to consider firing the Sales and Marketing Director.)
But sure, it is another case study in how readily available information (e.g., an “emperor” walking fully naked down the street) doesn’t always yield dramatic effects. But for those just tuning in… FOF membership numbers are supposedly down by ~700 in recent years (based on stats handed to us on the blog), and dropping. That seems dramatic enough, and I suspect it’s worse than the statistic reveals.
beware: the virus still attempts to spread itself — once upon a time it was the bookmarkers that found marks for the fof con… but the insidious ‘bookmarks’ have morphed and adapted to the electronic culture… question is, how to counter this sort of thing ?
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=178828557837
285 ton and others
Trouble was…..
I was one of those who ‘went along’ with the ‘cultural lies’ we were told about REB and the FOF. I thought we really were trying to build ‘an ark’ and that REB was ‘dignified’ in his relationships, albeit their being homosexual. The blog has exposed that, thank God, and I hardly feel guilt any more about being released.
ton…..
You are right about the bookmarks – how do we stop this sort of thing?
Nigel.
That’s interesting, ton… Good question. With a little imagination, I think are probably many ways not only to counter it, but to have it work against Burton.
Facebook FOF propaganda was just a matter of time. Very telling how extremely vague the page is… Lure people in, and then eventually they’ll start inviting people to “meetings,” and then some young guy will be sitting alone with Burton with his pants down before he knows what hit him. (or at least that’s the plan.)
But probably the last thing that Burton wants is for all of his members to connect with the world on Facebook. It’s a “can of worms.” What used to be a closed society — with no circulation of energy from the outside — could suddenly receive an influx of new ideas and new ways of thinking, embarrassing questions, frank riticisms, and lures from other groups, too. Facebook could be a conduit for bringing people in; but it could be even more of a conduit for outbound travels.
#287-
“and then some young guy will be sitting alone with Burton with his pants down before he knows what hit him. (or at least that’s the plan.)”
I think Burton is more concerned with cash than with cock right now. He’s got more cock than anyone could swallow, but those “students” don’t generate cash. They accompany the teacher all day long (madman Burton hasn’t been alone for 40 years) and do nothing to generate dollars. He has many more exotic plants and animals to buy. not to mention the statues and jewelry and trips……
284.
You’re quite right, Thot Plickens. Let’s put it in perspective:
Membership mid-2005: 2,200
Membership mid-2007: 1,950
Membership now: 1,540
Mr Burton, ever the clever businessman, would of course spin it in his usual way, saying things like: “There has been a very productive period of winnowing (separating the grain from the chaff) in the school.”
Oh dear. There are still quite a number of friends of mine stuck in the cage. Just as I, while I was a member, had deaf ears, blind eyes and a closed heart to so many obvious truths about the Fellowship of Friends, in just the same way I can now do nothing for my friends to wake them up, to give them courage to open their hearts. Until one day, one gets it… That’s just how it is. It takes time, so much time, to slowly let go of the fears and silly belief systems that one gets attached to while in there.
288 2010
I think the reference ‘madman’ is applicable. The ability to be alone – by oneself – and to work with that, is a human strength and factor in spiritual growth. For me, it hones the God Within…..Nigel.
Regarding the new members, I can’t believe 39 people actually joined with all the negative press. What’s funny/sad is that the die-hards/hanger on-ers will say to each other just that; “can you believe people are joining despite the blog, etc.” Now I know we are a real school”. There are people who are still in the FOF that have been there for 30 + years and they call him “conscious bob” behind his back. Doesn’t sound like a man # 4 to me. There are people who are on salary and do his bidding on a daily basis and they refer to his dinners and meetings as “the show”. Most of the current members know they are part of a hoax. They just don’t fucking care. Those 39 new people will watch videos of his gaudy dinners and think they have stumbled on an amazing institution. Who knows how long the new car smell will take to wear off before they realize they are riding in a piece of junk that has a 5000.00 paint job that they paid for.
#283
Ponzi schemes require new participants to keep the show going. As householders are drained, or neglect their sources of income to the point where they are now “on salary,” new suckers are needed, and they aren’t getting them. Where will the money come from?
#283 confirms my point: where there is internet penetration, the recruitment numbers drop precipitously. The only new members in the entire U.S., where prospective students almost certainly have internet access, is (count ’em) : 2. One in Oregon House (another curious local who wants a taste of the high life, perhaps?) and the other in nearby Sacramento (maybe the officemate of a Shipper?).
U.S. members were the grunts with the deep pockets that financed this showboat.
Numbers in all developed countries of Western Europe can be accounted for by spouses joining so they can see their husbands/wives occasionally. Or lovers trying to get more of an “in” with their girlfriends/boyfriends by signing up.
Back in my day, a lot of these foreign centers (think Minsk) were not drawing ANY money in. Their “teaching payments” did not offset the cost of running them. They were being supported from Central.
In those days — I’m thinking 1990s — about 30 students left every month, and about 32-33 joined. That’s a lot more action than the organization is seeing now. This is a stagnant pond.
We cannot, of course, buy a computer and internet access for everyone in Minsk or Istanbul, but we can send letters to embassies in these countries. Not bloated, hysterical tirades with personal testimonials and grievances — but abbreviated, impersonal summaries with a few press clippings and this web address attached. We might simply raise the question of whether they want this showboat docked at their pier, with its questionable fundraising and its very own gay minstrel show (the latter ought to really go over big in Islamic countries). Do they want to give visas to these “ministers” to recruit? Can they be added to a few international “no-fly” lists? We can try to see, where possible, that these warnings exist in the languages of the host countries.
The internet will eventually come even to the outermost reaches of Khabarovsk. And when it does … kaput!
Meanwhile, the Man at the Top goes for pennypinching in his own way: Conscious Bob’s birthday bauble (a comparatively modest one, if memory serves me) is being partially donated and hand-crafted by his beloved students this year. Just like we used to do in grade school, with our photos on a macaroni-decorated paper plate and spray-painted gold.
It’s the thought that counts.
283. ton
I figured it was either a twelve year old or Greg.
291. 2010
‘Most of the current members know they are part of a hoax. They just don’t fucking care.”
I don’t know what would be the saddest, that students know it’s a hoax or that they truly believe in all this affabulation. Being married to one of the them I can tell you that my spouse truly believes in RB and his insane system. I can’t figure it out, not after all the talks and evidence I presented him with but he is sincere and tells me in earnest that his ruling faculty is “fine”. And he is just as dumfunded by my having left that I am by him still being in. This is to say that current students could be very diversified in their reasons for still being in fof and it would be a mistake to put everyone in the same category.
292. William
Was there really a center in f**kin’ Minsk? Is that a city known for it’s superb boys?
William, I like the sound of your post. Strong.
291. 2010
‘Most of the current members know they are part of a hoax. They just don’t fucking care.”
Well of course, they can’t AFFORD to care! They have no retirement plan, no jobs to speak of, they dress like they’ve emerged from some 1980s or 1990s time capsules in ill-fitting hand-me-down Lauren and Armani. For lack of any reasonable health insurance, they’ve let the teeth rot out of their heads and walk around like gimpy, thanks to the injuries that never healed properly. They can’t afford medication to treat physical and psychological disorders — let alone operations for heart ailments, or MRIs to scan for cancer. For the most part, they have no real friends on the outside; they alienated their families years ago with weird behavior and neglect. Their job skills are way behind the curve — they’ve neglected that, too. Tech writing jobs were outsourced a decade ago, and those “professionals” are working for less and less pay against younger and younger competition.
They never retooled for the technology age — I remember when Shippers started filming videos of Il Duce’s meetings, and talked about how they were bringing cutting-edge technology to an esoteric teaching. C’mon guys … video? That’s been around since when? 1960s?
They are, in many cases, no longer employable. The worst cases no longer know how to behave normally around people, how to be “invisible” in life.
If they CARED they would have to get off their fannies and make the real effort of their lives. Cynicism is easier. And they’ll never look or feel like backwoods crackers if they hang out with their own kind in the compound. They can feel swish going to receptions where the wimmen wear outdated sequined dresses and the guys wear poorly tailored tuxedoes that no longer accommodate their midlife girth. Not to mention luring their own kids into the fraudulent organization, a pathetic means to validate their misspent lives (it’s no coincidence that the kids joining tended to be pliant daughters, the “good girls”).
Here’s the news, if any of you Shippers are out there reading this: IT DOESN’T GET EASIER. Look at the elderly among you. No, no — not the showcase elderly who get daily phone calls from R.B. and pharonic funerals when they die — the average ones that die impoverished, receiving substandard care or shuffled off to their alienated families. That’s your future, folks! There’s too many of you getting old for each of you to get star treatment. The numbers are against it. Besides, R.B. is preoccupied.
The demographic bulge is moving towards the young, attractive people who want green cards and know little about “The System” that the FOF formally abandoned years ago. They don’t admire you for your 30 years of “valuation.” They need you to underwrite their dreams for the future – and that’s about it. You’re too old to have sex with — but they are willing to flatter and marry sagging post-menopausal women (and men with prostate problems) for a couple years if that buys them a ticket to stay. What do you get out of it? Hey, it’ll give you a state, a fix! It’ll make you forget, for a little while…
There’s an alternative. Cut your losses. Thirty misspent years isn’t as bad as thirty-two.
Leave now! Hard as it is, you’ll find help, and you’ll pull something of a life back together. In any case, you’ll have faced the truth, and acted on it. Many over the centuries have given up their lives for truth — are you unwilling to face the comparatively mild embarrassment of having been wrong?
Not only does it not become easier: A lie never becomes the truth. Waiting won’t make it better. Do you really want the karmic burden of dedicating your lives to falsehoods? I don’t care how comfortable and settled you are at the compound. You came, many of you, for the pearl of great price. Are you really willing to settle for a plastic bead and knowing, cynical jokes that show you are complicit with your own bamboozlement (not to mention complicit with sexual slavery, exploitative labor, and spiritual fraud practiced on your “friends”)?
You’re right, #288. Publicity does not serve this organization. Hence it’s under-the-radar recruitment practices. Facebook also exposes them to the world of former Shippers who are happy in their new lives, and found a spiritual rewards unknown to people who buffer the damage around them, and damage they have caused, with “the long Be”. Wikipedia is problematic — all those ex’s want their experiences included, too. Same with amazon reviews (have some of the ex-Shipper authors of the FOF books posted disclaimers? Hard to invalidate and erase the comments of the authors). It’s significant that the Facebook page is so closed to input. It only serves as a lure, and not a terrifically successful one — after all, only 2 people joined in the U.S. so far this year. Maybe the Greater Fellowship also needs a Facebook page.
Josianne, my comment remains: had your husband known what he knows now about the FOF — about the abusive sex, about money scams, about the personal erosion in his life — had he been able to read the newspaper articles or the internet stuff in the 1970s, he would not have joined. On some level, he knows that.
I’ll go back to my cave now.
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