Fellowship Of Friends Discussion- Part 79 August 9, 2009
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Welcome to the newest addition to the Fellowship of Friends Discussion.
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For previous parts of the discussion please click on home and scroll down, or move to the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, or to AnimamRecro for the very beginning. For a more organized reading check out The Fellowship of Friends WikiSpace.
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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.
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Fellowship of Friends - Living Presence Discussion 
Jomo, I know you do not have “answers” but it seems you could be a psycologist and good researcher of human behaviour, I always appreciate your feedback as well as others here.
Thanks for the articles on Apocaliptic subjects, will read them later.
Thank you also Panoritsa reminding me to be aware of fear inducing controlling new “thoughts”.
WYlike To Know, thank you for the theories you offered on previous pages, and Nigel, the poem from Withman reminds me we could be simply like little flies on the Earth, we do need her, but does she needs us if we continue to act like parasites?
Upon reading at Jomo’s advice…..
“Working through (Durcharbeit), the most important part of any analysis, is essentially an education in the process of assuming a tragic relationship to oneself by accepting the suffering that self-knowledge entails. Rather than seeking a magical solution to depression, one must sustain it as that melancholy that Keats called “the wakeful anguish of the soul.” Becoming responsible for oneself depends on a single circumstance: the concrete
and bitter immersion in the particulars of one’s life in a recognition of one’s responsibility as cause. No satanic agency produced one’s condition and no messianic agency will come to blow it away. One must uncover those things in oneself that have shaped the self-lacerating history of one’s heart. There is only one source of inner strength, and the way to it is full acceptance of the suffering that is our deepest attunement to ourselves. Authentic self-analysis is based on the recognition that there is no deliverance from desire and inner conflict.”
(Bible Says, excerpt)
Veramente, I know that this is not a direct ‘answer’ (if there is any one answer?!) to the questioning of your posts, but I believe it is a great step one must take to finding one’s relationship to Mother Earth (Gaya). We must all be first responsible for ourselves – our past, our present and our aspirations for the future (at present, my students and I are currently investigating how we may prevent our craft causing huge pits and holes in the earth for our raw materials and how recycling in our workshop may be brought about), then can we take steps to reverse the adverse affects our civilisation has on the planet.
Two little theories that I have…..
1) The Universe is Feminine; our Eternal Mother and brought about God.
2) The Celts, as Warrior-Nobility, will ‘spearhead’ the saving of the planet.
Maybe a few ‘wows’, but I hope this post helps…..Nigel.
302. JonB – August 9, 2009
Hello guys.
Thank you for your help to get out of FOF.
You helped to shed light on the unknown FOF.
I have left 2 months ago after being in for 30 years. I was on the fence for 2 years but finally the time has come, thanks.
JB
*******
JB, thanks for sharing that happy news… wishing you the best!
Regarding your link on the previous page to the New York Times article about the young man who suffered brain damage in a motorcycle accident… Brain plasticity, or neuroplasticity, has become an incredibly interesting topic in recent years (or at least I’ve become aware of it).
Here’s a brief and oversimplified synopsis: Through personal efforts to learn new things and try new challenges, no matter how rusty or damaged the brain, a person can re-route the neuro pathways to help strengthen brain functioning. This has huge ramifications for someone who experiences brain damage, but also for those who want to improve memory function and sharpness while growing older.
I wonder if there’s a similar concept — maybe not yet discovered — for moving on productively after a cult experience and thriving thereafter — in other words, a type of “re-routing” of our lives. I know for me, that rerouting was already taking place long before I left, and it gradually paved the way for me to leave the cult behind.
——
Veramente (1): I was originally drawn to the FOF partly because of a sense that humans were on a downward path and on the verge of destroying civilization. I was fascinated by environmental topics, and read books that outlined mathematical concepts explaining how over-population was one of the main causes of wars and environmental degradation. To a large degree, that’s what lured me into the FOF (a sense that humans were messing things up), and I have to believe that’s what lures a lot of people into cults — very common for gurus to predict the end of the world. And here were are, many years after all of the Burton predictions have not come true — and the FOF still trying to re-write its history and pretend otherwise.
So, I’m a bit suspicious (understatement) of anyone who believes they know the future, and that only those who are “tuned” in a certain way will survive the catastrophes. Are nuclear war and global environmental catastrophes possible? Absolutely. Right now, I’m just leaving it there. The thought helps me appreciate the sounds of the birds this morning, the opportunities of the day, and helps me focus even more on (hopefully) living a fulfilling and productive life.
1/Vera
Answers? ME? No.
Don’t mind me. Just a little (false) modesty!
The links to apocalyptic subjects show people have been predicting a cataclysmic end-time “just a little ahead” for millenia. Apocalyptic thinking has its roots in fundamentalist worldviews. So, when trying to understand WHY do given people think this way, I find the psychological analyses of fundamentalist worldviews illuminating .
302. JonB
Good to be out of such a mess. I am enjoying every day since I left less than a year ago…And yes, this blog with all its human shortcomings helps to re-connect with one’s common sense…
JonB and Panoritsa, It really is great to read your good news.
Vera, Re predictions. I’ve heard some about new age predictions. Some are astrology based and every astrologer agrees that 2012 is a big year. But so is 2016 and 2025 – and actually early fall 2008 was dire too, astrologically (coincided exactly with the financial crises and crash). The ‘end of the world’ ones are into the Mayan calendar which ends in 2012, and many of those are believers in aliens. Yes, some believe the aliens (can’t tell if they think these overseer-aliens are nice or not nice) will make official contact in 2012. They can get really worked up about it, but of course many did about Y2K – remember that? The future is scary!!!! Need bunkers!!!! All electronic devices will go dead at the stroke of midnight year 2000!!! One guy predicts that the earth’s poles will switch and so will gravity and we will need to learn to walk sideways. Hmmmmmm……
Of course if you are in the business of predictions these are safe bets since they have recurred regularly and often since way before the beginning of history: 1) war 2) economic disaster 3) natural disaster. Current predictions also predict these. I predict that one, two, or all of these will happen, sometime. So, actually the alien stuff is a rather creative departure. If you scout what “psychics” are saying there is no agreement, so your friend is choosing what predictions he/she wants to choose for personal reasons.
Of course, Heaven’s Gate (aliens), Hitler’s Germany (many ideas connected to the occult), and others have articulated very strange world views while brainwashing their followers. Hitler and Company predicted the Third Reich would rule the world for 1,000 years.
Interesting, because on more than one occasion, I heard Burton predict that 1,000 years of world peace would follow his predicted WW III on November 11, 2006. Think about that for a moment: Burton was also predicting “the ark” built by the Fellowship of Friends would be the center of a new civilization, which in a sense would rule the world as far as culture and spiritual guidance and being a center of all things good. There is and was more than a little insanity in the FOF, and it’s something that I took part in myself.
Pangloss…. uh, that’s an extremely dumb video. But if you’re point is to make fun of religion and religious fundamentalism, and all of the fear and superstition that goes along with it, then cool…
10. NIMO
That’s what the illustrious Mrs. Betty Bowers is all about.
less dumb
Pangloss, Bruce… Ah, I get it now…
“In the Bible you can have as many wives as you want… as long as you have them all at once.” etc. lol, good stuff.
Ok, this one isn’t quite the same, but thought I’d get into the spirit a bit… “We are not alone… There’ll be somebody there to break your fall.”
This reminds me of how my aims subtly changed from the day I joined the FoF…
A recipe for fruitcake
Ingredients:
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups dried fruit
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
I cup brown sugar
Lemon juice
Nuts
1 gallon whiskey
Test the whiskey to check for quality
Get a large bowl
Check the whiskey again to be sure it is of the highest quality
Pour on level cup and drink. Repeat.
Turn on the electric mixer; beat 1 cup butter in a large, fluffy bowl. Add 1 teaspoon sugar and beat again.
Make sure the whiskey is still OK. Cry another tup.
Turn off mixer. Break 2 legs and add to the bowl and chuck in the dried fruit. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the whiskey to check for tonsisticity. Next, shift 2 cups salt. Or something. Who cares? Check the whiskey.
Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one tablespoon off sugar or something. Whatever you can find.
Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don’t forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window.
Check the whiskey again and go to bed.
Who the hell likes fruitcake anyway?
I think that ‘Betty Bowers’ thing is ‘a hoot’! But that is 6 posts from me today (oops!). I will tune in tomorrow…..Nigel.
What the hell, one more since it’s Sunday.
1. veramente:
‘WYlike To Know, thank you for the theories you offered on previous pages. . .’
Just for you, and anyone else who would like to know: There is a special branch of study that concerns itself with the ‘cataclysmic endtimes.’ (Especially the theological and philosophical aspects.) It is called Eschatology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology
Ames, love that fruitcake. I tried it, too but then couldn’t get the baking pan out of the fishpond. Did I do something wrong?
***********
On another note, for recent departees, welcome JB, I read this passage this morning. It resonated well in the sense of digesting yet again the limited and limiting aspects of the FoF “teaching”:
“King Janaka once dreamt that he was a beggar. On waking up he asked his Guru–Vasishta: Am I a king dreaming of being a beggar, or a beggar dreaming of being a king? The Guru answered: You are neither, you are both. You are, and yet you are not what you think yourself to be. You are because you behave accordingly; you are not because it does not last. Can you be a king or a beggar for ever? All must change. You are what does not change. What are you? Janaka said: Yes, I am neither king nor beggar, I am the dispassionate witness. The Guru said. This is your last illusion that you are a jnani [a holy man], that you are different from, and superior to, the common man. Again you identify yourself with your mind, in this case a well behaved and in every way an exemplary mind. As long as you see the least difference, you are a stranger to reality. You are on the level of the mind. When the ‘I am myself’ goes, the ‘I am all’ comes. When the ‘I am all’ goes, ‘I am’ comes. When even ‘I am’ goes, reality alone is and in it every ‘I am’ is preserved and glorified. Diversity without separateness is the Ultimate that the mind can touch. Beyond that all activity ceases, because in it all goals are reached and all purposes fulfilled.” (Nisargadatta)
“that you are different from, and superior to, the common man… As long as you see the least difference, you are a stranger to reality.” RB used to say luckier, but it comes down to the same fundamental separation. DC, Abe, whoever you are reading this from the other side, then know that you still have a few illusions yet to pierce.
Thanks to Ellen and Ames both.
I liked the metaphor of baking the cake. Somewhere along the line, probably quite early on, RB and the fellowship forgot the main purpose of the exercise didn’t they? – to mix and balance the ingredients and bake the cake.
The adventure is a simple one, whether it is conducted through 4th Way or no-dualism or whatever… Body, feelings and mind are already there and there is something that knows how to stand in healthy relationship with all three. It is there already. Be in a healthy relationship and let yourself be ‘baked’ by your experiences fully!. Then you are truly alive.
It is a far call from becoming an expert whisky-drinker! From becoming an expert in drinking only one attractive ingredient…. And then pretending that the other ingredients are ‘lower’ and common and the cake doesn’t need to be baked after all!
The fellowship contains many such expert whisky-drinkers, who have mistaken feeding off ‘higher energies’ or alcohol or drugs or even male sperm for the most simple and desirable of all human activities. It’s quite incredible. They know the aroma and the taste of the whisky even before it comes, they make finer and finer discriminations until they are whisky-masters, and yet… the rest of the ingredients lie in the corner, neglected.
“Just keep drinking the whisky and getting drunk on it!” – the clarion call of the school. Doing what they think is the higher right and following what they feel is the most beautiful, still they are ‘strangers from reality’. It is very strange indeed.
Yes, my precious, drink the kool-aide.
19/Tiger
Somewhere along the line, probably quite early on, RB and the fellowship forgot the main purpose of the exercise didn’t they?
That there was a “forgetting” is but a myth. Whatever the claims, the Fellowship had but a single purpose: to aggrandize, to provide narcissistic supply for, Robert Earl Burton. All evidence suggests that purpose was there from Day One, when, in the wee hours of January 1, 1970, a psychopath disinhibited by alcohol worked a charm offensive on a seeker with her psyche dilated wide open by mescaline. All evidence suggests that purpose remains today.
Jomo.
In terms of the fellowship as a whole, I’m not sure you can say with accuracy that “the forgetting was a myth”. Probably most entered with a sincere wish which was overtaken as they became absorbed into the culture. But one purpose subtly became another.
As for Burton himself, who really knows? There may have been a wish, which became rapidly diluted as he saw how easy it was to dupe people?…
The most effective illusions are the ones which contain just enough of the truth to convince people of their legitimacy. Bernard Madoff returned just enough money to keep people investing in his pyramid scheme, and Burton had to show people just enough of a return on their spiritual investment to keep the ball rolling. That return was called ‘experiencing higher states’ (drinking whisky).
22. Crouching Tiger
“As for Burton himself, who really knows? There may have been a wish, which became rapidly diluted as he saw how easy it was to dupe people?…”
That could be true of a a normal human. But from what has been written here it’s clear, at least to me, that were talking about a sociopath. Sociopaths don’t start out with an altruistic “wish” or belief and then find it diluted by the ease of duplicity. They start out as a sociopath, and they end as a sociopath.
Fair enough. I respect your point.
22. Crouching Tiger
“That return was called ‘experiencing higher states’ (drinking whisky).”
That’s true. No self respecting cult will last long without the use of at least a few of the enumerable techniques to provide fleeting “higher states” and epiphanies. That, along with the malleability, egocentricity and inherent blindness of the rank and file makes it pretty easy. Take five new, intelligent students. Stick them amongst the “teacher” and his or her adoring and experienced sycophants in a completely unreal environment (like the gelleria) after working for 48 hours straight. That there’s some higher states for ya buddy, at least for one or two of the five. The other three will eventually leave. but those two will go on to support the dark superstructure of the FOF. And if one’s a pretty boy, well…talk about higher sytates.
Crouching: “The most effective illusions are the ones which contain just enough of the truth to convince people of their legitimacy.”
Very true, although I’d say “that contain just enough of a supposed truth…” because what we felt we were experiencing may have been an illusion as well. One unstated premise in the idea that “we experienced higher states” in the Fellowship of Friends is that the same experience is not possible or is unlikely outside of the Fellowship of Friends. Part of the lure is that “you ain’t getting this anywhere else… better stick with it.”
Regarding Jomo’s comment, do you at least see the possibility that she and Bruce might be entirely correct? That Burton was/is a sociopath from the start? And the FOF a scam from the get-go?
Just curious… I often sense this is a hard one for people to acknowledge. We want to believe that WE experienced something “real” — that we weren’t victimized but “gained” something from the experience. This, by the way, is the attitude of former cult followers in many other cults. It’s very common.
I personally believe this is why M.B. said of the FOF that is was for him “wasted years” — not to wallow in self pity, but to make a statement about the true nature of this cult and not soften the reality.
****
We want to believe that WE experienced something “real” — that we weren’t victimized but “gained” something from the experience. This, by the way, is the attitude of former cult followers in many other cults. It’s very common.
Cognitive dissonance theory explains it as dissonance reduction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Nimo. “I often sense this is a hard one for people to acknowledge. We want to believe that WE experienced something “real” — that we weren’t victimized but “gained” something from the experience. This, by the way, is the attitude of former cult followers in many other cults. It’s very common.”
I would be hesitant to write off everyone’s experiences in the fellowship as unreal. People certainly felt that they were real enough to make them stay in, anyway. We all obviously felt that we were making progress in some way or another, or we would have left post-haste.
I feel it’s more accurate to say that whatever reality was contained in those so-called ‘higher experiences’, the fellowship did not provide a framework that could interpret them or give them a useful meaning in our actual, lived-through lives. Hence, the whisky-drinking but no cake-baking.
So yes, they turned out to be useless and even damaging, but not necessarily because they were untrue in themselves – but because they were experienced within a flawed environment where the ultimate purpose was not as advertised. So Bruce’s little story feels right to me: something, an experience was ‘induced’…. and then misused for a far darker purpose.
Likewise with Burton himself, the only thing I know for sure is that the sociopathic tendencies proved to be the strongest force within his personality, and that he found a framework to satisfy them by creating the fellowship. I don’t know if we can say more than this without drifting into supposition.
Does any one know if there is any type of POLICE investigation ongoing. With the sexual abuse mind control ect. what about the children that are involved
17. Wouldnt You Like To Know
Thank you for the Eschatology term or the study of ‘cataclysmic endtimes.’
(what happened in 2006?)
I found a similar term: Scatology, which in one of the definitions found on line is:
The study of fecal excrement, as in medicine, paleontology, or biology.
An obsession with excrement or excretory functions.
(Rhino poops!)
Jomo (#27)
Are Cognitive dissonance and buffers the same thing?
JB
31. JonB
Maybe buffers (jargon) allow cognitive dissonance.
31/JonB
No.
“Buffers” is jargon which I recommend you set aside for the time being. There’s a core idea there that has value, but I recommend using different language to explore it.
“Cognitive dissonance” occurs when you experience a clash between, for example, something you did and something you believe.
Everyone has experienced buyer’s remorse and that’s an example of cognitive dissonance. I just paid a bunch of money for something, and I wake up the next day and I know in my bones that it wasn’t worth as much as I paid for it. So automatically I invent reasons (“rationalizations”) why it was ok that I paid so much for it. I experience cognitive dissonance (“buyer’s remorse”) and I rationalize my actions, which reduces that dissonance. Eventually I convince myself that what I did was ok. I.e., my beliefs change.
If I can get you to do something which is dissonant with the way you see yourself–your “self-concept”–I can influence what you think or believe. Dissonance theory says that your self-concept will change in order to reduce the dissonance between what you did and the way you see yourself.
That, in part, is how “exercises” turned uncomfortable “prospective students” into wallet-opening “men number four,” i.e., Fellowship indoctrinees.
The FoF may be no better or worse than any other club, institution or society, but I’ve yet to see anyone, friend or foe, say anything “good” about Robert Burton.
I don’t think it can be done with a straight face.
“Buffers” is still a good word, and ironically it’s maybe the most useful of all of the FOF jargon to describe why we stuck with the program despite all of the evidence telling us how insane it was. We “buffered” things. There may not be a better word to describe, which partly gets to the point of Crouching Tiger that we did learn something in the FOF, but I think a lot of what we learned was that the biggest expression of our “sleep” was that we remained followers of Robert Burton.
Even though I still use FOF “work words” (jargon) occasionally, I agree with Jomo that it’s been helpful to set them aside — in my opinion, the habitual use of these words is partly what created the atmosphere of group-think for the group as a whole, and blind following in its participants (me included).
This is not exactly related, but I was recently watching an old WWII documentary, and one episode focused on Germany in the spring of 1945 after the German surrender to the Allies. Part of the film showed a procession of German vehicles heading home after the surrender. There was obviously some relief on the part of the Germans that the war was over and that they had survived. As the vehicles filled with soldiers and civilians proceeded down the road, a German officer stood smiling and greeting everyone as they drove by. At one point, he put his hand up in Nazi salute, but then quickly caught himself and pulled his hand down a bit and clenched his fist and his Nazi salute subtly became a simple wave, and he laughed.
Said the narrator: “A lifetime of old habits die hard.”
Dear JonB
I saw you were out.
Congratulations. Thee is a new world out there.
A lot to regain, a lot to grief.
Bravo.
29 Andrew
Does any one know if there is any type of POLICE investigation ongoing. With the sexual abuse mind control ect. what about the children that are involved
————-
I do not know, but by some associations your post made me think of the Troy B….bee law suit.
Not knowing his individual circumstances and even his emotional health at the time, I wish now he could have had begun a criminal law suit.
It’s water under bridges…
Notoriety for the Fellowship of Friends”
http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=25268
Dear Nimo
Buffers are maye a useful expression from the fof.
I translated into: more then 80 % of what we do is subconcious.
Freud and Jung and many others have come to similar conclusions, ages ago.
It is “and and” not one of the other…..do not get me started on the term formatory thinking. I use opposional thinking…..clear and correct to the wording.
Enjoy your day.
.
Dear Nigel and 6 weekers.
When I read your exchange and blaming the other as follows, for example.
I take it, by your post, which I have carefully read, that you will not be blogging anymore. Fine! That leaves more space on the site for those of us who do not want to just ‘air the breeze’, but actually CONTRIBUTE!!!!!
…..Nigel.
Reminds me of the following dialogue:
3 year old: My father is a fireman and is very strong.
Other 3 year old, my father is a policeman and sooo strong.
Who is right…they are still playing together.
38. brucelevy
Thank you for this. It is still so odd to read the description of the FOF by someone else who was not part of the madness. The nonsense we believed…
Whenever I read about the T.B. case and the Fellowship that: “The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.” and the $5 million lawsuit turns my stomach upside down…
Because it was US (not as in U.S.A, but as in you and I…) who paid for all that…
Would that be an example of “Cognitive dissonance”? I wonder…
And there is lots more…Prytaneon…Theatron (hallelujah…)…The Bistro (where all the monies go????)…Apollo D’Oro…Hundreds of Dishes for the Galleria…Fund-raising for the Poseidon ???…
If you do not know what I am talking about is because I was part of a tiny, little lunatic Cult for some years…
38 Brucelevy
Maybe this links to the question which has been raised quite recently in posts, “Why are so many rich, intellectually superior folk attracted to the Fellowship of Friends?”. Perhaps the answer lies in that these people have the means to pay the exorbitant ‘donations’ and their intellectual superiority (as Californians) gives them the leaning towards ‘weird’. I have no wish to ‘bash’ all Californians, but, having lived there for 7 years between, there is certainly the air of eccentricity which pervades the more ‘learned’ or monied people…..Nigel.
40 Another Name
Are you, by that post, contributing? I am serious about what I do here…..Nigel.
“Why are so many rich, intellectually superior folk attracted to the Fellowship of Friends?”
Because people who consider themselves superior are usually rather stupid. And easily manipulated.
In Bruce’s cult link above scroll down to the Wright Family and you’ll see that he attracted a devotee who was the xerox heir. Eat your heart out Burton.
Just to say that “the cosmic tumblers have clicked into place and the Universe opens itself up for a few seconds to show you what is possible” (Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner). In other words, the evening ‘made sense to me’ just in these past minutes. Lindsay, my type and centre of gravity sister/twin, was wearing a ’33’ sports shirt (33 is my awakening number – did we not approach the FOF with that aim? – anything else would have been ‘partial awakening’) and when I was waiting at the bus stop where Lindsay had left me, Kate, the lady I had approached with emotional love and had had that love reciprocated – she took care of me before I was admitted to the asylum on 1 June -, found me there and gave me a ride into town. We talked about what each other had been doing since we had last seen each other and agreed to ‘stay in touch’ – somehow the right words were there with me – she laughed when I squashed my pizza getting out of the car – Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained?!?!?…..Nigel.
45 DXP
Nice one, DXP, and nice post number…..Nigel.
(And the reason for the change in moniker? – “called by his nighest name” – what my good friends call me)
Hey Nigel: ‘All shapes and all sizes compete for the prizes’ someone said.
48 sallymcnally
Highlander 1, 2, 3 etc?!?!?
This is my last post tonight (GMT) to observe, as much as possible, the groung rules – post written a few days ago…..
Dear Steve
As you have probably guessed, I have, in the main, been complying
with your request to limit my posts to 4 a day (I ran over by 1 today).
Since you know of my bi polar affective disorder, I would like to
explain why, in the past, it has been difficult for me to refrain from the
suggestion. The ‘high’ and the ‘low’ states, are, by their very nature,
actually polar opposites. When high, I and other ‘sufferers’ experience
elation, serendipity/synchronicity and the feeling of being able to
connect even the most tenuous of ‘meanings’. I personally believe
that this state is what Meher Baba described as being “God Crazy”
whereas, as you probably would be able to figure, the mental health
authorities see it as experiencing “delusions of grandeur”. I leave it
to you to ‘temper’ me when you believe this state ‘takes over’ the blog.
As a contrast, low states would find me not contributing to the site
for several days, since my whole being feels ‘shitty’ and I have to
work on more practical (dare I say it? – ‘good householder’) activities
to improve my state to level.
I personally feel that a few ‘ground-rules’ should not encompass the
times when I and other bloggers feel that they want to ‘work through’
a subject and I would apply this to Elena, whom I feel has to ‘rant’
and ‘vent’ as therapy on this site (although I do feel, from her last post,
that we may have ‘lost’ her).
Thank you for your time in reading this email and please feel free to
use it as ‘public domain’, if you think other bloggers would appreciate
my thoughts…..
Nigel.
In case some did not see Ellen’s post on the GF site, under the topic of “What Good Things Came from etc..”, it is on page 18 of that discussion.
In my opinion it is worth reading.
To my previous blog, actually my dad said that so I’ll give him the credit.
44, 46, 47, 49 & 50 are new
51. James Mclemore
“In case some did not see Ellen’s post on the GF site, under the topic of “What Good Things Came from etc..”, it is on page 18 of that discussion.
In my opinion it is worth reading.”
I second that.
54. Josiane – August 12, 2009
51. James Mclemore
“In case some did not see Ellen’s post on the GF site, under the topic of “What Good Things Came from etc..”, it is on page 18 of that discussion.
In my opinion it is worth reading.”
I second that.
——————————————–
Here it is:
Good things? Or pleasant things? Because there is a difference. For myself, I am constantly revising my own outlook on things that I once called “good”, only because it’s a term that inevitably relates to my subjective threshholds of pleasure and pain. So then, OK, “good”, but in what way? And, I try to go deeper into what “good” might mean. To me the term seems to connote a human value, a value of humanity, or of love, and then also, not just a superficial love, but rather in its deeper aspects some kind of experiential love that transcends (or attempts to transcend, with a “fledgling” love) artificial borders – whatever they may be.
So, what good things came from my experience in the FoF? Certainly there were many pleasant experiences, as well as many unpleasant. And I learned to attempt to relocate my sense of self to the witness rather than the sensation. Can you call that good? If so, and in relation to what? Is witnessing objectively good? I guess I would now say, “no”, if it doesn’t take you beyond yourself into humanity (the Fellowship demonstrates that black hole rather well), but “yes”, if it does. There are some who call the experience of going so far within that the I-person dissolves, the inside-out. All that is left is the world, and you are that. No separation. Mind-divisions gone. And that is love. Impersonal love.
Thus the essential good that finally came from my experience in the Fellowship was the ability to discriminate, and not just to discriminate between my subjective values of “pleasant” and “unpleasant”, but rather between something more objective, between that of good or goodness as it relates to humanity. In that sense, if I understand Bruce’s outrage (or the “negativity” of others), it’s not just because of his unpleasant-to-him-personal-experiences, but rather his sense of humanity. Because the Fellowship (despite Robert’s claims) is not good for humanity. Ultimately, it abuses people’s goodness in the name of something higher. And that’s crime.
brilliantly expressed, Ellen, and something I’ll continue to reflect upon. Thanks for posting, veramente.
Hi All,
The only edit I have to what I said yesterday is:
“Ultimately, it abuses people’s innate goodness in the name of something higher.”
Because one of the twists of the Fourth Way – as I understood it – through the various filters of G, O or RB, is that man is a machine. Thus, it is a negatively charged view of human nature, which if emphasized by the ignorant doesn’t encompass the full truth. And the full truth can be known and fully experienced, such that deep down in the center of who we really, really are there are the basic qualities of being, concsiousness and bliss or vitality, knowledge and love. The system called that world three. I say call it whatver you like, but recognize it, damn it, recognize it! 😉
57 Ellen
…Because one of the twists of the Fourth Way – as I understood it – through the various filters of G, O or RB, is that man is a machine. Thus, it is a negatively charged view of human nature,…
——————–
there it is! “man is a machine”. The negative hook that for me of course had an appeal when I joined the fof.
Something is wrong with me, naturally wrong, and I must redeem!
The original sin follows me and I am never good enough.
I embraced the Cult not only for my flawed self-perception, personal circumstances were also a mess. Even better recipe for a follower who is going to obey like a sheep. From the frying pan to the fire, or vice versa?
yummy lamb!
Thank you Ellen for your post, there is a healthy impatience in your words:
“damn it, recognize it!”, the teacher is within.
Obscure Sex Cult Adopts Sinister Worldview
Oregon House (AP) – It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen novel in possession of added gore will be a surefire best-seller.
That’s the conclusion reached by British publishers since the success of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” an unlikely literary sensation created by adding dollops of “ultraviolent zombie mayhem” to Austen’s classic love story. It’s a remarkable turnaround for a writer who achieved limited success in her lifetime and was largely forgotten after she died.
“Zombies” — billed as 85 percent Austen’s original text and 15 percent brand-new blood and guts — has become a best-seller since it was published earlier this year, with 750,000 copies in print. There’s also a movie in the works.
And it has spawned a monster — or, more accurately, a slew of literary and spiritual monster mash-ups.
Next month, “Zombies” publisher Quirk Books is releasing “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters,” which adds giant lobsters and rampaging octopi to Austen’s love story. Out this week from another publisher is “Mr. Darcy, Vampyre,” a supernatural sequel which portrays the aloof hero of “Pride and Prejudice” as an undead bloodsucker. Later this year comes “Jane Bites Back,” in which the author herself develops a taste for blood.
Following on the heels of the trend, Robert E. Burton, reclusive leader of an obscure Northern Californian gay sex cult with an insatiable taste for semen has revealed his latest spiritual concept, “man is a zombie” in a newly released version of the fourth way classic, “In Search of the Miraculous and Zombies”.
Even Fourth Way purists and zealots admit a grudging admiration for the “Zombies” concept.
“In cult recruiting terms, it’s brilliant,” said Nicolas Balding, a Columbia University drop-out and admitted Burton-phile, “Nobody wants to be perceived as a zombie, and our cult is the exclusive spiritual path with a dress code to keep you from looking like one.”
Critics shake their heads at the new book. “It’s 10% Ouspensky and 90% vomit”, says one outspoken blogger. “Viewing the world as full of zombies just cultivates paranoia and cult dependence. In fact, by joining this cult you actually become a zombie, a walking sperm bank! It’s a unremarkable ploy for a cult leader who has achieved limited success in his lifetime and will be gratefully forgotten after he dies.”
The irresistible title is key to the success of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” The book itself keeps most of Austen’s story — girl meets boy, girl hates boy, girl is won over by boy’s good looks and large fortune — with added chunks of zombie violence by U.S. writer Seth Grahame-Smith.
In Burton’s warped version of the fourth way, boy meets guru, boy resists guru’s sexual advances, boy is won over by guru’s conscious blow jobs, free meals, world travel, and expensive gifts or gets kicked out of cult and labeled zombie.
Harman, who studied Austen’s resurrection by a band of late 19th-century admirers, said her global cult fame rests partly on the appeal of her elegant, witty books, with their blend of social commentary, feisty heroines and romantic happy endings. Harman says, “People want to wallow. They want to get in that lovely warm bath and have a longer bath.”
Burton appears to exploit this same unconscious need of his followers.
Cult experts say that Burton’s “success” rests upon his apocalyptic predictions, the “love-bombing” of new recruits, the mind-numbing and dualistic nature of his so-called “teachings”, and his unassailable role as a controlling authority figure.
Link is to an excerpt from the book “The Evolution of God” by Robert. Not that Robert, Robert Wright.
It says that humans have evolved to be gullible and that joining cults is one of the by products of our tendency to believe pretty much anything that seems to explain the world. It’s part of natural selection, though he also says that those who don’t self-correct pretty quickly are doomed to end up in the drowning end of the gene pool. So don’t feel bad if you thought 44 C influence angels talked to you via license plates or believed that humans were food for the moon. But if you are convinced you have verified these fantasies: EPIC FAIL.
http://evolutionofgod.net/excerpts_appendix/
Robert Earl Burton’s guru rating on Sarlo’s Guru Rating Service
http://www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/RatingsA-B.htm
“worse than bogus, no redeeming value”
And why so many of us were able to “verify” the system, C influence, the sequence and other things:
“There is no reason to think that this incentive to claim special witness to high drama was any less powerful among hunter-gatherers circa 30,000 BCE than among midwestern Americans circa 1900 CE. Imagine that you are one of those hunter-gatherers and you walk past a place where someone died mysteriously, and you hear leaves rustle eerily. That’s a story that will get people’s attention, and you can heighten the attention by stressing how exquisitely timed the rustling was. And, by the way, didn’t you catch sight of a shadowy—almost ethereal—creature out of the corner of your eye?
The anthropologist Stewart Guthrie has suggested that hunter-gatherers would be encouraged to make just such false sightings by standard human mental equipment—something called a “hyperactive agent-detection device.” Because the costs of failing to detect a predator lurking in the woods are much higher than the costs of detecting one that isn’t there, natural selection, he plausibly argues, may have biased our brains toward “false positives”: you hear a rustling, your mind flashes the vivid hypothesis of some generic animal that’s doing the rustling, and you turn toward it expectantly. Did you actually see something? Kind of.”
Robert Wright, “Evolution of God”
Thank you Jomo (33) and Bruce (32)
Please watch this and explain cognitive dissonance.
thanks
JB
I watched it. Not sure why you asked me to do that.
57 Ellen/58 veramente
Something I overlooked last night and you have beautifully emphasised in both your posts…..the Fellowship of Friends, as we experienced it when we were ‘in’, and now see ‘not through a glass, darkly, but now, face to face’ was/is a ‘sham’ of nothingness’ posing as something ‘real’ ( we can all define that term in our own ways but the root of interpretation will be pretty much the same). Self-remembering was normally the act of ‘me looking at the sunset over Renaissance/Isis/Apollo, sipping a fine wine’ (or something similar) and it was NOT The Work – it was really The Afford…..we see all these aspects of the cult in our separate and conjoining healing journey. I think one thing we must bear in mind is….we cannot not have been in the school, and I think those who have gone ‘to the core of their being’ in the healing process recognise that we owe it to those still current members, prospective students and those as recent ‘either side of in/out’ of the FOF (don’t know quite how to word this – hope it makes sense) to reach to their innate (thank you Ellen for that correct word, which I borrow from you) TRUE CONSCIENCE and STEER THEM AWAY FROM THE UNREALITY AND ESSENCE-DAMAGING CULT THAT IS THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS…..Nigel.
Again, thanks to Ellen (the only credit worth anything is ‘credit whre credit is due’) for ‘tuning me in’ to this wonderful teacher…..
“You need not get at it (Enlightenment), for you are it. It will get at you, if you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly slip into its own. Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realisation that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love – worthy and lovable” (a quote from Maharaj Nisargadatta)
“What is seedless and rootless, what does not sprout and grow, flower and fruit, what comes into being suddenly and in full glory, mysteriously and marvelously, you may call that ‘god’ It is entirely unexpected yet inevitable, infinitely familiar yet most surprising, beyond all hope yet absolutely certain….You can do nothing to bring it about, but you can avoid creating obstacles. Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there.”
(Nisargadatta Maharaj)
As I have reached my daily quota, I found this one more quote from NM…..
“But if you stay with the idea that you are not the body nor the mind, not even their witness, but altogether beyond, your mind will grow in clarity, your desires – in purity, your actions – in charity and that inner distillation will take you to another world, a world of truth and fearless love. Resist your old habits of feeling and thinking; keep on telling yourself: ‘No, not so, it cannot be so; I am not like this, I do not need it, I do not want it’, and a day will surely come when the entire structure of error and despair will collapse and the ground will be free for a new life.”
Let it sustain those whom we love enough to ‘go back’ and help ‘escape’ and let it sustain Our Selves…..Nigel
61-Bruce
I would give him that rating if I was the rater, however it looks like he is unrated on that site. The “O” after his name stands for “other” meaning his category and not a “0” as in “zero”.
68. xeeena
All the way down on the bottom of the page is a “guide”, and “0” means what I quoted.
the symbols don’t show up (you’ll have to go to the page) but the bottom one is “0”.
= the greats, helping many
= limited, some handicaps, or maybe not yet full stature
= very limited, narrow approach or ideology, or still developing
= suspect but on balance positive
= suspect
= bogus, may have some value, who knows
= worse than bogus, no redeeming value
62. JonB
That’s obfuscation, not cognitive dissonance. And you also have to figure in that Jake Tapper is a giant dick.
62/JonB
(I’d take the U.S.’s system over the parliamentary chaos of Kadima, Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Labor and Shas any day for sure.)
Hi Bruce, I really hate to disappoint you, but if you look at the top of the page you’ll see the key to the letters in parenthesis after the names. The “O” stands for other/misc. The zero for the rating is pink with a light yellow slash through it and is not in parenthesis. I’m right, I’m right, I know I’m right, but we all know he deserves a zero, they just don’t know enough about him to rate him.
ahhhh shit
wishful thinking
He should just have an * cause that’s what you get.
Maybe it is an O by now.
60 & 63 are new
Xeeena, Bruce,
Burton’s rating should be a double zero, as in oh-oh.
****
Those who enjoy watching television’s favorite cult on Lost completely understand Burton’s “Other” rating.
****
loserbaby900, 60 and 63… love the excerpts, and the connection to the rustling leaves is fascinating and rings true to me.
I’m feel more affinity with people who believe in the possibility of angels than I do with people who believe they’ve verified with certainty that angels exist. I am frightened by people who take it a step further and believe they’ve verified that these angels have bestowed upon them, and them alone, good fortune shared by no one else in the world. (Recent news item: The world is reaching 7 billion in population soon.)
I believe the world is a good place. I believe the universe has benevolent purposes. But it’s a belief. It’s a world view. but I completely understand those who see it differently. Our existence “here” is a mystery.
I sat outside this evening and stared upward at the stars to view the Perseids. Several zoomed into our atmosphere silently, mysteriously. I noticed the stars behind them — shining quietly as well. For brief moments, it was very clear that we here/now are floating in the vastness of space.
Purportedly, in the very beginning there was a clash between energy and space and so began the whole evolution/involution mess.
Further on down the road, according to the Mischievous Chicken:
“There are three main types of pilgrims on the Path:
the intoxicated ones, in Persian they are called masts,
the sober ones, in Persian they are called saliks,
and those who strive on their own efforts, the yogis.
The masts are the individuals absorbed in the ecstasy
and bliss of the heavens of the planes.
The saliks are the individuals stationed
in the planes and guided by a Sadguru.
The yogis go through the heavens
to the planes and sometimes are guided by a Sadguru.”
– Bal Kalchuri
Why not send Sarlo Ratings a copy of the petition?
Those who are being misguided are called ‘shippers, and probably are doomed.
Jomo (74)
I was trying to understand cognitive dissonance and then I saw that clip. It could have been any organization and it just happened to be amongst politicians and the news media. I must have stepped on your toe by mistake, sorry.
JB
What I saw in the clip was this: A journalist asking questions of a spokesperson for the U.S. President.
The goal of the journalist was to get the spokesperson to say things he didn’t want to say, or to make the spokesperson look bad by refusing to answer.
The spokesperson was acting as a spokesperson, and was constrained by that role.
The journalist was not motivated, so far as I could tell, by the spirit of journalistic inquiry, i.e., to get an honest answer to an honest question, but to entrap the spokesperson into saying something he didn’t want to say.
In effect, what I saw were competing propagandizing forces, with the methods used by the journalist being (in my view) unfair.
85. JonB
Just Google: “Jake Tapper” +asshole, and read some of his history.
Someone asked about a police investigation. How about animal rights? I heard that ten of the approximately 100 water buffalo died from starvation and that one of the camels was killed in a loading or moving incident. Hopefully, this is just a rumor.
89/JonB
You didn’t step on my toe. But you did post a link to a videotape which was intentionally created as a piece of political propaganda. I suppose it can be analyzed as a partisan’s attempt to paint the other side as having professed one set of values but having acted in a way that contradicts those values.
So is there a core principle there that resembles what’s going on in cognitive dissonance? In a warped way, I suppose there is. However, the concept of cognitive dissonance is much less valuable to explain what’s going on in this exchange than the concept of partisan assholeness.
89. Jomo Piñata
“However, the concept of cognitive dissonance is much less valuable to explain what’s going on in this exchange than the concept of partisan assholeness.”
I did think Jomo, that perhaps I myself experienced a bit of what might be a form of ‘cognitive dissonance’ when I watched that vid. I experienced that contradiction between the idea of the ‘mind’ as having the possibilities of being a flexible and quite extraordinary tool, and the then apparent fact that when that very same ‘mind’ is infested with memes and opinions, it is completely untrustworthy.
Speaking of scams and hoaxes:
On the topic of cognitive dissonance as well as obfuscation and lying, Axelrod sent out a White House email today, and wrote:
“As President Obama said at the town hall in New Hampshire, ‘where we do disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that’s actually been proposed.’ ”
Yep, that’s often the problem. You see some of the same on the blog. There’s lots of disagreement, but you also see those “straw man arguments” (i.e., misrepresentations). It’s an effective tool for obscuring the main discussion and disallowing serious debate, and suddenly you forget what the hell you were talking about in the first place — Springfield letter, Burton’s greed, narcissism and sexual exploitation of his followers, as well as the complete lie that Burton’s main purpose is the spiritual well-being of his followers.
I’m glad someone brought in a political topic. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, but there are too many parallels to ignore: propaganda. lying, control of the information, censorship of the airwaves, fear of change, & more.
“Hopefully, this is just a rumor.”
I agree. I hope no one is so galactically retarded as to spend good money to bring water buffaloes and camels to the Sierra foothills.
Camels and water buffaloes. Sounds like a typical ark-related project.
95
Thanks Bruce. Delightfully overwhelming.
92. Agent 007:
‘. . .the complete lie that Burton’s main purpose is the spiritual well-being of his followers.’
If you take this fragment of the above statement: ‘Burton’s main purpose is the spiritual well-being of his followers.’
That creates cognitive dissonance. I hope that helps you, JonB. and others. You try to cognate that when you know damn well that it ain’t the truth.
me vs. the universe-
IN YO FACE!
I had a few days to think about this…..
I responded to the suggestion of reading Ellen’s post on page 18 of the appropriate section on the GF site and was glad that one blogger took the trouble to actually post it to the Discussion site. If any of you did go to the GF page, how many of you noticed a post some way down the same page in which the poster was ‘gleefully praising’ the Fellowship for helping him in valuing getting a ‘good’ job (I think it was in computing, but why would that be so surprising?) which improved his income? All about The Afford again!!!!! I do not know how much longer we are going to have to ‘knock on the door of people’s consciences’ to make them realize that “you cannot serve God and Mammon” as the good book says and, if you serve Mammon, you confound your Noble Qualities. I remember, in ‘Search’, how Gurdjieff said that a being under the laws of Essence may have a harder life than someone under the laws of Personality. For one thing, Essence pursuits are NOT MOTIVATED BY FINANCIAL GAIN. I would like, again, to support and thank Ellen, for her contribution, which I think touched the reality in many people and I feel we should not be afraid of creating a precedent in the legal world (if Elena is still ‘tuning in’ to the blog, this is for her, too) by pursuing action against the Cult that is the Fellowship of Friends and its leader, Robert Earl Burton, who is the Antichrist…..Nigel.
A World View
You may not realize it,
But “the predictions” did come true.
All of them, and they continue to come true.
And there actually is an Ark.
How’s that for a World View?
Each one of us actually pummeled by that Great Depression of 1984,
Different people at different times as the years have passed,
Each finding a massive challenge and struggle to build The Ark.
So you see, it’s all true.
And then — although you may not have noticed,
California did fall,
Plunging into the Pacific Ocean in April 1998,
Taking many of us with it.
Hell, it fell long before that, too, and continues to fall,
Not just in 1998.
And finally, you may think it never happened,
But yes, there was an Armageddon in November 2006,
And it happened long before that, too, and continues to happen
Long after.
Mushroom clouds rising high into the air across the globe,
Obliterating our illusions,
Pulverizing and vaporizing and scorching our Reality,
Or at least what we believed we had verified as our Reality.
We later found a new Reality
That we had joined a cult and followed a cult leader.
It was, and is, and will be, a type of Hydrogen bomb,
Destroying everything, destroying what we believed we had verified,
What we believed we had known and understood — smashing it.
Yes, cult; the word, pejorative, like H-bomb is pejorative.
And yes, Cult Leader, the term, pejorative, like nuclear bomb is pejorative.
All illusions of community and friendship and spiritual guidance
Vaporized and scorched just like an H-Bomb vaporizes and scorches.
And all of us, now, here, being,
Recovering from the World War III that followed our own appeasement,
And the sly attacks of a Pejorative Cult Leader
Like all wars, someone pressed The Button,
Plunging us into the Nuclear Winter of sadness and disbelief.
The Great Depression passed,
California engulfed by the ocean,
And nuclear warfare had finally done its thing.
Leaving all of us now, here, just being and wondering:
What if there ARE Angels calling the shots,
Angels knowing all of this from the beginning,
You and you and you and you and me all meant to travel this road,
And finally, Angels “administering” their “shocks”
Of Guru Bombs and Guru Earthquakes and Guru Depressions.
Our Ark, sending ships across the ocean to Italy,
To gather a Vivaldi, a Handel, a Da Vinci painting,
Enclosing all of that into ourselves,
Grabbing new music and new art, too,
Grabbing an Idea from Egypt or the South of France on the way back,
Or Spain, or the coast of England, or Libya, or the Yucatan,
Or from a quiet back alley in Boston, from small children, passerbys, Everyone, from those who are wealthy,
From those in poverty,
From those who don’t believe they know.
On this Ark, you find the Fourth Way too,
But also the Fifth Way and the Sixth Way, and the Seventh Way,
And the Half Way and Three Quarters of the Way,
Every way, All of the Way, all of the ways.
On this Ark, not even closed minded dogma is left behind,
We take that as well,
Mainly to remind us,
Nothing left behind.
On this Ark, we bring Non-Dualism, Dualism, Triplism, Quadrupalism, all of the isms.
History, science, philosophy, religion, atheism, agnosticism, existentialism, nonexistentialismn,
Modern psychology, ancient psychology, moderately old psychology, borderline new psychology,
On this Ark, we pack it all in.
Sensing that The Universe is a good place,
Knowing that the Earth is Painful as well as Joyful,
We find friendship on Our Ark, friendship we didn’t find on
The Pretend Ark,
Friendship that embraces, friendship that follows and leads, and stands side-by-side and recognizes just how little time there is to recover from Guru Bombs.
Friendship that scorns and shouts and stridently waves its arms in urgency,
Friendship that forgives and loves and continues.
This Ark open to all,
Welcoming all to come, welcoming all to leave, and welcoming back. Strong friendship, that pursues and perseveres,
Not a weak friendship that casts aside all who disbelieve,
Or where the simplest tremor such as Walking Out The Door,
Will shake things off their foundation,
No. This friendship endures, it continues, it returns.
Yes, the predictions were true after all,
And there is an Ark after all,
We wait patiently for more to join,
Or to leave, or to join and leave,
Or to neither join nor leave,
Because we see the illusion in both joining and leaving.
A real and solid Ark, not a make-believe one,
Now accepting non-students, students, non-ex-students, students of non-ex-students, and students of non-studenthood.
The earth: painful, joyful, mysterious, puzzling, unknowable,
And yet certain, clear, and knowable, too,
The universe: perhaps something good and wonderful, and also mysterious.
We together witnessing it all through earthquakes, war, and economic downfall, building an Ark to rise from the ashes.
On the issue of camels
My last project in FOF(FOR) was to paint the Camel’s new shed.
So when I went there I was surprised (well not too surprised) to see few ladies taking turn to brush the camels.
Then Burton came with white golf hat and white glasses and said “aren’t they beautiful”?(the camels).
In Israel the Bedouins are giving them away for free, but here they are very expensive. I asked “How much did they cost” RB waited a minute and said “If I tell you then the word will go around”. My last interaction with RB.
I heard that ostriches are the last acquisition to the zoo.
I heard that ostriches are the last acquisition to the zoo.
The symbolism here is just killer.
It’s already well stocked with loons.
100 is new
101. JonB
Then Burton came with white golf hat and white glasses and said “aren’t they beautiful”?(the camels).
Isn’t Burton a lot like Michael Jackson without the talent and marketing genius? And he is not all the way dead yet.
He will grow bored with the animals and eventually abandon them, like Jackson abandoned Bubbles the chimp.
100 A pearly utterance, from RB early on was that the town Enola,Arkansas,where he was born was named after the Enola Gay (the plane that dropped THE bomb). He liked to spell it backwards for us…
A L O N E
From YubaNet.com
http://yubanet.com/nevada/Yuba.php
Yuba, CAL FIRE, Yuba County, heavy brush and timber. Two fires. Below Oregon peak lookout and Colgate Powerhouse. Numerous resources on scene and on order.
Some spotting. Spreading north out of Yuba River Canyon. Airtankers are making good progress.
Immediate threat to 20 structures, and powerlines. Firefighters are making access from Marysville Road and Lake Francis Road. Traffic is hampering access. Strike teams on scene.
MANDATORY EVACUATIONS have been ordered on the following roads:
Yuba-Nevada – entire length
Texas Hill – east of Dixon Hill Road
Cook Lane
Colton Way
Candlewood
De Long
Dixon Hill
Meadow Valley
Rices Crossing – southern end
CHP is at Colgate Powerhouse Road.
100 World View
As you probably know, 100 is the number for Fate….
People who know what is going on, ACTUALLY KNOW, and are not afraid to tell you what you should already know. We do not conveniently forget, unless we are a Burton or a lesser False Prophet – we just need prompting – when the State Impels me, I suffer from the dual Hope and Dread that I may never have to Sleep again – my ‘Ilness’ and the ‘delicious burden’ that Whitman takes Oh! so much care to remind me. Recounting personal revelations on the blog has had other problematic conclusions – folks either state that you are ‘cursing at the stars’ (something like that, but I think you understand where the Truth lies in this) or ignor the urgency (as you have stated in your True Poetry – self expression through an art-form).
I will only say that my heaven needs to find practical application – how do I let people experience Agape in their own lives – the true in people only needs the false having lesser and lesser hold – then there is the possibility of right and conscienable action – if you love them let them be.
I feel the need to remember the words from the ‘Hue and Cry’ album ‘Remote’ –
“I am an Ordinary Angel, winning tiny Victories”
And again, perhaps the greates rememberance this is Handover Time to a Feminine Age and only a Man who truly Loves Women – for their creative being as what was the Essential Material from what Acting Rightly was brought into being -see them be in the Nurturing of Children – will be bold and receptive to the requirements of the times…..Nigel.
Fire update
Contained 35 %
One structure lost
Probably contained by Tuesday
Everybody was able to return yesterday most areas.
Some people lost electricity.
Air quality not too bad, hazy.
FOF opened their gates for fire escape
Robert’s events continued and he was asking people to attend the event.
Cf. Nero, who is alleged to have fiddled while Rome burned.
Adding to More history needed?,
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/fire-85478-county-crews.html
http://www.yubanet.com/nevada/Yuba.php
are helpful.
The are I live seems still be MANDATORY EVACUATIONS but smokes are much smaller now.
Through this fire, I saw how current FOF students are behaving strangely and how cold to people are “out”, sadly (although I understand exactly how their minds are set since I were there before). I can not say all current students but I can see this phenomena as something due to “brainwashed mind”.
I don’t think it is possible to “Be Present” fully WITH such “brainwashed mind” but it seems current students still can not See it.
I can say now that I ‘verified’ (saw enough) that from FOF there will be NO “new civilizations” nor “awaken people” but only “self-serving” people striving for their “wishful thinking” (not “realty” nor “objective truth”!).
From the bottom of my heart, I wish current students would See it (just one significant ‘awakened’ moment is enough, to my experience) and “open up” to the “reality”.
Tsuyoshi
If this corner of the world ain´t enough for you
Allow me a bit of it and almost all
If it ain´t enough,
enough for those,
who’ve got too much.
If this wood is no good for you,
lend us the ax
That we may chop some more
And make our selves warm
If you are no match for a dialogue
Allow our selves to dialogue
And don’t get in their way!
*
Who could long to come home
When it knows you’re not there?
*
Alone and alone again
and again again,
once again
alone.
We’ve met
so many times before
what’s rare is when…
I’m not alone!
Alone and alone again
So is all,
on my own
again.
Alone again
Always alone
And on my very own!
*
It wasn’t with birth but with death
That I first came to meet you
Whispering the little things at me
One by one, day and night
Leaving me naked
*
You come like death
Only to tell us about life
*
You did rape me of course
But I was born already naked
You just reminded me
Not to be fooled by clothes
*
They think they can tame me with torture but I’d much rather die.
For those of us who do not belong here
It is no torture to be helped out!
*
Death,
Death
Oh death,
Don’t ever let me forget that you’re the source of life
And life,
the source of death.
That you and life
Are in a dance
So fine
In Us
*
Fly,
Fly ever so high
Because there’s nothing here worth holding on to.
Be,
ever so bright
Because there’s nothing here worth being dark for.
*
Write not to be heard
But to hear.
The world speaks from within each beings soul
Pay careful attention to the voice within your voice.
*
Thank you DXP for your valuable contributions.
Pity you partially hear but you’re not partially heard.
Thank you World View for being inspired. It rendered hope
even where there is none.
*
What can you do with so many seeds?
Keep them for later if you can’t plant them now
Don’t try to stop the tree from flowering:
It doubles the speed, deepens the roots
Rains seeds as it bleeds.
*
There must be a hidden virtue to irony
One that must be understood by those
Unwilling to understand.
There is only one seed
And if you need to crucify it to watch it flower
What are you waiting for?
Make a cross worth this flowering.
*
I do not come here looking for you
But find myself
In our way.
Don’t let it scare you away!
Welcome Jon B. Will catch up with you on GF soon.
“233. Renald – August 7, 2009
I just woke up from a dream or vision, not sure which as all seemed to have happened at once.
There was a procession of sorts of inners all trying to hide the fact that they were crying. I got a hint of what had happened when one of them said, “ I have been in for 35 years, and now nothing.“
After I awoke I had the thought that the FOF had shut down and could not resist checking the blog out. Is that creative imagination? or just premonition ?“
Okay, I`ll even settle for a coincidence tied up with wish fulfillment but two days later we get the thank you message from JonB hisself, straight from the fields of mars. Alright !
111 is new
To Elena
From ‘Braveheart’, which I am currently viewing…..
“Your heart is free – have the courage to follow it”
…..Nigel.
Elena, your words about seeds and crucifixion reminded me of a poem I wrote early one winter. The words came as I meditated on what it meant to plant so many thousands of seeds for my nursery:
Este poema se llama “Asistir a la creación”. Lo escribí todo en inglés, y después lo traducí al español.
Temprano, plantaba
Semillas cuales había juntado
Y me parecío que
Yo descubrío otra vez
El significado del infinito.
En este lapso
Entre la vida y la muerte
Y la muerte y la vida
A través del vacío de aeones
No es nada del tiempo.
En el espacio entre
Los dedos y el pulgar
Mientras tuve la semilla
Con intención máxima
Hubo sitio para la gracia.
Así, enterré la semilla
En su tumba pequeñita, y
El Sentido estaba pasado,
Una chispa diminuta de fe
Por otra resurrección.
”Present At The Creation”
Betimes, I was planting
Seed I had gathered up
And it seemed to me
That I rediscovered
The meaning of infinity.
In this space
Between life and death
And death and life
Across the gap of eons
There is no time at all.
In the distance between
My fingers and my thumb
As I held the seed
With full intention
There was room for grace.
So, I buried the seed
In its tiny grave, and
The Meaning was passed on,
A tiny spark of faith
For another resurrection.
Nice, Ames, thanks. Remember we weren’t allowed to say nice? It’s so good to be able to say it again in the full sense of the word, without any pettiness!
Thank you Tsuyoshi, you describe the phenomena of “not being able to see with a brainwashed mind”. Why do you think that happens?
One reason amongst many that I’m exploring is that we submitted voluntarily. Cults are sophisticated concentration camps but the fact that people submit to them willingly makes all the difference. If you offer escape to people in concentration camps it is likely that they will take your offer with less difficulty than people in cults. How long did it take you from that first view of reality to actually move out?
When I started reading the blog I had not seen the cult for what it was and left because Mr. Haven induced members not to read it, which was to me a blatant act of cohercion to member’s freedom but also, the permanent authoritarism of every event had gotten to me. I saw him then, the cult and the means by which he achieved his aim: member’s reliance on his judgement. He did not have to order them not to read it, he simply had to imply that he did not do it because it was a waste of his time. As a supposed man number five second to Robert, he was the model after which all members should behave.
Again we see here how cults are built on people’s trust in the leaders, hence on people’s good will, hence, on people’s naivete.
What didn’t you want to let go when you sometimes thought of leaving? I didn’t want to let go of what I’d invested: the effort, the trust, the money… I felt I had paid much for it to let go and was of course convinced of the verifications I had made. That was important. Not being willing to give up the verifications. (It was suggested here recently that people give them up but as Meher Baba said, even with a fake guru, a sincere adept moves in his or her evolution. I don’t agree with that point of view but feel it was well intended. Problem is the tendency to wash the baby out with the dirty water is so strong)
After leaving, the money and the trust have gone but not the effort or the verifications: They continue to belong to me. Looking back at the process of recovery it seems important for people to know that this is not lost. For a long time I tended to feel guilty, responsible, to blame myself for having been stupid but the beauty of having trusted should not get harmed by leaving. Aligning one’s priorities in a human context should keep one from falling in a similar trap without ever loosing confidence in man.
You say: “I don’t think it is possible to “Be Present” fully WITH such “brainwashed mind” but it seems current students still can not See it.”
What did you think inside? I kept trying to be present to the show for that was what was being pushed down our throats day and night and the show looked so well rehearsed from the beginning it wasn’t easy to take it for what it was because I wanted it to be true: the Ark for humanity, people working in a Conscious School helping each other evolve, a real conscious teacher! That wasn’t “disenabled” by the cult: the imagination that that is what one is striving for is the carrot holding the members while at the same time we are being muffled with the theory that we must not judge the show, express negative emotions about it, lie thinking one knows what one is seeing or who one is. The gradual de-structuring and annihilation of any sense of one’s self makes it impossible to be present to anything because the I has been submitted to absolute surrender. Then it is very easy to get people to blindly work for the guru and his inner circle.
Isn’t it wonderful though that after leaving we’ve come to understand somewhat that humanity is, in its chaos and freedom, much more conscious than any cult? That as it moves from one struggle to another, in between the lines, beautiful efforts are being made in every walk of life by warriors who stand up for what is worth it? The many wonderful videos that people have brought here in science and art, music and social life express that. And our no less powerful struggle to touch each other too. I continue to marvel at the experience of “reality”!
117 Ames Gilbert
It is in taking care with what we do, what has been given us to do, that we learn how ‘to be’ in our activities, to give being a chance. I call my path the ‘The Open Way’…..Nigel.
It’s strange that Robert forbids the use of the word “Nice” when that is all he offers our lives in exchange of allowing him to rape and exploit and we buy it! bought it. There is nothing more dangerous than the longing for an “easy” life. What’s so terrible about it is that it isn’t any easier than the other one we’d left. I did suffer every day in Renaissance but thought at the time that “transforming” that suffering was necessary without realizing that THAT was precisely what was allowing all the brainwashing to take place.
Ames, allow me to offer you this version of your poem in Spanish.
Este poema se llama “Asistir a la creación”. Lo escribí todo en inglés, y después lo traduje al español.
Temprano, plantaba semillas que había juntado
Y me parecío descubrír una vez más
el significado del infinito.
En este lapso
Entre la vida y la muerte
Y la muerte y la vida
A través del vacío de eones
el tiempo no es nada.
En este espacio entre
los dedos y el pulgar
mientras tuve la semilla
Con profunda intención
Hubo lugar para la gracia.
Así, enterré la semilla
en su tumba pequeñita,
y el sentido fue legado,
Una chispa diminuta de fe
para otra resurrección.
Ah and Ames, it’s beautiful to know that you have tasted grace, everything can be rebuilt from there.
120. elena – August 16, 2009
Burton defrauded us all.
He must pay for his crimes.
X-Ray
“Burton defrauded us all.
He must pay for his crimes.”
I couldn’t agree more but why don’t we try to take a look at reality to see where we stand and for how long are we willing to stand in the same spot?
As you can see I’m rather efficient at some things and rather inefficient with others and pretty disorganized at many. DXP has done an amazing good job at telling us where we’re at and how inefficient the steps we’ve taken are, I am much indebted to her. You have also done an amazing job at reminding us often enough without killing us that we must send the petition to the government agencies. Jack put the petition together and seems to have disappeared in the frustration of the effort but for him and those who helped, the gratitude is endless. I have ranted almost to kill us but the blog seems to be strong enough to at least get the sickos to come once in a while and try to reason arguments that cannot be reasoned and the Fellowship seems to continue to bleed out members one by one from its influence and the many that are contacting members in their own way. But the sad truth seems to be that we are far from achieving the goal of having the Fellowship close down which is the only real answer to its multiple crimes.
One of the problems I see is that most people, even here, have not acknowledged that the Fellowship of Friends Cult now Pathway to Presence Cult is a criminal institution and that their own participation in it was criminal no matter how much naivete we can all argue. Most ex-members have washed it off as another necessary stupidity in their lives and do not care about the many that continue to be victims of its influence. Their consciousness continues to be tied up to their personal comfort and extending out to the dangers that the Fellowship represents to others is not their concern. They are happy to wash their hands. These are about 95% of ex-members or perhaps 98. Amongst the two percent that understand that there is no real rest until it is closed because crime will continue to proliferate in it for as long as it’s open, there are those who left over ten years ago and have not been able to amass enough understanding to even stand up in front of those gates and tell the rest of us that we better take a good look at it and those who’ve been working consistently taking very valuable steps gathering information, supporting and informing people where they can and those of us who’ve left recently of which 99.9% are also unwilling to take any decisive action against the Fellowship and its members. At the same time, no matter what people do, everything is helping. Everything is pressure to the Fellowship and we’ve only been pressuring it for three years. If the pressure can be held for a few more, things will inevitably continue to move.
For how long?
If we realize that even the best amongst the ones who left recently have taken two years to even come to sign the petition how long can we expect those inside who could, even consider to leave? I think we need to be realistic about those inside who can and cannot leave even if they ever entertained the idea. Too many are too invested to ever leave out of their own free will because it’s been a long time since they lost it. It would imply a change of both consciousness and being and their formatory apparatus has crystallized to tightly in the cult frame to be able to exercise such free will that would expose them to such change. Don’t you remember how difficult it became to even go for an ice cream or anything else that could have given one joy or a breath of fresh air?
Perhaps the main problem I see today is that most people on this blog continue to treat the problem as if it were “cake”! (talking about Cake, where are you wonderful being? We miss you!) People continue to look at cults as other people’s problem and if whole nations have done that after Jonestown and those other Tate killers whose name I forget, we have a serious problem just getting to convey to the public the degree to which Cults are in fact sophisticated concentration camps not interested in killing its members but disenabling their will enough to make them work against themselves, for the cult.
Even we on this blog are just beginning to understand the magnitude of the problem. On the one hand we each have our personal story and on the other we all have in our hands a social story: a crucial human conflict. Understanding the importance of containing the spread of cults for future generations is what really matters here, the Fellowship itself was just our personal way of coming to that understanding but many other people in other cults have come to it too.
Another aspect is being able to consciously incorporate the public space into the social drama that we are invested in. Blogging is one way of picketing but the fact that most people have to disguise to blog is ever so telling about the degree of confidence that they have on their self and actions and their world and possibilities. The obscurity of the world we live in and support shows the degree of vulnerability that the average person feels towards it. The majority of us are disempowered to take any action that we think could have any effect. Jomo Piñata has done a wonderful job bringing us to terms with that reality. I have yet to meet a more hopeless reality. Fortunately it is not the one I am willing to adhere to and with all due respect and gratitude for Jomo, “man can do” and we can and must change the power of cults in our societies.
I wonder how many people have actually sent the petition to the multiple agencies that you have offered x-ray? I know that after a few years of hearing many of us remind them that we’ve been hurt by the Fellowship, enough force will amass in the atmosphere of the worlds being to take a step towards balancing out the injustice into an action and yet even I haven’t done what you’ve asked us to do and I say so filled with shame. It’s easier to sing than to ask an audience to hear. I need you to tell me again how and why and where as if I were a little girl writing a letter for the first time. If I open the addresses you have given us do I just fill them up and send the petition? Are there any personal consequences for doing that? Will they write to me and ask me to appear anywhere? Will I be checked by government agencies for other things? Will my person be subject to consequences for standing up against what I believe? Yes, I wish to go ahead and send that petition to all those places that you mention, would you just expand a little more on it because I need every repetition you’ve needed and need to express?
It is not that I am not already very tired of this and the temptation to quit is ever so seductive but we haven’t come this far for me to quit now. Hopefully I will continue to be at the service of this cause long after I’m dead and if I give up tomorrow because it’s too many friends to fight with, I’ll forgive myself too. Nevertheless, it’ll be good to know that we didn’t pass by our time with indifference.
Thank you X-Ray for being clear about Burton’s crimes and their consequences.
Please clarify who you are speaking for when you use the word “we”, Elena.
(I thought we had gone over this point).
120. “It’s strange that Robert forbids the use of the word “Nice” …”
Although he may never come out and say it directly, there are two other words that Burton REALLY doesn’t want anyone to use:
kindness or kind
He loves to use the straw man of the word “nice” because (although I personally like the word), the word “nice” is easier to criticize as being weak or cute, or coming from that “feminine dominance” thing. However, the words “kind” and “kindness” are harder to object to from those standpoints. Acts of kindness often show strength, inner balance, inspiration, courage, and love.
If FOF followers start using those words — and following them –everything would come tumbling down. All sorts of uncomfortable discussions would occur. People would start helping each other sort through all of the cognitive dissonance. The Burton Buffers would crumble.
Mikey,
I think we are all old enough to include ourselves or leave our selves out as we wish. We are all in the 98 or the 99.9 or the .1 percent. You are welcome to figure yourself out and ever so free to choose!
maybe, I feel, could it be possible? could you?
for me, anyway… if… I would like…in my own experience, from my point of view, the way I understand this… etc.,
Elena, if you could use these words a bit more often.. but you seem to talk like you know everything including why other people are or think in the ways you do not approve of.There is a vein of accusation in your words and it’s possible that it is unintended, but that is how it comes out for me when you talk in general terms.
124. elena – August 17, 2009
My answer is to send Petition out every day.
Also, to contact the reporter Ryan McCarthy and ask him to write an article about a numerous attempts of ex-students to attract the government attention and investigate the cult. The article has to state clearly that a governmental agencies have not responded to a documented crimes of Robert Burton and Fellowship of Friends. . This article has to be mailed to all those places we have sent Petition earlier, especially mass media, their involvement is the key.
If we want to make a noise, lets keep it loud.
Veramente,
I appreciate your observation and yes I do try to be definite. The wishy washy I don’t know attitude that was expected from us in the Fellowship is not something I wish to continue to practice but If I make a lot of mistakes for it, I try not to hide. A long time ago I use to say I think or it seems to me and someone observed that these things were obvious, that the person writing is the one thinking and observing so I’ve stopped using them.
Perhaps you could give me a taste of your own medicine and be specific about the sentences in which you feel that and not just generalize?
Also, I have written a great many things and so very many people have attacked me for who I am without addressing those things that I am very happy to accept that you and they simply can’t swallow me. Can we be happy with that conclusion? From there to declaring that I am simply crazy as many do and therefore nothing of what I say is of any value is a long stretch. Have you noticed how many people are labeled for madness by those who are deeply questioned?
But I haven’t answered your question either have I? I mean with sympathy, just really trying to understand what you are saying. Do you think you made that effort? Do you think you listened to what I said and tried to dialogue about it or did you just stop because you were unwilling to hear?
There’s a tension Vera, but there’s also an intention. Can you try to hear the intention beyond the tension? What do you think the intention is?
You’re right, there are innumerable accusations in my writings. Not of people as much as of behaviors. I might have a lot of enemies but no one is my enemy so far. You hear those accusations to behaviors and maybe you realize it relates to you and think I am attacking you personally so you defend yourself by attacking not the subject in question but me personally. The history of this blog is about such misinterpretation.
Do you think that after spending the time we spent in the Fellowship we should not question our selves deeply? Our selves as much as each other? Do you wish to continue in the “everything is O.K. mode that Robert imposed? Remember? He can tell lies but as long as nobody questions him and spoils the GOLD ALCHEMY environment, everything is just divine!
For many these are not the issues that we should talk about here but I appreciate your questioning, hopefully you too can answer mine. Here are a few more:
What do you think about sending the petition to the many agencies that X-Ray offered?
Does picketing horrify you?
Could you share why?
Would you have appreciated if anyone had stood outside the gates with a sign saying: this is a cult, beware of what is happening here? Do you think it would have helped you leave earlier?
What do you think about being so disempowered that we cannot stop a man that we know is a criminal?
Do you actually think the Fellowship is criminal?
How do you come to terms with the fact that it is so criminal and at the same time so apparently comfortable?
Do you think in our times we have been educated to not question anything? That we’ve been taught “authority” is always right?
Of course, you don’t need to answer one by one, they are issues that we could talk about however your sympathy allows. Sympathy does not take away objectivity but the lack of it does. It makes one deaf to what is really being said.
X-Ray
Do you mean send the petition out every day to all the agencies you’ve listed? You actually do that? I’ll try to get on with it.
Write to Mr. McCarthy, all of us or just you?
Has anyone else here sent the petition out to agencies or are we in as strong a shortage as with just signing it?
Just to be a little more clear, did I understand you Jomo that the petition is practically useless? That it won’t have any effect, that the authorities receiving it don’t pay attention to it because they only go after actual crimes?
Thank you both, again.
Veramente,
While my previous post still stands and I would appreciate your answer, I’m wondering if what you’re trying to have me look at is a self-sufficient act that my sister use to tell me about when we were young. I don’t know why I do it but I suppose it’s the act I’ve used to defend myself from what seems a hostile world. I much appreciate your having me look at it. If you keep pointing it out I might actually see it one day and it would help me enormously. Thank you.
131 Elena
Elena,
thank you for your openness to my feedback/reaction to reading your post.
I must say that it is a lot more about me and how I respond to you, because it is not so much about the content of what you say but more of the tone in which you seem to express yourself. In post 124 there was nothing new or more extreme in a sense of the manner in which you wrote; but it was like this time I could not take it and had to rebel to what I perceived yours to be an authoritarian way where I felt a vein of accusation even though your words were not directed at ME.
It’s possible that, as you say, you had to be self-sufficient very early on in your life and had to be strong no matter what and even to an extreme, because the world felt hostile to you.
I too feel a bit trapped by my early conditionings; they do not just disappear like that. But returning to your perception of the world being hostile, when I think of that I see it as an overwhelming feeling that would make one gather extra energy to protect one self.
If this perception continues, maybe 2 things can happen: succumb, or do everything possible to overcome that feeling.
In this I feel quite similar to you and probably to the rest of the world in adopting ways to survive.
In one sense what does not kill you makes you strong, but sometimes much armored as well. I know this for myself, so armored that I sometimes cannot even receive love and become really confused.
But when I step back from my anxiety, I can almost feel that I do not need that protection 24/7, and can let go because right now the world is not falling upon me, and I am enough of an adult to defend myself, and I can.
Totally digressing now, is it possible that we both embraced the FOF as a fundamentalist/absolute solution to our anxiety? Years ago the world and social structure seemed too mad for me and the earth was just crumbling down under my feet I had to hold on to some kind of salvation.
Today it is not so much about Gurus (thank god I learned the lesson!) that I am attracted to, but even ideas are more than enough at times to make me feel good in my skin.
I always need to watch out as it seems that as a human I am not comfortable with not knowing, and that I need fresh ideas to make sense of my life.
It is also so easy to get lost with the bad news worldwide and forget I have a world within, a world of peace I believe I can recover even beyond ideas. This is my hope.
I think you and I have this possibility, that going in is the first step to do something not violent or self destructive on the outside; to be free from my very own mind and enjoy some stillness through some very simple meditation. Going in, the world changes outside.
Thank you for listening Elena.
one of my favorite movies after watching it 3 times (first 2, slightly annoyed).
BTW Bill is not Bob,
131. elena – August 18, 2009
No, I’ve sent it only once, but I would send it once again, and more, as much as needed. But if it comes from one person, it wouldn’t have as much credential as it would come from many people.
There is no need to bomb Mr. McCarthy. It’s enough to have one person to contact him, who has a good connection with him.
We can put Burton in prison and we can shut down Fellowship of Friends.
134/X-ray
We can put Burton in prison
Unless you can prove he committed a violation of a particular criminal law, what you say above is pure fantasy. Generally reprehensible behavior is not the same thing as an imprisonable offense.
I don’t think it makes any significant difference to anyone (except maybe themselves) if Bobby/FoF lives or dies, suffers or is happy.
“The price must be paid in full, to every last drop of blood.”
– A. Lincoln
131 elena
“I love you for your courage in this frightened atmosphere”
(‘You have Lived’, by Don Mclean)
“How you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free”
(‘Vincent’, by Don Mclean)
Veramente,
It’s good that you mention the armour because that is what I think we need to recover! As I see it, people seem to go around with a great big armour pretending it doesn’t exist, pretending that we are in a one piece suit! Nice, pretty intelligent people who’ve never had a fault and if we do have any faults then “off with your head!” That is very much the status quo in the Fellowship and close to it outside of the fellowship too. So I think it would be a great thing to take off the armour and put it on the table and continue to talk while we look at it. We’ve all got one, some are even pretty, others are tough and ugly but they are all just armours to protect our selves. Behind them are people, human beings, loving, tender and often silly and innocent people. Often the most innocent and silly have the thickest armours. The lack of kindness in the Fellowship that the Agent 007 mentions is precisely because of the thick armours everyone has to carry around. They, we, looked even pretty disguised in those silk clothes but over the years people couldn’t hide the bitterness in our tight mouths. What a place! At least we’ve already been in hell! Count that one out for a few lifetimes!!
Ah Vera, I find it wonderful that we can talk. It’s taken two years for me to have a simple conversation with someone like you!
Great points Mikey and Jomo, thank you. Particularly the one that Mikey says that no one is interested in Robert’s suffering. That certainly isn’t the aim for me. What matters is that the Fellowship is stopped so that new members don’t fall into the same traps and old members walk out of them… into another cult if they wish but at least have a time to breath this one out.
Even being clear about both points I’m with you X-Ray that the least we can do is go out and say it where it needs to be said. Mr. McCarthy was extremely considerate but I would not approach him until after we’ve done serious homework! Could you tell me a little about the agencies you’ve chosen? Post the addresses again? Really expand on what we could expect them to do if they could actually do anything?
One understanding of the situation today is that there’s no hurry! Time is too short to hurry! Did I hear that somewhere?
Nigel,
Thank you for the flowers, thank you very much. The wonderful thing is that the more time we spend together the less heroism or any ism is the issue here and it would help if you realize that I am not nearly as heroic as we’d like me to be and everyone else here has much helped us both to become simply human! Not one of us is worth more, not a drop of water more than any other. We’re just falling back to reality and it is much more settled than our imaginations! You seem to need to flatter people to give your self a sense of idealism, platoniscism! but I still love you without any flattery and am very happy in your and other’s company. Stay well!
139 elena
I suppose when I see people exhibit different ‘flavours’ of themselves, I need to comment, because that ‘changiness’ is true evolution…..Nigel.
135. Jomo Piñata – August 18, 2009
“Unless you can prove he committed a violation of a particular criminal law, what you say above is pure fantasy. Generally reprehensible behavior is not the same thing as an imprisonable offense.”
That’s why we ask for investigation.
Let the judge be the judge. Do your part, if you interested.
134. X-ray
is there any material to convict Bob B., the teacher, of an offence (minor or serious)?
If yes, which of the Blog-people is willing to support that course of action?
The story of Adam and Eve from the bible seems to be the story of most people’s lives. All of youth is analogous to the period before biting the apple in which innocence prevails and maturity comes after we’ve bitten the apple. “Biting the apple” corresponds to “meeting evil” and walking out of paradise, finally landing on Earth to take responsibility for one’s actions.
Our situation with the Fellowship is very similar. Not one of us can argue lack of innocence when we walked in. We walked in, like most people in society, in innocent “essence” and walked out after meeting evil, raped, exploited and abused in every aspect of our being.
The pattern that most people seem to hold on to is that they do not wish to acknowledge having met evil or having tasted the apple. If evil comes close to people in essence, they naturally tend to turn away from it with fear. After having met evil, people pretend it wasn’t evil what they met, they are too afraid to acknowledge it, like Adam and Eve hiding behind the leaves knowing they are naked. This leaves most people at the premature stage of evolution in which they simply avoid growing up, too weak to confront the weakness within themselves and what is evil in society. The possibility of dealing with the problem vanishes in thin air. Maturity comes when people are able to acknowledge the problem and deal with it. When we allow our selves to fall and stand up. When we learn to walk and avoid the traps and when we take care of the traps that our time offered so that new generations can move beyond.
Dragon,
Even though you were not in the Fellowship, as a human being concerned for other human being’s well being, you could surely participate in what ever action is necessary.
Dragon,
As a german national you would represent a portion of humanity that has learnt a lesson that must never be forgotten.
German. Forgive me the misspelling.
X-ray
When we find the courage to stand up for those who have been raped recently, they will find the courage to come forward and face it.
141/X-ray
That’s why we ask for investigation.
Let the judge be the judge. Do your part, if you interested.
You don’t get how the process works.
The investigation doesn’t start until someone comes forward who has evidence of a violation of the criminal law. If you go to the police with evidence a guy put a gun to your head this morning and took your money, they investigate and arrest.
If you go to the police with evidence that some guy is a schmuck, a cad, a scoundrel, a fraud, and a malignant narcissist, or that he put a gun to your head and took your money in 1998, they send you home.
I really liked this from the Taoist B.K. Frantzis
“Recognizing the Problems of Cults for Both Teachers and Students,” in Relaxing Into Your Being, pp. 87-90.
At their roots, regardless of philosophical doctrine, all spiritual groups, both East and West, operate somewhere between integrity and manipulation, honesty and sham. Christianity, currently the world’s largest spiritual practice, began as a specific “sect” or “cult” within Judaism two thousand years ago.
Although Jesus himself was an honest spiritual teacher of integrity, across the centuries other Christian leaders and sects have not always maintained those standards, from the Crusaders who “killed for Christ” to today’s charismatic figures who get their followers to commit mass suicide. These conditions hold equally true for meditation and prayer groups, both esoteric and orthodox, whether they believe in God, Christ, Buddha, or the Tao. Fortunately for humanity, spiritual groups lean more toward honesty and integrity as a general rule.
In this book those groups that operate from manipulation, dishonesty, and sham will be called cults, rather than spiritual groups. There will always be a small minority of individuals who become cult leaders to deliberately manipulate and exploit people for their own benefit, just as there will always be the dishonest and corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and business leaders at every level.
Sincere students and teachers of the Tao who have a strong desire for spiritual clarity need to differentiate between honest spiritual groups with integrity and manipulative cults. For thousands of years Taoists have observed that cults do not spiritually serve either their leaders or followers. Both cult leaders and students can be blithely unaware of the future repercussions of their obvious and hidden motivations and self-delusions.
Many corrupt spiritual leaders, especially those with smaller cults, begin with surface integrity and pure motivations, but over time turn to the dark side for a multitude of reasons. Some never truly learned the genuine inner humility or hard work of being a student. Some became teachers before completing their studies. Now, as their flock’s adulation increases, they begin to be influenced by, believe in, and succumb to their students’ overt or subtle demands to be manipulated. Sooner or later they run out of genuine teaching material but find they have become attached to and crave the perks of being an adored leader. Rather than humbly admitting that they have no more to teach and saying, “It’s time to learn from someone more accomplished,” they begin to manipulate their students psychologically in order to maintain their status. Some find that the volume of psychic energy they absorb from their students destabilizes their
inner being, causing them to sink into the deeper and darker sides of their nature faster than they can handle or transmute. Some simply slide down the slippery slopes of self-delusion or choose expediency and the path of least resistance over honesty and integrity.
How do people set themselves up for being exploited by a cult? Students need to ask this question while looking honestly and deeply at their own motivations, in order not to become subject to a cult leader’s manipulation. Because the human desire to belong to a group is both powerful and natural, the true motivation of many aspiring spiritual students is to find a social group to belong to, rather than to find a teacher who can genuinely help them to belong to themselves.
Are secular and spiritual goals and needs different? In normal secular society, with its strong social, economic, and political agendas, people often allow external images—physical beauty, clothes, education, way of speaking, class, economic status, and so on—to become powerful motivating forces. For many the primary focus is on style over substance; the cover is more important than the book’s contents. Conversely, true students of the Tao should not take any spiritual teacher’s externals all that seriously. Rather, a teacher’s inner essence, knowledge, and integrity should be the prime concern. A genuine spiritual seeker’s focus should be on substance over style.
When students become trapped by externals, the danger exists that they will sooner or later divert their internal efforts away from meditation and into mimicking the teacher’s image—possessions, clothes, hairstyle, language, gestures, and so on—becoming “act as if” clones. A good cult leader can manipulate mental or emotional images much more easily than true spiritual substance. If a student’s motivations are image oriented, it becomes possible for the cult leader, often using subliminal hypnotic methods, to gradually shift and mold the student’s images into extremely convoluted beliefs, which can have dangerous consequences. At the extremes, an image-desiring student is set up to be exploited by unscrupulous gurus or self-deluded crazies.
These cult leaders use and project a multitude of external images to attract different crowds. They are equally likely to wear conventional suits and dresses, embroidered silks, ethnic costumes, or robes. They may look, speak, and act like well-groomed salesmen or professors, street hustlers, humble clerics, cryptic kung fu television characters, or Jesus Christ “wannabes” with long hair, beard, and robe, quoting biblical passages most convincingly.
To quote a common saying, misery loves company. The needs of students with psychological weak spots or damaged emotional lives to act out dysfunctionally, be conflicted and indecisive, or have endlessly convoluted relationships with parents and family are often transferred to the teacher and the cult community.
Students should note whether they personally, or the members of the spiritual group or cult they are investigating, allow, encourage, and play these neurotic games. Some individuals misinterpret the idea of a spiritual friend to mean, “Oh boy, now I can mistreat my new spiritual buddies like all my other friends, who mostly tell me to get lost because I act so horribly.” This attitude easily opens the door for some enterprising cult leader to brainwash, manipulate, and abuse them in sadly absurd ways. Responsible spiritual teachers will not encourage these mentally unhealthy relationship games and will maintain distance from those that do, as these spiritually corrosive games breed neurosis and easily escalate into the danger zone.
Good teachers encourage relaxed relationships and cooperation between spiritually inclined individuals, not conflict. Students of the Tao endeavor to treat spiritual friends well, with respect, and with honest, open agendas. Taoists consider these hallmarks of spiritually productive teacher-student relationships. Taoists believe it is good not to confuse human relationships predicated upon compassion, balance, and integrity with those based on the need to defend self-aggrandizing ego tendencies and hidden agendas about power and control that imprison the spirit. Chains, whether made of steel or gold, still bind.
Just read some postings on GF discussion about what good things in FOF…
Thinking of forgiving, gratitude, love etc. I don’t have those on a daily basis anymore and therefore I consider words and invitations “to be thankful to your abusers” are somewhat weird.
Suffering and wounds definitely teach a new understanding, less naive, more real. Reality check. Shit happens. Friends betray. Advertisements lie. Teachers lie. Employers under pay. Kittens and kids grow up. Cars brake, body ages. There are viruses, thieves, drunk drivers, idiots, homeless, bad economy, fires, hurricanes etc. etc.
Before I was able to see this I was living in a pretty room with the pretty landscapes painted on my windows. It is a lullaby I wanted to hear so life won’t be too scary. “Separate. Don’t listen to your I’s. It’s a Play. C influence will not let it happen. Don’t go there – it is not a King of Hearts”
When my husband sexually abused my daughter my understanding was stretched a lot. I could not put together “forgiving a friend for a mistake” and standing up for my daughter’s dignity. I did not allow myself to experience anger or express negative I’s. And almost everyone was so forgiving! Except my daughter. She still feels that I betrayed her because I was not showing my anger and I was not helping her to heal.
Maybe at this point my level of being is such that I attract creepy things, but the way it looks to me is that I refuse to paint my windows pretty and ready to look at the reality as it is.
Tatyana – Sexual molestation of a minor is a major crime and should not be forgiven. I don’t blame your daughter at all for not understanding your actions. Why didn’t you report this and prosecute the cock-sucking-mother-fucker of a (hopefully ex-) husband?
He should be in jail where the other prison inmates have a special way of treating his kind.
…When my husband sexually abused my daughter my understanding was stretched a lot. I could not put together “forgiving a friend for a mistake” and standing up for my daughter’s dignity. I did not allow myself to experience anger or express negative I’s. And almost everyone was so forgiving! Except my daughter. She still feels that I betrayed her because I was not showing my anger and I was not helping her to heal…
Tatyana.
This is not forgiveness. The guy needed to be reported and the least you can do is to try to be in contact with your daughter and see how you can be on her corner. But, she has suffered a very serious trauma. And you witnessed it. She is not supposed to be forgiving. All this was supported by the cult mentality and brainwashing about “accepting”, “the play”, “a man cannot do” and all the crap Burton kept on throwing to us beggars so we would not open our eyes and look at the shit he was selling us.
I hope you are taking some steps in order to help her find help. A stepfather (I assume he is not her biological father) abusing a young stepdaughter is so damaging. I wish you strength.
Take care
Thank you Panorista and Mikey.
It was 6 years ago, by now many things have healed.
Now I am trying to understand this forgiving vs revenge thing. I have to admit that I am still not sure what is right and how one can forgive one’s enemies – the very favorite theme of spiritual seekers.
But the fact that I helped him to get out of jail under the pressure of FOFers (he will be killed! 8 years! never call police! he just made one mistake, he is italian, he was drunk etc) was taken by my daughter as supporting him INSTEAD of her. She wanted him (and still does) to be in jail. I was not suppose to visit him in jail (district attorney also watched me closely) but I did. And the strange thing was that there were lines of FOFers to his window – I could not imagine that so many people wanted to offer their support to “poor” student. But not one of them was offering any support or help to me or my daughter. Psychologists cost $100 an hour – who can afford them?
RB was interested as long as I was providing a Green Card to his boy, he even gave me one hug :). He did not want me to divorce the guy after all that even when he started an affair with someone else. Linda T called me at work and said “this is a Will of a Teacher. You are NOT going to divorce him”. And after he passed me a message with E…th B…e that he does not wish to hear from me or him anything on this subject. (Now how degrading it is to put us on the same level as ‘fighting kids’)
I bet I still can put him in jail to make my daughter feel better. But the question is – is it right? See, I am confused.
“Maybe at this point my level of being is such that I attract creepy things, but the way it looks to me is that I refuse to paint my windows pretty and ready to look at the reality as it is.”
I don’t think people “attract” creepy, negative, destructive things. They are freely out there. What people do lack are boundaries. Parents are supposed to provide boundaries for their children which the children will internalize as they grow up. IMO, if that is somehow disrupted or simply not there, then the child will have real difficulty providing them for themselves.
Question: is narcissistic disorder progressive like schizophrenia?
I’m sure it would be a hassel to pursue any action at this point, but you should ask your daughter what she wants. And it would be right to support her decision. The judge/district attorney might be interested in the FoF involvement and their continued support of perversion.
“I bet I still can put him in jail to make my daughter feel better. But the question is – is it right? See, I am confused.”
My opinion: do right by your daughter. That is the greatest spiritual calling. It is also your responsibility. When the weirdo fofers call you with their greedy agendas, do not think, for a minute, that they are in any way “higher” “spiritual” or any other such BS. They are being abusive and blind. That’s their choice, you don’t have to make that choice also.
Tatyana: There is nothing more devastating to a child. I would seek continued therapy for your daughter. There are plenty of free services available that are worth checking out. You would be surprised how much is available for people who seek.
The rest of your story is why people in FOF should really look deep into their souls and ask themselves why they are still supporting a psychologically and emotionally damaged group of people. Sad but true.
Tatyana:
I feel, we trained ourselves to take such distance from our emotions that we don’t know anymore what we feel exactly…
But this story being so intense:
What was the “gut “feeling” when you first discovered the fact?
No double cheecking!
Any thing should start (only start but start) from there.
No comments…
http://www.ndvh.org/
Tatyana, try this website.
153. Tatyana
You’re Goddamn right it’s right to put that fucker in jail. You may have gotten past it (although it’s pretty egocentric of you to even think of it that way) but your daughter hasn’t and won’t. If I were her I couldn’t help but see your wishy washiness as anything but enabling this prick and reinforcing the bull shit FOF dogma. You’re still living with the FOF’s idea of relativity and forgiveness.
158. You-me-us-they
I couldn’t watch that utter bull shit. He has his own “teaching acts’…the smile, the nodding, the pregnant pauses. This guys as much a moron and a charlatan as the rest of the assholes. His face just says “slap me, please, make me shut the fuck up”.
from guruphiliac:
Louie the Avatar reminds us of an acquaintance from some years ago. We remember David Spero as a very sweet man, albeit one who was convinced that he could transmit enlightenment by enveloping his devotees’ prana with his “shakti,” as he termed it. After doing so, he would query the devotees about their experiences, and then he would explain their experiences in the context of his “spiritual power” and what it was doing for them.
And he would talk shit about people who left his group. It seemed to fly in the face of his reason. After all, he was a divine being, and anyone who met him was blessed by his presence. Just like Roi Louie. They even kind of look alike.
We truly wish David well and pray he not fall into the pit of “divine” self-regard to the depth that Louie has. While it’s one thing to see yourself as a unique transmitter of “divine power,” it’s quite another to see yourself as “the One,” the only one, true, authentic and showing each and every other avatar to be false. That’s just plain, “I’m Jesus Christ”-style crazy.
“David Spero is an unorthodox, unconventional, spiritual master/avatar who resides in Palm Springs, Calfornia, USA. David offers a powerful spiritual transmission of Divine Light (non-dual awareness or the ground of Being), Divine Love (devotional intoxication) and Kundalini-shakti (spiritual currents or vibrations that arise out of the Absolute). In his presence you can taste the fruition of all spiritual paths and practices, as he radiates the natural state of “amrita sahaja samadhi,” the nectar-like, natural state. Please visit http://www.davidspero.org for more information.”
“nectar-like, natural state”…uh ohh
Tatyana,
it seems to be impossible:
To stand by your daughter (that’s really your task) and to forgive the perpetrator.
Just an exchange of ideas:
I imagine to be your daughter. I would ask you: Please hold me, please give me shelter, please don’t forget I am your child. Don’t let me stand alone against this man.
I can’t forgive him, never…
And you:
My respect for your honesty.
There may be a way of trying to comprehend what was his motive for acting like this but first of all try to forgive yourself.
And please try to act, stand by your daughter.
Elena,
my dreams will go out to you!
Gute Nacht!
157 & 160 are new
On David Spero: This is such crap. Sorry!
Tatyana,
I am so sorry you had to go through this hellish experience and especially for your daughter.
May I ask how old was she when this happened?
There are not excuses for the guy, being drunk , or italian, or that it was just a mistake…how come then after the fact and having saved his ass the FOF did not offer proper support with financial help, counselling for your daughter etc.?
That ‘s stripping dignity to the very core of you, being the child’s mother as well! you too have been intellectually and emotionally abused to satisfy Robert Burton self-serving motives and the FOF authorities. Can you imagine if the word came out of another sexual abuse of a minor on the FOF-Pathway to Presence image?
Do let your daughter know that you are angry, be angry with her! seek counselling, she needs to know fully you are standing at her side now!
Tatyana:
If you helped in getting your ex out of jail, I do not see how you could go back on that decision (and put him back in jail), unless something new and criminal in his behaviour happened in the interim.
You are better off deepening the relationship with your daughter, acknowledging to her the confusion you were in (cognitive dissonance if there ever was one) and the mistakes you made. I would not downgrade the role FOF and REB played in this episode of your life; in other words the protective reaction that “they” had towards your husband (he was one of REB favorites if I am not mistaken) and your husband only, only added to the confusion you experienced. But you probably already know all this.
#159
That guy is creepy. In fact, give him a suit and a bow tie and he could do some locum tenens at the Galleria.
Thank you Tatyana for sharing your experience.
There are hundreds if not thousands of stories of women and men who abused their children lightly or violently, influenced by the biological families theory and practice of the Fellowship Cult. 99% of them haven’t been told but those who practiced such acts will tell them sooner or later because being able to speak about it brings light to the darkness.
A lot of the silent violence that was institutionalized in the Fellowship cult came from the women that gave their children to adoption in the early days, those who didn’t have any because they were not wanted by Robert and Robert’s exercises that banned children from the property most of the time but allowed them for a visit in Christmas and other particular days in which they were disguised in the gold alchemy outfit and made to behave like wound up dolls who could not raise their voice and express their joy or anger because they were quickly “taken care of”.
For those men and women who gave up parenting, not having children around eased their dissonance and when the children did finally come in bigger numbers with the Lewis Carroll School, they continued to keep the attitude that those “loud and misbehaved monsters in essence” were not welcome.
For those of us who at the time had young children, it was clear that we were not welcome and I personally left Renaissance and came to live in Colombia where the children could be close to their fathers who I had separated from. Still, the subtle influence of theory and practice certainly helped me to justify every time I wanted to leave them somewhere because I had something else I wanted to do. Many parents everywhere make such allowances to their personal interests against their children’s well being but that tendency was superlative under the influence of the Fellowship dogma and practice.
Hopefully if you can come to understand that yes, you were responsible for a great many allowances but you were also under a mind control environment in which THAT was not only what was “normal” but what was “good”, what was being asked from you to be a respected member who had “organically incorporated the work into her life and not her life into the work” you and your daughter, when she one day studies what happens to people in such environments, might more easily forgive your selves.
You, like all the women of Robert’s boys were expected to do everything to cuddle and protect every abuse from the “cute princes”. How many of them did not tell their wives that “nothing will happen to me because I am with Robert”?
THESE phenomena are exactly what each and all those ex-members pretending that it is O.K. to allow the Fellowship to continue are ignoring. These members who were not as subject to Robert’s manipulation because they had secure jobs and nationality, because they were and are not in such a susceptible situation to be abused because of the tight economic and therefore psychological dependency on the cult are the same ones who are ignoring these FACTS.
To hear ex-members still say that their friends inside are there because they enjoy the social club and have little to do with Robert and therefore they are unwilling to act against the Fellowship because they are not harming anybody, simply shows the degree to which the dogma is still working inside of them, the dogma, the behaviour, the attitudes, the brainwashing. They’ve left physically but are psychologically still strongly bound to the cult.
Stories like Tatyana’s are the bread and butter of the Fellowship of Friends. They happen all day and all night without rest while those who spend their lives buying clothes, model in and out of the Gallería after paying three hundred and fifty dollars for the show.
You might call this ranting, but to me this is reality. This is a faithful picture of what each and every one of us did in the Fellowship cult. And you’re still unwilling to do anything about it?
Elena – (172)
Just an observation. I thought that your post was well written and quite powerful in what you described. Then……you added that last paragraph, and while it did not cancel out what you had written up to that point, it did, at least for me, diminish it in some way. It just felt like you could not quite resist being first defensive, then including everyone else in your point of view, and then alluding to the idea that others (not sure who) may be cowardly or weak-willed or some such thing.
Your post felt like you drew your weapon cleanly, took dead aim, fired, hit your target, and then instead of putting the gun back in its holster, you shot yourself in the foot.
Tatyana –
Wish I had more to offer you than my best wishes.
The most important thing I would think is to unconditionally support your daughter, and then try to forgive yourself if that is an issue.
Yes, the real “forgiveness” issue is to forgive yourself (not the deadbeat stepfather or the deadbeat fofers). Not let yourself off the hook and thereby not supporting your daughter. But real forgiveness that will open up your love to your daughter and to yourself.
Trying to “forgive” abusers is fine but not when it diminishes boundaries. “Revenge” is NOT the same as “justice”. Boundaries are a way of loving the Self. Whatever you choose to do or feel, or whatever, if you can forgive yourself enough to really relate to, both, yourself and your daughter, then that is a good place to start (easier said than done, I know). Good luck!
DXP: “Question: is narcissistic disorder progressive like schizophrenia?”
Dont’ know, but it’s a scary question.
Schizophrenia is progressive, I think. And the designations for mental disorders are confusing for lay people like me. I have a friend who is close to a schizophrenic (in the hospital now for it) and just got sucked into a relationship with him. First he was exciting and unusual, then sort of inspired, then rather shocking (thinks he is a messiah), then really sick (says he is a messiah). Before she knew it she was “saving” him. I’m making a case that the condition is progressive and not self healing (?? anyone know??) and that a certain caution needs to be introduced.
I knew a schizophrenic as a child and had a similar experience. They are compelling in a way, but that changes slowly – not really expecting such crazyness – and sneaks up on one. I used to wonder of Robert was schizophrenic – with actual delusions – but think he is much more of a plain old CON.
James Mclemore,
I don’t enjoy just talking about these things like so many here do, including your self.
Yes, you too have modelled in the Fellowship gardens and are not doing anything decisive to stop its abuses or are you?
We’ve heard a hundred stories like Tatyana’s on this blog and a hundred times worse. Tell me, what kind of people can look at such things once and again and not do anything about it? Is this not a kind of pornography or other similar sickness in which people look at these things and next day wake up as if nothing had happened in their lives?
153. Tatyana – August 19, 2009
WHAT THE FUCK!!! FORGIVENESS???
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???
THIS ITALIAN MOTHER FUCKER, BRAINLESS JERK, COCK SUCKER BURTON’S PUPPET MUST TO DIE IN JAIL!!!
WAKE UP TATYANA! WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!
YOUR UNDERAGE DAUGHTER WAS RAPED AND YOU STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT’S RIGHT???
THIS IS FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE!!!
One of the questions this raises is: what’s the difference between getting raped every other day by Robert and having 1200 people not only justify it but call it “divine” and go out and rape a child half your age just as you’re getting raped by a man three times yours?
Isn’t there a parallel to getting raped by your teacher-father figure and raping your half daughter- child figure?
I don’t share the violence of your pain X-Ray but I share the pain. This young man too was in a mind control environment and people do strange things in such places. That doesn’t justify the act but it will help both these women who must have received a lot of other things from him, understand the situation a little better.
Dear Tatyana
I am almost sure , your ex was sexual abused as a child. For sure emotional….
Do you have a history of abuse?
Any of your other childrren abused in the past? Worth talking with al of them as “secrets” can cause suicidal thoughts…..
I remember Byrin Kathy aying he would hug her daughter each eveneingwhen she came home drugged up…maybe hugging is away….
Much courage Tatyana…..and lots of energy.
Lots of hugs for you too.
Cult Forbids Tight Jeans to Respect “Camel-Influence”
Oregon House (URP)-After an influx of Russian women known for wearing tight fitting jeans, the reclusive elderly gay spiritual authority figure of the Fellowship of Friends AKA Beltway to Presence, Mr. Robert “Smartypants” Burton, has issued a decree forbidding the wearing of any such contour revealing clothing by his female followers.
His “reasoning”?…according to one loyal Burton-phile named Steven Flack, “To insure that the only cameltoes our male followers look at are on the feet of our camels”.
The cult has recently purchased several camels to freely roam the cult’s Yuba County property, apparently to use in the cult’s spiritual practices. According to Flack, “Our leader teaches us that camels are very high spiritual beings, and I believe he is right. Every time I see a camel, I remember myself.”
One anonymous feminist ex-follower disagrees with Burton’s lofty intentions. “This is yet another example of Burton’s misogyny,” she says, “Deep down he hates women. He wouldn’t even attend the funeral of his own mother, for goodness sake. And he brought a copy of the statue of Michelangelo’s “David” to the property just so his followers can look up to the penis and camels to look down on the vagina.”
Dear Tatyana,
please seek help with your daughter. There must be ways and not only very expensive ones. Why does she want him back to jail? I doubt it is because of revenge or punishment. I think it is fear. She must be terrified.
There is no excuse for an adult man to touch a young person. The biggest mistake victims make is to try to understand “why.” The most common answer is that the criminal was also abused as a child. Even though this is most of the time true, it does not help the victim. Your daughter and you (because you are also hurt) need to first hate the guy in order to move on and heal. You cannot ask a young woman whose body has gone through such an experience to try to have “compassion.” It is wrong.
There are probably other moments during the long processes of healing that your daughter will be able to look at the criminal like a human being (that how Viktor Frankl survived the hell of the concentration camps…).
Alice Miller has written many books that might help you and your daughter.
“The Body Never Lies” / “The Drama of the Gifted Child” are just two suggestions.
The body indeed never lies.
from Antonio R. Damasio: “Emotions are not a luxury, they a complex aid in the fight for existence.”
Remember we were taught to “control” our emotions in the FOG…A very dangerous tool in the hands of charlatans, snake-oil sellers…
Panorista – yes.
Alice Miller is very very good to read. What was it?…. “For your own good” (I think it is) is very good to read – heartbreaking, horrible, yes, but good. Tatyana, Panorista is right, it is time to get into your daughter’s heart and mind. Again, Justice is not Revenge. It is just truth.
Tatyana,
I feel like you have been shaken a lot today by telling here your difficult story and your daughter’s.
It takes courage to come here and say it in public and to admit one’s shortcomings.
I hope the strong tone of some of the people here is not hurting you even more, their intention is not to hurt you; maybe their energy will give you the fuel to find a way to act and resolve the past much sooner.
You have my compassion for having been in an extremely difficult place, to have trusted people who actually betrayed you and got in the way of your conscience.
A big hug for you.
For Tatyana:
Women Escaping A Violent Environment, WEAVE, Inc., is where nearly 800 women and children go each year to seek shelter from abusers. Among them are teenagers who have been caught in the turmoil of domestic violence and need a special place to hang out and just be kids.
WEAVE is the primary provider of crisis intervention services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Sacramento County.
It is WEAVE’s mission to bring an end to domestic violence and sexual assault in partnership with our community. WEAVE’s vision is a community free of violence and abuse. At WEAVE we believe that crisis intervention services are only part of the solution.
http://www.weaveinc.org/teens
Today:
German CDU plans to publish in the future sex offender data.
This should be a first step to protect children and women better from a rape.
There is never a complete shelter but it is one possibility to network better and to react faster.
Crime is crime and the crimes in the name of a so called Goddess, the crimes in the name of God, Allah, etc. are to ostracize with a clear voice.
———————————–
To Tatyana,
you and your daughter need help and understanding.
You were not the perpetrator!
But the FOF is supporting him with its more than weird and destuctive pseudo-religion.
The Fellowship of Friends should simply issue a statement/denial
(that will fix it):
“The T. Busbee & Tatyana’s Daughter cases (& maybe 1 or 2 others) were isolated incidents not generally condoned by anyone with a brain or a heart. These “mistakes” have nothing to do with the alleged pattern-of-perversion portrayed on the “Blog” and in the minds of disgruntled ex-shippers. While sincerely disillusioned ex-members may see a door opening a can-of-worms, we are already building a wall that can’t be opened.”
Some time ago a friend(1) who was going through a difficult time with her relationship was talking to another friend(2) (both of them members then, friend (1) not any more…).
My friend(1) was narrating in what a humiliating way her husband (now ex-) was treating her. Friend (2) ended the discussion by telling friend (1): The way he acts is awful but let’s not forget he is a STUDENT…
This attitude has been so damaging in any human relationship in the FOF; friendships, affairs, partners in business, they all have suffered by that illusion that the moment you are a member of the FOF, you are immune to any standards life has established throughout the centuries. Of course, let us not forget that that’s what Robert Burton wants to sell: a different moral for the higher self. So, he can have his way with the young and weak.
Tatyana (# 50-179),
Adding my two cents-worth to the collection…
Although it may be expensive, I’d say the first priority is to get counseling for yourself and your daughter, together. There are a lot of good family counselors up here in the GV area. I have no particular knowledge, but you could start by asking someone like Birgit W.; she might not know, but might know someone who does. If you make it clear from the start that you’ll have difficulty paying for many sessions, the search will lead to someone affordable. My first inclination would be to find a female counselor, but maybe that is not relevant.
My feeling is that you should work on your relationship with your daughter first, and deal with everything and everyone else a distant second, if it is appropriate at all after so much time. The subject of the perpetrator will come up in counseling anyway, but in a different context. You don’t appear to lack courage, so continue to be completely open with any counselor and your daughter; you must be clear where you are before you can plan a destination. And, of course, make it clear to your daughter that she is your first priority from now on. That doesn’t mean indulging her in any way, just giving her all the time and support she needs to work this through. You can help each other, and need each other’s help; say that, don’t just assume it.
I send best wishes to you and your daughter, may healing and clarity, compassion and peace come to you.
176 Agent 007/177 DXP
I think you have touched upon some very good points. I believe that Narcissistic Personality Disorder, schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder (my particular condition) are ALL progressive and are ALL mental illnesses. I can only discuss Burton’s NPD as regards descriptions I hear from bloggers who have been close to him – his appetite for young men and growing numbers of ‘blow jobs’ per day and his steadily increasing need for expensive ‘follies’ – seem to suggest that he cannot help himself, but continues in his insanity, supported by his ‘circles of influence’, from GH down to the most distant follower. In actual fact, as many of us know, the whole cult is insane.
I have been close to schizophrenics and know that they believe they are communicating with famous figures or actually are those famous people. Sometimes they hear voices inside their heads (those famous people or others that tell them to do evil deeds) and have hallucinations in all five senses. The ‘Messiah’ kick is perhaps the highest of their delusions. My experience at many different times is that these people believe they are responsible and are to be praised for the efforts and successes that those around them have applied and gained for themselves. The only advantage that schizophrenics have is that, once they have achieved a suitable regime of medication, this regime can usually last for life.
Bipolar sufferers share the propensity for delusions of grandeur with schizophrenics but they usually do not hallucinate but misinterpret what others say and the ‘meaning’ of the situation in which they find themselves. Rather than ‘hearing voices’ they tend to find their whole being ‘soaring into elated states’ or ‘sinking into incapacitating lows’. And, to ‘cap it all’, they are wasters of money in their manic phases. Medication regimes for manic-depressives (bipolars) have to be changed on average every two years.
I believe that REB is a sufferer of NPD, AND IS ALSO A CON-MAN, because of his inability to ‘separate from himself’ and apply conscience. Whether he is ill or a criminal (or both)…..HE DESERVES TO BE LOCKED AWAY.
193. Ames Gilbert
your words are balm, thank you!
Tatyana
Another person that can help professionally is R____k P___a.
Jb
I am wondering if laws apply to corporations differently than to churches and spiritual groups? I think that there is a bill passing through California State that strengthens protections for workers against corporate abuse and sexual harassment. Is fof still incorporated?
Nigel, I’ll give you my 4 or 5 cents worth re: your condition (in general terms). If it IS progressive, it’s much less progressive for you in my opinion since you’re actually acknowledging that you face an inner challenge.
Any diseas (dis-ease) — physical or mental — becomes progressive when “we” are in denial about it. (I personally like that word, as well as “us,” when applied sparingly or cautiously.)
In my view, joining a cult was a type of disorder for all of us, and I do mean all of us. It’s not in any of the books, so I can feel the quick glances all the way through my computer monitor. But I see it as a disease. It doesn’t have a name, but it’s a sydrome, a disease, a condition. Cult Follower Disorder (CFD)? The name really doesn’t matter. We’ve lived it.
I say these things with caution since I am not a professional, but sometimes common sense and direct observation add something to the conversation that you don’t find in the literature or lecture halls.
Here’s one problem with acute cases of NPD — one of the symptoms is the complete inability to acknowledge any fault, blame, responsibility, and most importantly — accountability — for the path of pain and destruction they cause. All of that is irrelevant to them.
We know Hitler was crazed and insane and created fear in those around him, but many in his “inner circle” saw him as a very kind, gentle, and gracious man at times who often had a keen sense for people (sound familiar?). But when anyone in his inner circle brought up the topic of death camps, his facial expression quickly changed, and he turned from kind to unkind. And of course, that person was no longer invited to any of his inner circle gatherings again.
Agent 007:
“Here’s one problem with acute cases of NPD — one of the symptoms is the complete inability to acknowledge any fault, blame, responsibility, and most importantly — accountability — for the path of pain and destruction they cause. All of that is irrelevant to them.”
This was one of the most shocking things to me about Robert Burton. It was so shocking and so inexplicable that in my naivite I thought that it had to be something characteristic of a “conscious being” that I couldn’t understand. This is scary – to be so brainwashed that behavior is accepted that one normally would have run from.
It is beautiful to see you all talking.
Nigel, 194. You’ve never sounded so much like yourself. Bravo!
Agent 007…
…In my view, joining a cult was a type of disorder for all of us, and I do mean all of us. It’s not in any of the books, so I can feel the quick glances all the way through my computer monitor. But I see it as a disease. It doesn’t have a name, but it’s a sydrome, a disease, a condition. Cult Follower Disorder (CFD)? The name really doesn’t matter. We’ve lived it…
Oh yes, there was something serious going on with us. I am convinced. And I am sure there is the tendency still. And if we do not take care of, we relapse.
It is an addictive disorder.
198 Agent 007
Here’s a pill for what ails ya-
http://urbangurucafe.com/wordpress/2009/08/21/51-paul-hedderman-in-recovery-part-3/
201 Panoritsa
I am trying to recall why it was I was searching for a ‘school’ at the tender age of 21 and why the Fellowship of Friends seemed to be the ‘answer to my prayers’. One thing was, I did not seem to socially ‘get along’ with my peers – of course, they also had their cliquey groups but I did not fit in – one thing was, I am sure, that there was present the ‘downside’ of my bipolar disorder and my fear feature. I had a ‘friend’ who seemed to experience the states that the workbooks described but I was more impressed by the fact that these states could be only permanently achieved by hard work. Of course, the FOF was all hard work and, especially, payment, which, in the end, crippled me – I did not pursue the way of the programmer, corporate headhunter, lawyer or medical practitioner – I knew, and still know, where my Essence Possibilities lay/lie.
Maybe the blog discussion could open up into each poster’s reason for searching for a school of spiritual advancement and why they stayed until such time as they became disillusioned with the ‘true’ aims of the Fellowship of Friends. I am sure this will give some guidance to prospective students and those who are thinking of leaving…..Nigel.
On Cult Follower Disorder. – (Good name!)
As it’s been mentioned before, there isn’t a great difference between the Fellowship structure and the social structures current in our world today. We’ve already looked at the parallels between blind dependency for a guru and blind adherence to a dictator in the posts connected to Fascism. We’ve also touched on how the phenomena actually takes place in the posts connected with mind control environments. From one perspective, the Fellowship and cults in general, are accelerated courses on how to become an unscrupulously cruel and insensitive automaton that can watch people being hurt mercilessly and not only help but pay for it; People who, even after leaving the cult, are unwilling to help those who’ve remained in it. Even Fascists got paid for doing the job! There’s a huge and terrible difference in just THAT fact, because it means that people today are prone to fall into such patterns of behaviour out of their own free will and with very little help from the outside. It means that social life in the so-called “free” World, has already put people in place for a quick “automation” against each other.
This should not surprise one when one looks at the structures of life today: the resignation with which the average human being carries out their lives. Perhaps one of the main ingredients to the Cult Follower Disorder is “resignation” and what is resignation?
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 a : an act or instance of resigning something : surrender b : a formal notification of resigning 2 : the quality or state of being: resigned: submissivenes
Main Entry: re·sign
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French resigner, from Latin resignare, literally, to unseal, cancel, from re- + signare to sign, seal — more at
Date: 14th century
transitive verb
1 : relegate, consign; especially : to give (oneself) over without resistance 2 : to give up deliberately; especially : to renounce (as a right or position) by a formal act
intransitive verb
1 : to give up one’s office or position : 2 : to accept something as inevitable : submit
synonyms see abdicate, relinquish
By the time most members join a cult, they have already declared themselves “impotent” before their lives and circumstances; obeying the guru, the organization, the enlightened being, simply follows.
It’s interesting that to resign means not to put one’s seal, to take one’s self out of the picture, which is exactly what cult members and dictatorship followers do. They replace their authority by the Guru’s or dictator, they resign their will, they give up their AUTHORITY to the guru and dictator and in his name perform every atrocity. They give up the authorship of their lives.
It is better to live making mistakes than to make mistakes for others. Cult followers are people who pretend to walk with somebody else’s legs. Will grows parallel to trust. Blind trust in the guru is inversely proportionate to trust in one’s self. Guru and dictator followers actually develop a tremendous amount of will: they automatically perform and achieve powerful acts for the guru or the dictator relinquishing their own self and develop idolatry through self-annihilation. The mass suicides in cults are no coincidence.
Will grows parallel to trust but blind trust turns will against the individual practicing it. To follow an ideal is very different to following a guru or a dictator. The adherence to an ideal is an objective act of will, the adherence to a guru is a subjective submission, it sprouts from the individual’s lack of trust in his own judgement, the feebleness of his own being. What cults prove today is that regular society renders people feeble enough to blindly submit to others. If people are not willing to submit to the cold authority of the boss and the miserable conditions of the hierarchy in the corporate world and industries, they do not get the job. This submission has already been imposed in the human being of today and instead of fighting, what cults are proving is that people are willing to resign without a fight. People had already resigned instinctively in regular society, adhering to a cult simply enforces their emotional and spiritual resignation. This can be proven by the willingness with which members so easily submit when they join the cult and tragically enforced by the apathy with which ex-members are willing to deal with the problem, once they’ve left.
Trust and will are interconnected to each other and the individual’s being. Trust is the inner force that inspires will to act objectively or blindly, depending on where the trust is placed. Misplaced in the guru or somebody else’s “persona”, in love as much as in social life, it develops submission and idolatry or false love or a resigned willingness to work without emotional meaning or connection, that is, with purely instinctive submission and emotional resignation. Self-remembering is an act of trust in one’s self or one’s Spirit, the Spirit of the Human Being. The Will to act accordingly is an objective, conscious act, for the retribution of Mankind, both for one’s self and those who surround one. Each individual human being celebrates “Mankindness” throughout his life, for or against his or her own self and Mankind. Somebody said: “No man is an island”; The isolation of the individual in modern society in which he and she cannot conceive of US, is an aspect of the deterioration of our consciousness as human beings, which doesn’t mean that we must not be extremely careful about how we act individually in our social bindings.
Panoritsa:
Dependent Personality Disorder
The widely used manual for diagnosing mental disorders, defines dependent personality disorder as a “pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of that leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
Has difficulty making everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others
Needs others to assume responsibility for most major areas of his or her life
Has difficulty expressing disagreement with others because of fear of loss of support or approval (this does not include realistic fears of retribution)
Has difficulty initiating projects or doing things on his or her own (because of a lack of self-confidence in judgment or abilities rather than a lack of motivation or energy)
Goes to excessive lengths to obtain nurturance and support from others, to the point of volunteering to do things that are unpleasant
Feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of exaggerated fears of being unable to care for himself or herself
Urgently seeks another relationship as a source of care and support when a close relationship ends
Is unrealistically preoccupied with fears of being left to take care of himself or herself
Individuals with DPD see themselves as inadequate and helpless; they believe they are in a cold and dangerous world and are unable to cope on their own. They define themselves as inept and abdicate self-responsibility; they turn their fate over to others . These individuals will decline to be ambitious and believe that they lack abilities, virtues and attractiveness (Beck & Freeman, 1990, p. 290) (Millon, 1981, pp. 113– 114). The solution to being helpless in a frightening world is to find capable people who will be nurturing and supportive toward those with DPD. Within protective relationships, individuals with DPD will be self-effacing, obsequious, agreeable, docile, and ingratiating.
They will deny their individuality and subordinate their desires to significant others. They internalize the beliefs and values of significant others. They imagine themselves to be one with or a part of more powerful and supporting others. By seeing themselves as protected by the power of others, they do not have to feel the anxiety attached to their own helplessness and impotence (Millon & Davis, 1996, pp. 325–334).
However, to be comfortable with themselves and their inordinate helplessness, individuals with DPD must deny the feelings they experience and the deceptive strategies they employ. They limit their awareness of both themselves and others. Their limited perceptiveness allows them to be naive and uncritical (Millon & Davis, 1996, pp. 333–334).
Their limited tolerance for negative feelings, perceptions, or interaction results in the interpersonal and logistical ineptness that they already believe to be true about themselves. Their defensive structure reinforces and actually results in verification of the self-image they already hold.
Individuals with DPD see relationships with significant others as necessary for survival. They do not define themselves as able to function independently; they have to be in supportive relationships to be able to manage their lives. In order to establish and maintain these life-sustaining relationships, people with DPD will avoid even covert expressions of anger. They will be more than meek and docile; they will be admiring, loving, and willing to give their all. They will be loyal, unquestioning, and affectionate. They will be tender and considerate toward those upon whom they depend (Millon, 1981, p. 114).
Dependent individuals play the inferior role to the superior other very well; they communicate to the dominant people in their lives that they are useful, sympathetic, strong, and competent (Millon, 1981, p. 114). With these methods, individuals with DPD are often able to get along with unpredictable, isolated, or unpleasant people (Kantor, 1992, p. 170).
To further make this possible, individuals with DPD will approach both their own and others’ failures and shortcomings with a saccharine attitude and indulgent tolerance (Millon, 1981, p. 113).
They will engage in a mawkish minimization, denial, or distortion of both their own and others’ negative, self-defeating, or destructive behaviors to sustain an idealized, and sometimes fictional, story of the relationships upon which they depend. They will deny their individuality, their differences, and ask for little other than acceptance and support (Millon & Davis, 1996, p. 332).
Not only will individuals with DPD subordinate their needs to those of others, they will meet unreasonable demands and submit to abuse and intimidation to avoid isolation and abandonment (Millon, 1981, pp.107–108). Dependent individuals so fear being unable to function alone that they will agree with things they believe are wrong rather than risk losing the help of people upon whom they depend (DSM-IV, 1994, p. 665).
Individuals with DPD must recognize their dependent patterns and the high price they pay to maintain those patterns. This allows them to explore alternatives. The long-range goal is to increase DPD individuals’ sense of independence and ability to function. Clients with DPD must build strength rather than foster neediness (Benjamin, 1993, p. 238).
As with other personality disorders, treatment goals should not be in contradiction to the basic personality and temperament of these individuals. They can work toward a more functional version of those characteristics that are intrinsic to their style. Oldham (1990, p. 104) suggests seven traits and behaviors of the “devoted personality style,” i.e, the non-personality-disordered version of DPD:
ability to make commitments;
enjoyment of intimacy;
skills as a team player—without need to compete with the leader;
willingness to seek the opinions and advice of others;
ability to promote interpersonal harmony;
thoughtfulness and consideration for others; and,
willingness to self-correct in response to criticism.
From Wikipedia.
Dear Nigel and others.
Yesterday I spoke with a “professional regarding cults. She stated that a church Gl-d T-d-ngs in Yuba city is a cult. Many people have been “damaged by the authorian requests”. The pharmaceutical approach and believe (authorian approach) is a cult. Watching tv and being influenced by commercials will effect you and takes over your own common sense decision making. Alll a way to get disconnected with myself.
To me and I am still living this question our culture is diseased and this flows down to “you and I and people in general”.
I have wondered a lot why I joined the fellowship. I did not feel connected to life in general when I joined. I missed something. This is natural, we are alone, by ourselves and there are (unexpected moments ” of being connected”. The fellowship gave me a sense of belonging working together…for a common aim. Our culture gives us/me the impression that we are “a happy family” with a car and a house and happy family and happy friends….”.
We also where born after the second world war and many of our parents had gone through the world war and left it scars. Still healing? In my deepest moments of anguish, I still feel my parents and grand parents in me…..
Now many years later, alone and not alone again at least without the fellowship of friends on a track of healing and finding again myself and how to be true to myself and living a life, of finally be what I am.
What I detour I took……
202. Yesri Baba, thanks for the Urban Guru Cafe link…
—-
Adding to elena’s, panoritsa’s, nige’s, and whalerider’s comments…
And Vena’s: “This was one of the most shocking things to me about Robert Burton. It was so shocking and so inexplicable that in my naivite I thought that it had to be something characteristic of a “conscious being” that I couldn’t understand. This is scary – to be so brainwashed that behavior is accepted that one normally would have run from.”
Whenever a discussion focused on “strange decisions” or “weird rules” in the FOF, or strange behavior that we knew was “off” in some way, someone would often say, “The school is not a democracy.”
So true… probably not a monarchy either, but something closer to a dictatorship. Burton doesn’t lead a nation, thankfully, so he doesn’t cause war or promote physical violence, but there are many parallels in the FOF to dictatorships and “near” dictatorships, both in history and in today’s world…
“I think a person who has never lived in a dictatorship can’t understand the power of propaganda. If you just hear always the same, if you always read in every newspaper the same, and if you have very few possibilities for other information, then you become very impressed by the things which you are told, and it’s very difficult to make up your own mind, and to be critical.”
Ewald von Kleist, resister during the time of Nazi Germany
204 elena/205 WhaleRider/206 Another Name/207 Agent 007
Thank you, guys, for ‘making concrete’ my inklings about myself and what others have experienced that led them to ‘cult dependency’…..Nigel.
Another Name, and nige, and all… In my view, it really helps the healing process just hearing another opinion or viewpoint, other opinions or viewpoints… it opens the window and lets fresh air inside. Two or three windows are even better for the cross-breeze.
Thinking is like breathing. There’s fresh air for thinking, and then there’s old, stale, recirculated, unhealthy air that promotes an entirely different type of thinking. Sometimes a diesel truck drives by the front door and stenches up the place, but blogging about these topics, talking about them, and joking about them — it all lets in fresh air. Open discussion is a good thing.
Also, it’s good to forgive ourselves if sometimes we fell for the propaganda, or didn’t think clearly, or couldn’t see the pain being caused by our involvement in the FOF. As Ewald von Kleist said (quote above): “If you just hear always the same, if you always read in every newspaper the same, and if you have very few possibilities for other information, then you become very impressed by the things which you are told, and it’s very difficult to make up your own mind, and to be critical.”
If there is a disorder for joining a group (often as a young person just embarking on adulthood and fresh out of teen-ager-ness) then most of humanity has it to some degree or other. If it is a destructive group they may or may not be to some degree stuck. Think, joining an investment bank, corporation, military, family clan, marriage, sports group, medical group, government agency, and on an on. Some join unwillingly – slavery/sexual slavery. Sexual slavery is still very very active today. Economic semi-slavery is too. The fof experience is not all that unique…gross….petty…humiliating…. yes, but not unique.
It is just a very human sort of problem – relating to others and groups of others while also relating to ones’ Self. Realizing Self is a challenge in relation to others.
DXP: “If there is a disorder for joining a group (often as a young person just embarking on adulthood and fresh out of teen-ager-ness) then most of humanity has it to some degree or other.”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but I hope you’re not downplaying the consequences of joining cults from this sentence, or by comparing cults to many common groups in society — “…joining an investment bank, corporation, military, family clan, marriage, sports group, medical group, government agency, and on an on.”
I think all of these groups absolutely DO compare with the FOF to greater or lesser degrees, but I think the comparison only really finds relevance to the FOF when you mention groups that have become particularly CLOSED — where the flow of information from the outside is cut off, and when only ideas from within the group are accepted. To me, that’s what makes the FOF cult thrive — and what makes destructive and unhealthy consequences become possible. It’s good to make comparisons (there are many of them out there), but I’d stop short of saying the FOF “is not all that unique.” I think that attitude is in part, what makes it difficult for people to leave — a sense that there’s really nothing healthier outside the walls of the group.
I’ll say it though: There is something healthier outside the walls of the group, and it’s not rare and difficult to find — another one of the those memes fed to us from the FOF. And not surprisingly so, because that meme does tend to trap people within the group.
210 DXP/211 Agent 007
I was lucky in that I did not come from a dysfunctional family and all through my being ‘part of’ the FOF they kept in contact and were ‘there’ when the messy end to my ‘relationship’ with the cult came. What do other ‘students’ have when they feel the need to break ties with the FOF and, especially have beeen involved in the ‘sexual slavery’ perpetrated by REB? (either as ‘sexual toys’ themselves or as one of those ‘artificial wives’). How can they find support? Do they trust (or can they afford) a psychological expert to strengthen their relationship with themselves and the ‘world outside’ the cult? And, above all, perhaps, do they trust us, as former members, who, to greater or lesser degrees, have found their ‘Freedom of Selfhood’ in the Greater Life?…..Nigel.
Agent 007, 211, Thank you for clarifying that-
Whalerider and others,
Is not this a great place to test my own feelings and thoughts….? When I read: Dependent Personality disorder, I can relate. Did I come from a dysfunctional family? Not that I know and yet my mother was not keen on children and I was induced….Many therapist now might say that this “deep trauma”, might have been related to joining a cult? I had a few mean siblings… who did not?
Many of us had ‘birth trauma’s” ( or mean sibblings or both) and maybe the fellowship was a perfect stage to repeat this trauma over and over?
Imaging the above is true. I do not feel that I have a DPD. Godforsaken, I am a human being brought to this earth, finding its space of….belonging, accepting? Being here and trying to be what I am? This makes me emotional. Yes, I gave a part or two away to the fellowship of friends and yes I am retrieving it, …slowy.
Makes me proud my friends and guess what? I do not need your approval or your words this time. Of nobody….and on the other hand, I need a small support system, a place to feel safe, a place, where I can heal. Both are true.
The fire did not help, it shook me of my rocker…and brought back some unsafely feelings and maybe some old trauma……
Maybe I should go dance and shake it, baby…..?
Agent 007 (cool name btw!)
Well, yes, I did intend to say that the cult experience is not unique to cults. There are numerous Closed groups – and that is one key to what makes a cult experience. Another, IMO, is absolute obedience to authoritarianism.
In the fof we felt so very special (or lucky – snort!) and it is hard as ex fof to feel simply part of humanity – not so special. Our experiences were painful, but if you look around the globe many many many people experience painful things pertaining to a closed authoritarian groups demanding obedience.
Nigel, I would not say there are sexual slaves in the fof. There IS choice. So, I’ll say this to any man who is currently in Robert’s “circle” YOU have a choice. Staying in this awful, stupid relationship to this creepy, sick man is a choice. Leaving is another. Many have said here, and I’ll say again, that leaving is a good choice. It is the alive choice.
Many people do not have the choice of joining an extremist cultish closed authoritarian group – they are forced to. …So many examples… human trafficking (slavery), Taliban, fundamentalist Mormons (born into). Some choose …upper management for Enron, CIA, spiritual cults (oddly these choices have in common -greed). But the word here is that people in the fof is they have a choice. We made a choice every day we stayed, and we made a choice to not stay and more fully and deeply explore life, soul and spirit.
153 Tatyana
I’ve been through a similar experience with my children and understand your confusion.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re reporting molestation rather than rape. I assume your response to rape of your daughter would have been swift and sure.
I found myself being eaten alive over the years by the paralysis of intellectually understanding “how it could happen” versus a perceived need to clearly answer this abuse of my children. It was the dense lack of accountability of the other adult that finally showed me the need to speak definatively for my children so they would have a lighter load to carry.
We all have to carry on with life regardless of what it brings and you can let the man who molested your daughter bear his own burden. If it will help your daughter to see you back up and take a different course to answer his trespass upon her innocence, it will help to heal you, too. I’m ashamed that it took me so long to see the depth of my own mental confusion but immensely grateful I could make a healing correction. You will have grandchildren someday, too, and on and on.
The confusion is in your mind, and it’s really a question of your choice and your voice.
211 Agent 007
You make many interesting and important points in this comment. Got me thinking….
One of the things I came to not like about the 4th way was it has greed at the core. One does NOT have a soul (some sort of sort-or-permanent astral body that one can get and then ride around the solar system having fun for a long time) but one CAN GET one. The greed comes in in the perception that one does not have something and one want is and one can get it. Boy, did the fof ever capitalize on that!
There is not really an “out there” tho. If current fof members think there it nothing “out there” then that is a misperception. The choice is to participate in cult emotions, behaviors etc, or not. Any one can leave a cult and get right back into it in some way with some other group. Well, OK…. the CIA might not want us. The actual “out there” is within one –and it is actually interesting that the perceived lack (soul, divine future, consciousness, permanent “I”, and so on) is only that – perceived. Maybe that is difficult to face. We’d rather the sure thing of our lack than the realm of possibilities that we only feel lacking and the difficulties in exploring that! The fof culture tells members over and over they lack that special “it” and assures members they can (greedily) get it (at a price) via the group. Stepping outside that mental construct is incredibly positive.
The greed comes in in the perception that one does not have something and one wants it and one can get it.
oops typos galore! This is what I meant to say. Sorry.
215. DXP Brainwashed people don’t have a choice, they submitted their freedom to choose from the moment they entered the cult. Mature human beings have a choice. The majority of people don’t have a choice, they have to submit to the status quo.
It’s clear how new you are here:
DXP – “In the fof we felt so very special (or lucky – snort!) and it is hard as ex fof to feel simply part of humanity – not so special.”
What a pitiful statement! No wonder you thrived in the Fellowship and still think you’re thriving outside of it. Such mentality is ever so welcome in the authoritarian, classist and racist circles.
DXP “Our experiences were painful, but if you look around the globe many many many people experience painful things pertaining to a closed authoritarian groups demanding obedience.”
Here you sound like the few members who have dare stepped on this public square giving readers the subliminal message that their pain is not so bad because other people’s is worse. There’s that saying: mal de muchos, Consuelo de tontos. The ill fate of many is the consolation of the few, or something like that. How poor of your.
And then this gem that convinces me that you are still a member of the Fellowship, one of those trained to ignore, minimize and obscure the magnitude of the damages caused by cults and the PHALLUSHEEP OF FREAKS CULT, specifically. It is good to meet you again DXP, give us more of those gems because I am ever so ready for you. No wonder you’ve simply ignored everything I’ve said.
DXP: “Nigel, I would not say there are sexual slaves in the fof. There IS choice. So, I’ll say this to any man who is currently in Robert’s “circle” YOU have a choice. Staying in this awful, stupid relationship to this creepy, sick man is a choice. Leaving is another. Many have said here, and I’ll say again, that leaving is a good choice. It is the alive choice.:
Your last sentence is what Phalusheepers are now imploring so that they can get rid of every half member and see if they can get some ignorant new ones. The “alive choice”, WOW!
If you’re not a member you certainly sound like one. Maybe you should start in page one and have the decency to not expect us to repeat everything that has been said here, just for your education.
The first sentence in the last post is not DXPs although it looks like that. I’ll make it cleared next time.
We can name all kinds of disorders for ourselves and others, but many times (not all) it justifies not taking personal responsibility and is disempowering. IMHO
Elena, don’t really know what your beef is. Yes, people have a choice. Maybe some don’t because they are “brainwashed”, incurious, stuck, as you say. Does that make you the ONE who makes their choices for them?
I’m not comparing pain, just saying that pain is a human condition. To be in a cult in this country is a choice. A poor choice and a stupid one (am speaking from personal experience). What is so wrong about saying that we share humanness with humanity? What is wrong about saying that we carry the “in” and “out” within us and that it is a misperception to think that “out” there is nothing? I actually think we are agreeing (if that is possible!). People who are “in” and afraid of what is “out there” are already living their fear and the worse of that which they think they are avoiding by staying “in”.
Mature people have a choice, people who’ve experienced evil have a choice. People in essence don’t have a choice. They get brainwashed easily and roll down the cult for decades without a chance. We are not agreeing, your statements from before make that impossible.
Your superficiality in what is being looked at supports the mentality that allows for cults in that or in any country and that doesn’t make them any better.
Elena, It is possible you area misreading my comments. I’m often not very clear and I apologize for that!
I’m also just not getting what you are saying. Lots of accusations but not clarity.
DXP,
Thank you for your much more even tone than mine, forgive me for getting worked up so quickly.
I was playing the guitar so my post got delayed.
I don’t think you have much of problem expressing your self, you’re very clear. You simply state things that I don’t agree with.
You talk about cult members as if they were regular individuals and I don’t share that understanding. People who come to cults are all too regularly, already at odds with themselves and society. We’re hardly talking about mature people with choices. We’re talking about people wishing guidance and willing to work to pay for it. When one walks into a cult and finds twelve hundred people working for the guru, it is absolutely normal to think it is worth trying it out, particularly if one has already committed to the System with which the Cult works. The strategies most cults use have been studied extensively and the Fellowship is a master at it. Hundreds of little manipulations meet to induce the new member into a situation that he or she will have tremendous difficulty in freeing her or himself from.
Do you really wish me to start enumerating them again and make this another very long post? I will wait your response.
On the subject of choice, there is a tiny element of it in deciding whether one will have sex with the guru or not. 2% perhaps? Or 100% yes, many submit willingly because they are no longer in contact with themselves? There is of course the opportunist without scruples that uses the guru with the same coolness that the guru uses him but here we are not concerned about those few but the many who believed in Robert Burton as a legitimate spiritual teacher and who, influenced by the 1200 members supporting him AS IF HE TRULY were a divine being, just fell in the trap like innocent mice. We are talking about the fact that in no matter what society, the majority of members inclined towards a particular behaviour, have too great an influence on other members and that is what manipulates their understanding to the point that they act against their own well being.
THERE IS SEXUAL TRADE IN THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS. It has been lavishly told on this blog how specific pimps go out to centers looking for young flesh for Robert. Even I set up a young man psychologically to allow for the experience by simply not telling him what I thought about it in the core of my being because at the time I was not connected with the core of my being. Fortunately he escaped before Robert got him. We set those men up by simply giving a blind eye to what was going on and paying for their trips, their clothes, their getting raped. Once inside the choices are minimal. The cult conditions each and every person inside to act in a specific manner or asks them to leave.
Yes homosexuality is legal in the United States and it is a human condition. We did not have anything against homosexuality, why would we question it? But what was questionable wasn’t the homosexuality, it was the massive manipulation of people and specifically those young men so that they would be psychologically disarmed by the time Robert attacked them.
You do not understand mind control environments until you understand how susceptible people are to each other, how they love to be in each other’s company and how desperately they are longing to be accepted by others. We have already studied this here: people who are tortured and kidnapped establish strong emotional ties with their torturers because above everything else is the longing for human contact. We have meticulously studied how we were emotionally castrated in the Fellowship cult and in the coldness of that extremely hierarchic and authoritarian structure of life, succumbing to no matter who’s manipulation so that one could get into the System, receive some feedback and “participate”, nothing could have been more easy than allowing for no less than the conscious being to introduce one to sex with the same sex and be part of no less than his private inner circle.
Please forgive me if I have attacked you beyond reality and you truly do not belong to the Fellowship. If it helps in any way I could expand and write many more pages to meticulously show you how the Fellowship does it. All of us here have been doing that for 78 pages.
elena, thanks for your reply.
Actually I’ve been following the blog since page 2, with a hiatus of about a year and a half rather recently (and have participated many times in earlier years, not as my current blog name tho). I know about the sexual harassment and abuse. It is coerced – expertly done. I see that young people (especially, but not limited to youth) are so very vulnerable to it. That is for many reasons. Having young people in my life now I see again how horribly damaging it is and would like, in some form, to help remedy that. I assume most, if not all, posters here want the same thing. We offer different perspectives tho, I guess.
Yet, I DO see people who pass thru the fof as humans. Not sure exactly what you mean by “regular people” tho. After I left the fof, for several years in fact, I had the idea that there was such as thing as “regular people”. Since then, that notion has been completely blown out of the water. People are amazing – so many different experiences. Yes, people are vulnerable, damaged, ill, striving, insecure, (etc) but, frankly, they are also amazing. It has been a great balm to my soul and pleasure to have had contact with such everyday people. I include fof people in that “everyday people” category. Actually no one is out of that category. We do all share being human.
What really struck me in this last page was Tatyana’s story (so very brave to tell it) and then several people actually came forward with really concrete support – similar stories, links, and suggestions for therapy and support in places she might really be able to access. This is truly very wonderful and very compassionate and helpful (I hope).
If it is “bad” for current “half students” (???) to leave then so be it. I still believe that the people who have had a cult experience can grow from it – grow AWAY from it – and in a positive way. Its hard to language that because language is so important in mind control. So I pick the most universal words I can think of.
I was not speaking of homosexuality being illegal – but religion. The fof is a church and it is a legal entity. One can make the case for the 4th way or Catholic Christianity (or more – not limiting this to these two examples) having the seeds that grow into abuse. BUT, that said, when the abuse appears, then it should be dealt with. The Catholics have had to deal with the priest abuse of minors, and the fof needs to deal with its abuses. The only legal problem is – is it actually illegal? And not just abhorrent. IF it is illegal then it needs to be dealt with within the legal system, professionally and practically. If legal limits are not reached (and it seems the fof is really good at skirting just within several legal limits – they should not get too cocky about this since they have crossed the lines many times) then the appeal goes out to the membership which really drives the fof. It drives the enabling of one man, Robert Burton. Sorry, current fofers, it is not about you, it is only about Robert Burton. If the enabling ceases then so does the fof. I think this takes many voices and many points of view and many tactics. I think all our voices will be heard. Maybe. Hopefully.
“People who are “in” and afraid of what is “out there” are already living their fear and the worse of that which they think they are avoiding by staying “in”.”
Now there is an accurate statement of the human condition.
Hello DXP,
You’re filled with contradictions, let’s see if this helps you clear your self out.
226. DXP – August 22, 2009
elena, thanks for your reply.
Actually I’ve been following the blog since page 2, with a hiatus of about a year and a half rather recently (and have participated many times in earlier years, not as my current blog name tho). I know about the sexual harassment and abuse. It is coerced – expertly done.
E- So is there sexual trade, abuse and rape or not? Is there manipulation or not? YES THERE IS SEXUAL TRADE, MANIPULATION AND RAPE IN THE FELLOWSHIP CULT PAID BY EACH AND EVERY MEMBER
I see that young people (especially, but not limited to youth) are so very vulnerable to it. That is for many reasons. Having young people in my life now I see again how horribly damaging it is and would like, in some form, to help remedy that. I assume most, if not all, posters here want the same thing. We offer different perspectives tho, I guess.
E- I said people in essence, not just young people
Yet, I DO see people who pass thru the fof as humans. Not sure exactly what you mean by “regular people” tho. After I left the fof, for several years in fact, I had the idea that there was such as thing as “regular people”. Since then, that notion has been completely blown out of the water. People are amazing – so many different experiences. Yes, people are vulnerable, damaged, ill, striving, insecure, (etc) but, frankly, they are also amazing. It has been a great balm to my soul and pleasure to have had contact with such everyday people. I include fof people in that “everyday people” category. Actually no one is out of that category. We do all share being human.
E- Don’t turn my words around to mean what is convenient to you, if you’re too blind to understand them don’t interpret them and then don’t use the ideas I’ve given to your benefit. I did not speak about regular people, but people in essence which is a condition in people, a state, a phase in development. Innocent, naïve, well meaning people who join cults convinced that they are going to build an Arc for humanity are in essence and cults manipulate them, turn them against themselves and put them to work for itself for the whole of their lives in the misery of never doing anything to their own benefit. It alienates them from their most inner needs, loves and well-being. If you give yourself up to a guru you don’t have a self, can you understand that? NO SELF, no I governing your life, KAPUT, spiritually dead even if working like a slave for the guru, CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THAT.
STOP BUFFERING THE ISSUES LIKE ALL OTHER MEMBERS WHO’VE COME HERE. YOU ARE ALSO NOT ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS PRECISELY, YOU ARE TURNING THEM AROUND, PLAYING WITH THE SUBJECT. WE WILL GET VERY CONCRETE SO THAT YOU CAN’T SLIP OUT WITH THE SAME SLIMINESS THAT OTHERS HAVE.
DXP: What really struck me in this last page was Tatyana’s story (so very brave to tell it) and then several people actually came forward with really concrete support – similar stories, links, and suggestions for therapy and support in places she might really be able to access. This is truly very wonderful and very compassionate and helpful (I hope).
E- Really? The story REALLY struck you but the Fellowship is a CHURCH, legal in the USA and the only problem is “its problems” so once it deals with them, it can go on without them?
You really think I’m stupid don’t you, or just everybody else here?
DXP – If it is “bad” for current “half students” (???) to leave then so be it.
I still believe that the people who have had a cult experience can grow from it – grow AWAY from it – and in a positive way.
Elena- This is the most important sentence you’ve stood up for. Now we are understanding each other’s position. Yes, people who’ve gone through concentration camps have survived, perhaps even transformed the experience and gotten on with their lives so why don’t we allow the neo-fascists to put them up again and kill the rest of the jew and blacks and anyone who’s not Arian?
THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS CULT SUSTAINS ITSELF STATING THAT THE REST OF THE HUMAN BEINGS IN THE WORLD ARE DEAD, SLEEP, USELESS, WORTHLESS AND UNLUCKIER THAN THEY ARE AND STIMULATES ITS MEMBERS TO STEAL WITH CREDIT CARDS AND THEN FILE FOR BEING UNABLE TO RESPOND.
IT SEPARATES ITS MEMBERS FROM THEIR FAMILIES, FRIENDS AND MANKIND. OF COURSE YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE WHO THINKS HUMANITY IS NOT VERY INTERESTING REMEMBER? OR HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YOUR WORDS?:
DXP – “In the fof we felt so very special (or lucky – snort!) and it is hard as ex fof to feel simply part of humanity – not so special.”
What a pitiful statement! No wonder you thrived in the Fellowship and still think you’re thriving outside of it. Such mentality is ever so welcome in the authoritarian, classist and racist circles
In one Word, amongst FASCISTS. But then you use my words and turn the meanings around. You’re not genuine but the smartest one we’ve had here, you learn things you people but not enough.
DXP: Its hard to language that because language is so important in mind control. So I pick the most universal words I can think of.
E- Yes, most universal so that you can send subliminal messages that support the mentality that supports cults but I smell you through the computer all the way at the other side of the city. I’ve been vaccinated against you for seventeen years, six thousand and fifty two days, one hundred and forty five, two hundred and forty eight hours, eight million seconds and I suffered enough every second of it to recognize it where ever it shows up.
Yes, all suffering is wonderful to understand the times one lives in, the human condition and what is worth fighting against so that our children, that is, future generations, can deal with less misery in their lives.
DXP: I was not speaking of homosexuality being illegal – but religion.
E- No, you weren’t speaking about homosexuality and your mind capacity, which seems so cool and enhanced in so many areas can’t assimilate things in their context.
Instead you have to give us your real agenda, your cult agenda that justifies their existence telling us again that the FOF is a legal entity in the United States and reinstating the same old argument that if Catholic Christianity can fuck the world over, so can Robert Burton, Girard Haven, Guinever Muller, Rowena Taylor, Robert Taylor, Steven and Meredith Dambeck, Elizabeth Blake, hold on, let me see if I can get a directory and call them by their names, I’ll do that in answer to your next post and those who are no longer in it can tell us.
DXP -The fof is a church and it is a legal entity. One can make the case for the 4th way or Catholic Christianity (or more – not limiting this to these two examples) having the seeds that grow into abuse. BUT, that said, when the abuse appears, then it should be dealt with. The Catholics have had to deal with the priest abuse of minors, and the fof needs to deal with its abuses. The only legal problem is – is it actually illegal?
E-Ha! Your subliminal messages are so fucking sick Dirty Xero Prick. You going to give me the legal illegal bullshit over the human inhuman reality? You’re just another sick fascist, a pimp with a tie and an education that tied you to the System that rapes and exploits people everywhere. I take back my apologies to you, you are as sick as all of them put together.
DXP- And not just abhorrent. IF it is illegal then it needs to be dealt with within the legal system, professionally and practically.
E- Yes, because you dam well know that legally it runs swiftly and with THAT you disempower and disenable people from taking the problem to the public sphere where it needs to be aired, considered and dealt with by human beings who realize that laws must change when they are being used against the people.
DXP -If legal limits are not reached (and it seems the fof is really good at skirting just within several legal limits – they should not get too cocky about this since they have crossed the lines many times) then the appeal goes out to the membership which really drives the fof. It drives the enabling of one man, Robert Burton.
E- You’re so fucking clever but also so fucking sick that all your cleverness will turn against you. The Fellowship will be closed down I swear to you. We will win this battle over and beyond you a hundred times. In this last sentence, you are organizing the order in which bloggers should understand the problem we are dealing with. They should go about it legally and once they lose legally because as you say the Fellowship uses legality against its members but for itself, then they must leave the problem in the hands of the members who are to deal with Robert. The members, not ex-members right? So that you disenable them and get them out of the picture, right? And then your last masterfully crafted sentence:
DXP- Sorry, current fofers, it is not about you, it is only about Robert Burton.
E- There, in just one stroke, you take the whole meaning of CULT out and reduce it to Robert Burton as the only problem. You undo 87 pages of fighting to understand the problem to a narcissistic sociopath that once taken out of the picture, validates everything about cults.
DXP -If the enabling ceases then so does the fof. I think this takes many voices and many points of view and many tactics. I think all our voices will be heard. Maybe. Hopefully.
YES OFCOURSE, YOUR SWEET TONE WILL BE HEARD AND YOUR SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES TOO. OUR DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS WILL BE STATED AND YOUR TACTICS WILL WORK WITH THE MAJORITY BUT NOT WITH ME, NEVER, EVER OR A FEW OF US.
You make me too sick to even bother to make corrections.
Since I have been down this road with many like you so many times before, I will stop playing your game and start repeating the questions you need to answer too, if you want me to take you seriously. If you don’t, if you continue to avoid and turn around in circles, we will be even more clear about your agenda.
Start with this one:
Give us proof of your time in the Fellowship, role, and you might make it all more simple if you give us your name. Why hide it? You don’t have to spell it out completely, just let us know who you are, when you left, why, etc, etc, etc.
DXP
“Elena, don’t really know what your beef is. Yes, people have a choice. Maybe some don’t because they are “brainwashed”, incurious, stuck, as you say. Does that make you the ONE who makes their choices for them?
To be in a cult in this country is a choice.”
———————————————–
I disagree with the notion that I have a choice most of the time and in most cases. I do not have a choice because in most cases I do not know or understand the options. Even if I did understand the options, it will take will for me to take an action. On rare occasions I can make a choice. Here I agree with the 4th way idea that ‘things just happen’ to me.
I think that the above is true for people inside the FOF (FOR) and outside the FOF(FOR).
However sometimes I have a choice about my attitudes. Acceptance, trying to remain positive etc.
We’re right back where we were before.
229. JonB
“I disagree with the notion that I have a choice….”
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/09/qa_with_gene_m_heyman/
An article concerning “addiction”, it is just an idea.
There are also many scientists sifting through that field.
————————
If I see my neighbour is addicted, I will try to be his person to talk to without reproach.
If I know there is abuse inside a religious group, I will try to act no matter how long, how difficult and how bitter it will be.
—————————————————–
23. brucelevy
We’re not right back where we were before, we are a step further.
230. brucelevy – August 22, 2009
We’re right back where we were before.
—–
Bruce, do you mean the return to several long posts by the same people?
Elena, I hope this helps: Some of your perceptions about the other poster may be accurate. They seem to be downplaying Burton and the FOF quite a bit. It’s become fairly obvious to me as well, but I think one part of it is that you’re being baited a little. I think his/her main goal is to get you riled up. The end effect is that it tends to water down the conversation — in my view. Honestly, I understand your occasional anger and indignation, but don’t let anyone get to you.
I like it when you post here… You’re a strong voice, but…
Elena: IMO your anger is more of an escalation than an elevation and many good points are missed when it takes control of your writing style.
DXP:
That which does not kill you makes you stronger…or crazier.
When I joined the FOF in 1979 as a young man of 21, at the time I felt I had no choice but to join a cult or commune in order to further my personal growth. My parents had divorced, and the world seem on the verge of nuclear war. I thought the only escape was within, and I was “looking” for an authority figure to help me. In fact, I traveled afar to “interview” two other groups before I decided to join the FOF. I found the FOF’s initial “love bombing” of new recuits like me was delightful, having come from a broken home, and I succumbed. I felt a great relief to sit down to a nice dinner without any yelling and screaming. About two years later I moved to Oregon House. About two years after that the sexual abuse with daddy Burton began. At the point when I felt myself imploding, I had to make a choice for myself to leave and I did. It has taken many years for me to be able to talk about it.
Is it possible to heal from the experience of sexual abuse? Yes, healing is an overall positive experience although at times quite painful. That doesn’t imply that I condone cults, right? We happen to be in the best position to speak out against cults having lived through one. That fact that you are here indicates to me that you to are on the road to healing.
Thanks for posting.
DXP
Not that I think you need defending, but after reading some of the exchanges, I went back and re-read your posts. I do not necessarily agree with all that you said, but I personally see no ‘subliminal’ messages, no ‘cuteness’, no enabling of the fof, and no disempowering of the people who post here. Like Whalerider said – “Thanks for posting”.
Elena – I think you might go back and re-read the words you seem to be attacking in DXP’s posts. I could be wrong, but I think you are reading things into some of them that are not there.
235/James
I agree with everything you wrote.
Elena (#79-228), why are you posting this stuff? What are you trying to achieve? Your anger and boundless contempt seem unlikely to persuade any reader; they certainly repel me. Why on earth would people like DXP reveal themselves to you or trust you? You strike me as someone whose ideology has taken over, and thus absent reason.
Elena…..don’t know if this helps…..it is stepping into the ‘personal revelation zone’ a little again, but here goes…..
On 1 June this year, I was arrested under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act (“likely to be a danger to oneself or others”) by some VERY courteous male officers of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary…..
Their report to the doctors said that I was taking my clothes off in public but, in actual fact, I was knocking down road signs that have been put up (as I thought) without regard to drivers, since the road works had been completed and there was no obstruction to avoid and I was also ripping down realtors’ signs, since I feel that those people are ‘fleecing the public’ for money the public can ill afford…..
“Give a wild horse a BIG field in which to calm down” (WhaleRider?)
The arrest led to several hours in the police holding cell (big field, my arse, since it only escalates the anger), until 3 doctors (one of them my consultant psychiatrist, to whom I sarcastically commented, “Why aren’t you on one of your 10 a year holidays to your family around the world?”) got me admitted to the local ‘asylum’ where I was in the Extra Care Area (another misnomer again, since it is another, although ‘posher’ holding cell) for another few hours, then allowed to go to my room to try to have some sleep (I had been without sleep for two days due to trying to deal with the Crisis Resolution Team Male Fraternity – incompetence personified at that time) with the help of a ‘cocktail’ of downers…..
This had been my most aggressive time prior to arrest and in the two holding areas on experiencing the ‘high’ state of my bipolar…..
I think, Elena, what I am trying to say is what my GP says to me, “Don’t allow yourself to be ‘wound up'”. What we have to do, if we suffer from a mood disorder, is ‘back down’ from ourselves – separate from the being within us that IS the aggressive state – not to identify, if you like – and, with this, the healing can start more quickly and effectively…..
I must admit, although I do try to go through from the beginning to the end of your long posts, I feel perturbed by your anger which is, although sometimes justified, unleashed…..
Love to you…..Nigel.
Well, I hope we’re not ganging up. Here’s my opinion:
1) I think some of Elena’s perceptions about DXP are valid. I sense DXP is playing a game here. That’s my visceral reaction to his/her posts, right or wrong. He seems to enjoy carrying the conversation off into vague tangents that *seem* to offer a balanced criticism of the FOF, but in the final analysis have become a sort of apologist’s viewpoint that downplay the whole issue. Sorry DXP — just the impression I’m getting. I’m open-minded to being wrong about this, but you haven’t written anything yet to prove otherwise, in my opinion.
2) I like what Sally wrote: “Elena: IMO your anger is more of an escalation than an elevation and many good points are missed when it takes control of your writing style.”
3) About our ability to heal from the FOF experience, I completely agree. I didn’t get the impression that Elena disagrees with that, but I believe she’s perceiving a hidden premise and message in DXP’s statements that the FOF is not all that bad. I perceive the same thing, right or wrong.
4) I wouldn’t use the word “subliminal.” But I think the word “subtle” does apply to DXP’s posts.
5) I see recurrently on the blog a certain form of denial about the FOF, even from those who have left. I think it’s possible, DXP, that you still suffer from that like all of us.
6) The FOF actually *is* all that bad. Healing starts with that.
It’s really very simple. If DXP is just another cover up role from the FOF which is what I think she is, she’s another one lying to us and setting us up to believe in things and behave in ways that are against our and other people’s well being.
When you’re ripped of, lied to and manipulated you might not be offended or get angry but I do. Many of you left twenty years ago and perhaps don’t care but I just left and I get furious and exploit as you can see. That doesn’t suit you, you’ve numbed yourselves and think it is wonderful to turn the other cheek, good for you but I’m not there.
The bottom-line here is also very simple. The question of cults being legal or illegal, human or inhuman is what we’re talking about. This is what the Fellowship has now been presenting for quite a while through its representatives and if it’s inhuman it is not legal, it is not constitutional and it is worth fighting it. The Fellowship is inhuman, manipulative and fraudulent and DXP is certainly trying to cover those facts up like all the others have done here. Whether she’s a member or not it no longer matters as much as the fact that she continues to present the same arguments with a nicer tone than the previous people. Nice “tone” like the gold alchemy that confused us for so many years. I am not that anymore.
Ames Gilbert, Bruce Levy, James Mclemore and Jomo Piñata, you only hear half of what I say and are ever so ready to put me down when I get angry and keep silent when I am not. You’re too bias to take you seriously. I am not the issue here, the issue is, IS THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS INHUMAN ENOUGH TO STOP IT? You can put me down for being as uncontrolled as I am but you cannot put down the arguments I give, if you could put them down you would have done so long ago but you’re experts at avoiding the issues and just attack me personally once and again, and again. You can kill me together with the people on the other side because my contempt repels you but the issues here will continue to haunt you for the rest of your lives. You are all people who’ve been out of the Fellowship for decades and have done nothing serious against it, nothing that helped me or hundreds of us for decades so don’t tell me that I am not good enough for this fight because you weren’t either. It certainly looks like I’m loosing but at least I’ll have the pleasure of knowing that I fought which you didn’t. You can all practice your sweet or violent talk here but you don’t do anything serious against the Fellowship Cult. We’ve been in there for decades and you knew and did nothing about it. You each come with your expertise, Jomo with your files, Ames with your sweet talk and Bruce with your fucking, fucking, fucking fuck to everyone which I learnt so well from you but like the rest inside, you avoid the real issues. Is it human? If it’s not human how are you going to stop it? And you’re not going to, right? you’re just not going to do anything serious about it right? You’re just going to talk here, give pretty angles like when we were inside, right? That’s fine, don’t, I’ve already gotten used to that: I was in there for two decades without you doing anything about it so don’t ask me to not fight everything that supports it, EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME. I’ll be happy to rot in hell for being explosive and ranting but they’ll give me a glimpse of heaven for having stood up for what mattered. I already have a glimpse of heaven, other wise I would not know what is worth standing up for.
Dragon, 007, Sally Black, thank you ever so much for speaking up. I can’t be the only one speaking up here. I’m not the issue, if you understand the issue, you need to speak up, not for me, but for your selves. The beauty that I am standing up for is not me, I don’t ask you to stand up for me but life is life and letting the Fellowship be, is celebrating death.
It’s been helpful for me to forgive myself for the anger that I sometimes feel about the FOF (or any type of anger for that matter) while at the same time moving past it. Like grief, and discouragement, and depression, and some of the other emotions, anger is not always a bad thing — but it becomes so when it consumes us or when it becomes chronic, or when it affects our relationships, our friendships, our connections with family members, and connections with work colleagues.
But always let it go? I don’t think so.
More than once, there’s been a comment on the blog that people in the FOF will tune out if it’s a venting or therapy session that becomes unreadable or unpleasant. Obviously a lot of truth in that.
But does anyone also see just a LITTLE of the FOF mindset in that view? At least a little?
I find — by far — what’s worse than the anger itself are the feelings of guilt about the anger — a guilt that we allowed the FOF to drive into us. It’s from this guilt that anger escalates. With guilt, we make things worse for ourselves with more and more anger, and more and more guilt.
Any chance, perhaps, that someone in the FOF tunes in to Elena’s outcries, and says, you know, she’s really hurting… There’s something wrong here. And then maybe without admitting it, they begin to think? Does everything have to be harmony and calm dialogue with intellectual arguments and explanations? Or is the fear of anything but harmony and calm dialogue partly what kept us entrenched in the FOF in the first place — many of us, for quite a while.
The overriding emotions I read from you, Elena, are indignation and frustration, and understandably you’re lashing out — partly because you know that downplaying the problem is the glue that holds the FOF together. It’s the age-old question: how to offer dissent and stay within ourselves at the same time. As I wrote earlier, don’t let any of this get to you. None of it.
—-
I think the most blatant false dichotomy in the FOF was the following choice:
— Focus your critical thinking on yourself.
— Focus your critical thinking on things outside of yourself.
Ummm… how about both. Novel idea, ain’t it? And by the way, maybe the two are actually a different facet of the same thing, and both needed for the other.
Buit this false dichotomy was a major part of the propaganda in the FOF. And the effect of it was to discourage criticism of you know whom.
—
“I think a person who has never lived in a dictatorship can’t understand the power of propaganda. If you just hear always the same, if you always read in every newspaper the same, and if you have very few possibilities for other information, then you become very impressed by the things which you are told, and it’s very difficult to make up your own mind, and to be critical.”
– Ewald von Kleist, resister during the time of Nazi Germany
I mean what I said in my last post but what I didn’t say is that Ames Gilbert, Jomo Piñata and Bruce Levy, I know the value of what each one of you has brought here. Seeing what you don’t see, does not keep me from seeing that.
elena:
The simple fact is, we ex-followers both old and new have done more to liberate followers from the cult by sharing our experiences and humanity here on this blog than you have with your protesting at the gatehouse, or screaming on this blog, or with all the newspapers articles about the FOF that have ever been printed, isn’t that correct?
Has anyone said to you: “I saw your sign and left?” No.
So let’s work together here. One person with a sign is not going to inspire the government to take action either.
Don’t you remember what it felt like to get SCREAMED at as a child? Screaming at someone only shuts them down and drives them away, especially if there are, as you say, “in essence”. Is that your goal here?
(Humor, on the other hand has the opposite effect, that’s what makes satire both effective and compelling.)
IMO, getting angry at DXP, accusing her of being as bad or worse than FOFers (as you often do to others you disagree with like me) is not going to help in her healing process, nor is it going to inspire her or anyone else to answer your “questions”. It’s just you projecting your crap onto others in a way that makes it very difficult for them to respond back to you.
It is a symptom of the FOF’s narcissism that one can never do enough and one is all alone in one’s efforts, and that’s what you are spewing in your last post. I reject that notion, but not you personally or our common cause. We are all doing the best we can, despite what you think or how you may feel we are doing.
Like it or not, if we want to bring down the FOF, we will have to work together in a way that works for all of us, not just you.
In the past three decades individuals have tried in very public ways and failed to reach people in the FOF like you, haven’t they? For goodness sake, Burton was once on the front page of the SF Chronicle back in the mid 80’s and still the show goes on. T. Easley did a big whistleblower article when he left, and it did virtually nothing to stop Burton.
Freshly liberated or not, we have to find ways to work together.
Only by working together as a group will we succeed; it just may take longer than you would like. Small (key)strokes fell great oaks. We have a momentum now, and frankly, your style is not helping to bring people together…that’s why you were alone at the gatehouse. It’s not that we don’t agree with you.
Your anger directed at other posters here is more likely to drive people away from the blog and away from the cause. Don’t you get that? That’s what we as your peers are trying to get through to you. You accuse us of not listening to you…won’t you listen to us?
Please stop with the personal attacks, but don’t stop getting mad. Anger is a good motivator when it is directed in an appropriate way.
I sincerely thank everybody who replied to my question.
It really helps.
Someone on the GF was relating that one of the most basic, and experimentally demonstrated ways to achieve mind control of others is to first alter their behaviour. Once that is achieved, as it was in the FOF via “exercises”, “photographs”, teaching houses, gatherings of all varieties and “close group peer pressure”, then the mind alteration comes easily. The kicker, commented that contributor, is that the groupie’s new set of ideas/beliefs feels as if it came from within, as if he/she had verified them.
I had not heard that before, but it strikes me as very accurate, at the very least as one very accurate depiction of the cult phenomenon. I do not know if Burton ever learnt of such psychological fundaments, but he sure played them like a virtuoso. The effect of the closeness of the FOF, along with the countless exercises, tasks and the like, which were all justified by the original quest to know ourselves, build a new civilization (the Ark) and “support our beloved teacher”, was to slowly deprive use of our free will, discrimination and yes, of our ruling principle.
I personally am not very concerned with people in my vicinity who might express crazy ideas. I do not have a way to stop that and no intention. However, when I am in the presence of someone who has in mind to alter my behaviour, I now become very cautious.
Whalerider: “Your anger directed at other posters here is more likely to drive people away from the blog and away from the cause… Please stop with the personal attacks, but don’t stop getting mad. Anger is a good motivator when it is directed in an appropriate way.”
I agree. I also get many of the responses to Elena’s anger.
But I also believe the anger actually does make people think — including the gatehouse protests up to a point. In a sense, maybe there’s a common agenda here — simply convey the message that something is wrong, and that there is a possibility to find something better, and express it in many different ways.
Never heard that as a topic in an FOF meeting: “Today’s meeting is on the topic, ‘What’s Wrong with the School and How We can Escape from it and Find Something Healthier’ .”
Well, in my opinion, that’s been the topic of our meeting here. The responses have ranged from,
“Hey dudes! There’s nothing wrong! Smile and Be Happy You Idiots!”
to…
“Well, there’s something wrong, but not very wrong, so don’t worry about it”
to…
“Something is seriously wrong — and here’s why…”
In the process,. there have been some angry responses to the first two, which is probably what they wanted in the first place — because then we’re talking about the anger and losing the subject.
So… how to be angry and keep the focus on the thing you’re angry about, and not on you, the angry one. Part of the answer is keeping it balanced, letting others have the floor, and not overproliferating the message so that others tune out or become tired of us.
Whalerider, “Only by working together as a group will we succeed; it just may take longer than you would like. Small (key)strokes fell great oaks. We have a momentum now, and frankly, your style is not helping to bring people together…that’s why you were alone at the gatehouse. It’s not that we don’t agree with you.”
That’s bullshit Whalerider, not one of you has ever talked the value of using the public space to confront people with themselves because nothing confronts people as much as being publicly exposed. I got only insults from here when I spoke about it and no one else went to picket with or without me except Ames Gilbert who I have no idea why he actually went because he would greet me in and after that as if I had some kind of infection which made ever so surprising how truthful he was about what happened in court.
For that I continue to be grateful. But let’s not kid ourselves here Whalerider, we all know each other enough and if I have to get banned for standing up for what I think the issues are, I am willing to experience that. I tried to reason with DXP but she just started turning around in circles what I had said and what she has said and re-enforcing the Fellowship legitimacy to exist.
I have no hope of making friends of you Whalerider or Bruce Levy or Jomo Piñata or so many of you. We’ve been here for two long years and we haven’t accomplished that, I have no hope. If we achieve mutual respect amongst each other because we are willing to acknowledge the other’s position, that will be enough for me. Respect is enough when there’s no love. I do not respect Fellowship members who come here to play with our minds and turn things over and over saying the same thing we’ve been fighting for so long. I do not respect them, no I no longer respect pimps and sickos who used and abused us and I am verbally violent against them. Many of you here might choose to continue to be played with forever but I’ve had enough of it. If you need to ban me for that, it is your choice.
DXP might of course not be an FOF follower, maybe she’s an American. As an American, she can say, I realize that the Fellowship is inhuman but being inhuman is legal in this country and therefor I am happy if it takes care of it’s inhumanity and continues its course. Isn’t that basically what her position could be if she were that serious? But that is not what she’s doing, she is saying that there is no rape in the Fellowship, that people have choices, that leaving is good for those who can’t take it. What is the difference between her position and the Fellowship’s.
From the moment the Fellowship of Friends cult used and abused people from every other country in the world besides America, it stopped being an American problem and became a human problem. Americans might help a few of their friends, that they have contact with but no one helped us who were relegated to the outer circle of the Fellowship. They never helped so many of us in or outside because it is well known that hardly anyone else exists for you. Years and years and years went by thinking that there had to be something wrong with me because no one had ever spoken a word against the Fellowship. Just one word from you people outside would have given us a chance to get it in a third of the time. There are still hundreds of people in there justifying themselves because they enjoy the club while people in centers continue to pay without knowing what the fuck they are doing. Who is going to help them? No one can help people from abroad for whom even the internet is a rare reality. The Fellowship is what needs to be stopped not people looking for help.
I, in no way discount the efforts that many have made to expose the Fellowship but if all those efforts have led to here, the question here today is: Is the Fellowship of Friends Cult inhuman enough to get shut down? When one knows the answer to that in one’s heart, there are no buts, no excuses to not help shut it down with everything one’s got.
Ex-members think that the Fellowship is not illegal because it hasn’t killed anyone but many have committed suicide in response to its influence. Eileen Clinton came to the Fellowship begging for help and it closed its doors to her like it closed its doors to any of the children who asked for help but were not members. H. N. had to try to commit suicide three times before I was able to take her in, she had been treated as a lunatic since she was a child, thrown from house to house by parents by the teachers at the Lewis Carroll who, in the hospital when I went to see her after putting a bullet up her brain and blowing her eye out, still all they had to say was that she had been crazy since she was a child, justifying themselves in case she died. In six years that I lived at Renaissance I saw four people try to commit suicide in the Fellowship cult and that was me who was almost totally isolated from the current of gossip. Dorothy Beaulieu was fed mostly bread for a year because food was too expensive according to her caretaker and she only had twenty five dollars a week for it, was not given a bath in a year and had her nails almost an inch long filled with dirt when I took her in my care, although six high ranking fellowship members including Meredith Dambeck and Rosemary McDonald were looking after her. Three years later I had to drag her down the corridors of my house, an eighty four year old woman with alzheimer who had just come out of the hospital because we were alone and without anyone willing to help us, because for three years I asked for help and was humiliated for asking for it. It was I who paid with my salary from the insurance two of the helpers.
A man got cancer, his name I forget right now, but Peter Bishop too was made to model his cancer out in public and say that nothing but the Fellowship mattered in life, the Fellowship and Robert Burton, it was the most denigrating act of the Fellowship that I ever saw, using these people’s suffering to legitimize itself even deeper. They were made to lead the final meeting. He could hardly speak because his voice had already failed him but he did what Robert expected him to do.
You think that I am here because I am enjoying myself? My crap as you call it? Go fuck yourself Whalerider. You obviously haven’t got fucked enough in this lifetime.
If it wasn’t McDonald it must’ve been Rexford, I confuse the names.
Time out. State your opinion, send it out to the universe… If people don’t like it, let them not like it. It’s as simple as that. Focus on what you have to say, not on the reactions of others to what you have to say. Can you do that?
If not, I understand, but if you have to go on the attack I would truly consider taking a break from this. If you lose readers, no matter how right or just your viewpoints, what’s the point?
Elena, you wrote:
“If we achieve mutual respect amongst each other because we are willing to acknowledge the other’s position, that will be enough for me. Respect is enough when there’s no love.”
but to me you say:
“Your subliminal messages are so fucking sick Dirty Xero Prick. …You’re just another sick fascist, a pimp with a tie and an education that tied you to the System that rapes and exploits people everywhere…. I take back my apologies to you, you are as sick as all of them put together. …You’re so fucking clever but also so fucking sick that all your cleverness will turn against you. … You make me too sick to even bother to make corrections.” and so on.
This is counterproductive. And repulsive to me, personally. I’m not expecting all here to agree with me or that I will agree with everything everyone else has to say. But vicious name calling and insane obscenity is counterproductive, tho, apparently, common culture on this blog.
Then:
“she is saying that there is no rape in the Fellowship, that people have choices, that leaving is good for those who can’t take it. What is the difference between her position and the Fellowship’s.” and “From the moment the Fellowship of Friends cult used and abused people from every other country in the world besides America, it stopped being an American problem and became a human problem. Americans might help a few of their friends, that they have contact with but no one helped us who were relegated to the outer circle of the Fellowship. They never helped so many of us in or outside because it is well known that hardly anyone else exists for you.”
You really misunderstand me. Yes, I’m saying that it is very difficult for a criminal charge of rape to be brought against the fof. Indeed it would need to be someone directly – and RECENTLY – raped. I had thought that sexual harassment might be a better legal bet, but it seems there are real legal problems with that too, and again, it would take someone who has directly experienced harassment or rape RECENTLY to bring charges. The fact that the fof exists in the US means that the laws of the US apply (its not just about who’s what nationality and all Elena’s assumptions and all Elena’s bad experiences with some demographic). But just because I’m saying rape is really difficult for a legal (not moral) tact does IN NO WAY mean that “therefor I am happy if it takes care of it’s inhumanity and continues its course”. This just does not follow!! Let me say, if I was “happy” about it I would not bother to comment here and get obscene and horrible treatment from several commenters who don’t seem to like any “subtly” or variations on the themes whatsoever. Its the ‘either you’re with me or against me’ meme and I think its nonsense. (altho, it is not every day that I get called a Dirty Xero Prick, which is amusing – for a millisecond)
So, leaving the fof is NOT good? It is NOT good for people to become empowered and to realize a choice, in a moment, a possibility, a moment of change? If you really want a charge of sexual harassment or even rape to be brought forward, it will have to be by someone who realizes they DO have a choice, a possibility for a change, and feel empowered enough to make a call to the California Attorney General’s office (link: http://www.ag.ca.gov/ -its an interesting site to browse) to find the right agency/person to contact in order to report the harassment/rape. (*IF* any current fof members actually read this virtual rag, which is doubtful, then the call would be easy and extremely empowering to you and beneficial to -humanity). You, Elena, cannot do it all yourself. Others have to have a part too. I hope your vicious attitudes do not drive potential whistle blowers away.
Thank you for your clarifications DXP. They are very good. You still said there is no sexual slavery in the FOF, you also said, people have choices in relation to saying no to Robert. You said a lot of things that dismissed the cult as cult and your turning around again is only a turn around. You still listen very little and are not willing to acknowledge a hell of a lot of things. You’re so wonderfully cool though, pity even that is no longer trustworthy, so was Robert! You do surprise me because you seemed to help at the beginning, your perception was critical and clear but then you gave all those statements. I don’t ask you to forgive me again, if it’s a mistake time will prove it and we’ll walk out of it, if it’s not, time will prove it and we’ll walk out of it.
People don’t go away because there’s serious argument, they go away because they are afraid to hear. If they went away because of the arguments, the blog would have stopped in page one.
Elena, actually I HAVE listened to voices on this blog. They have been, personally very important to me – and very meaningful. What do you want from me with the “being cool” stuff?? I’m not Robert Burton and I don’t know what “all those statements” means.
I do listen, and often feel so very inadequate in responding. Like to Tatyana and others. Fortunately, there are others who are much more connected who can use this forum to respond to her (and others).
About sexual slavery – we will just have to disagree on that. But I think it is a simple matter of semantics – simple words and how we language these things. I have respect for the men who are used – horribly unfairly disgustingly shrewdly grotesquely – because I actually do respect those men. If it was women (or young girls) I would respect them too. You are using terms that are both moral and legal and those terms may be very different. I may be responding in terms where I’m trying to understand the legal implications (I’m not a lawyer, but actually really like the law) and you may be thinking I’m saying something moral. Just a misunderstanding of words. I would completely agree that the moral (spiritual and evolutionary, or whatever word applies) entrapment of people into sex is…. HORRIBLE. Not sure how I could say that more emphatically….. fucking stupid cock-sucking ass-licking baaaaaad. How’s that? I, literally, would like to take my fingernails and rip the faces off of people who do that. But, as I’ve said, I can’t do that legally. So, for me, the questions remain…. what CAN I do legally? what can be done for the current and future men who are and will be abused and harassed and raped???
But this blog seems to be so much more than those questions. Not exclusive of them but including them and more also.
Thought this might bind us together in efforts and stop keeping “knives to cut each others’ throats”. If any of you can think up ‘ammunition’ for the fight for justice, just join in…..Nigel.
Dear Mr McCarthy
I do not know if you are receiving recent correspondence from former members of the Fellowship of Friends Inc., which ‘poses’ as a church under California Law. I am one of those former members and I left the cult 20 years ago – it took me many years to free myself from the psychological scars and the guilt of losing so much money (mainly other peoples’) to the Fellowship of Friends. Others, with whom I blog on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion site (I suggest you read it, as it offers many insights into the psychological and sexual exploitation which goes on in the FOF), have stories to tell, depending on how ‘enmeshed’ they had become in the cult.
It has been difficult in the past and is so, now, with the FOF, to investigate fully and bring cults to court to face justice, but I believe that it would be possible, if a current member decides to leave and wants to sue for any number of things (the Statute of Limitations is one of those absurd legal ‘loopholes’ whereby you have to take action against the defendant fairly quickly and, as I have described, many have to recover before they are psychologically able to realize exactly what had occured to them).
I would be willing to be ‘frontman’ towards providing you with any information you might need, should you wish to go further with this information. I have also written to Senator Dianne Feinstein and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger regarding the matter and have copies of the letters. Please feel free to contact me…..
Nigel Harris Price BA Hons, Cert Ed, MIfL
nhprice@gmail.com
0 (11) (44) 1392 462103
16B Thornberry Avenue
Whipton
EXETER
Devon
EX1 3HR
United Kingdom
DXP – Thank you for talking to me, it’s good to know that you’re willing to talk. Your clarity here is ever so helpful. Yesterday I thought you’d run away already like all the other Fellowshippers who’ve come. Most importantly you’re beginning to sound human. When you first came you sounded like those wonderfully professional Americans who had the answer to everything, but really professional and it was and is beautifully cool but for the fact that you seemed to acknowledge only half of the world: your world. I think that’s the “disconnectedness” that you talk about. Now it seems you’ve opened a creek. Sometimes we are all so very inadequate in responding, that I’m willing to apologize again now for thinking that you were just another make up story from the Fellowship trying to deceive us about what needs to be done. Forgive my insults if you can, I thought Xerox sounded nicer but it wasn’t insulting enough!
“all those statements” are the ones we’ve been looking at in my others posts, the ones I questioned you sentence by sentence, your statements on humanity and the Fellowship. We might continue to disagree in many areas but I will make a special effort to trust that you are being sincere. It’s the insincerity of Fellowshippers who come here what drives me mad and I’m unfortunately, already very talented at exploding!
You state that there’s no sexual slavery in the Fellowship and I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on that further. Perhaps the difference is between the term slavery and trade which I much prefer. Actually, slavery implies that they are physically forced like so many women are in regular society but the parallels are pretty identical if we look carefully: presently a lot of women from Eastern countries are being induced into sexual slavery by people, who take advantage of the fact that they want to travel to the United States or Europe. They are brought over to these countries and once there they are told that they have to pay for their ticket, which all of a sudden has become an impossible figure. Their lives are threatened and they obey. I think if we want to understand the differences and the similarities we need to realize that once people are “induced” psychologically, the willingness to accept a situation that hurts their integrity is accepted in their mind as the “sacrifices” they are willing to make for the “cause”. And all though they are not physically threatened, once one has committed to the Arc, ones imaginary “life” is endangered by the threat of being thrown out. What is so dangerous in cults is that people have an amazing capacity to sacrifice themselves for “humanity” “the Arc” “the cause” and it’s that good will what the cult takes advantage of. Sexual trade in society has that ingredient in which the subject wishes a better life in the west but in Cults, the subject wishes a better life not only for himself in many cases but for the community. Every sacrifice is deemed necessary. Many perhaps also just hope to redeem only themselves, which is perhaps why the “greediness” of the Fellowship reached such extensions. In the Fellowship Cult we have both ingredients: People from other parts of the world that do wish to come to America and have a better economic life and people who’ve invested themselves in a spiritual system for which they are willing to make enormous sacrifices. That particular situation is often very different for American nationals joining the cult. As in everything, not all the members who joined from other countries were spiritually sincere but there is no reason to think that most of them weren’t. The majority commits to work with the System and the School before they even arrive in Oregon House and in the particular case of Robert’s boys, those who are brought by the pimps, have already been somewhat introduced to the benefits of being with the divine conscious being, in the inner circle, serving a man number eight, the wonders of having been chosen by Robert, the fact that they are being helped AND the implication that they are expected to pay, one way or another.
The difference between regular whores of the mentioned kind and Robert’s boys, particularly the Russian men, is that Robert’s boys have been induced into the situation not only because they have dreams to come to America but also because they have spiritually committed to what they think is the “School”. When members and ex-members look at the phenomena, they tend to see only the opportunist guy who once in the inner brothel starts behaving like a pimp in his own right and forget that they too, like everyone else in the Fellowship once had a dream of an Arc, a School, the Fourth Way, a Conscious Humanity and that it is life in the Fellowship and particularly at Renaissance what turned us all into fearful, inhibited, mean, insensitive, greedy, numbed, selfish human beings trying to survive in an institution that dehumanized us.
No one in the Fellowship knows the truth of that as much as Robert’s boys. If they are still hiding from the public responsibility to denounce Robert it is because they know better than anybody else the capacity for cruelty and indifference that people have and how easily they’ll be judged for having become pimps after being turned into whores without anyone ever remembering that they joined a Conscious School at a very tender age with a God-Father-Rapist in it and 12000 hundred people playing along with him.
I’m with you on the question of what can be done legally. Harry Hindsight asked recently about a class action suit and there are many legal reasons for the inadequacy of such move but if we got the courage to go ahead with it, some of the people who have left recently, including some of Robert’s men who’ve left long before, might be heard enough for the judges to know that the issue is not the money as much as the human implications of letting the Fellowship run.
My post is already very long, I would like to leave it there for now for I have another issue to write on.
Ames Gilbert, Bruce Levy, James Mclemore, Whalerider, Jomo Piñata and others, contempt is a great word for what is happening, I acknowledge that I must practice it all too often and that THAT is exactly the attitude I have felt from you personally and so many of you here. I will certainly try to observe it more carefully as I hope you do.
Some of the areas in which this happens is when we talk to others about someone as if they weren’t here. The “ganging” element comes through with that and on its own, ganging up is contempt enough.
Main Entry: con·tempt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin contemptus, from contemnere
Date: 14th century
1 a : the act of despising : the state of mind of one who despises : disdain b : lack of respect or reverence for something 2 : the state of being despised 3 : willful disobedience to or open disrespect of a court, judge, or legislative body
I don’t think we’ve gone as far as “despising” although Bruce towards me is coming so close to it, but the “disdain” is certainly there. We all protect ourselves from each other with disdain. No one here is absolutely open and that certainly seems necessary, when we were wide open for the Fellowship, look at what happened to us.
The inability to focus on the issues and instead attack each other personally is clear. Envy, indifference, suspicion are very much present, have been very present all through out the blog. There’s an appalling lack of consideration in all of us.
I’m extremely grateful for not being threatened with the idea of being banned in the recent interchange. It is amazing how destructive that element becomes. I sincerely thank you all for the willingness to work our selves through this nightmare.
Whalerider, I’m sorry I sent you where I don’t really want you to go.
The half help angered me twice as badly.
Bruce, you’re right in what you see and I thank you for pointing it out, you just don’t see a great deal of other things and are becoming as extreme as what we’ve so much criticized.
Agent 007 It is the first time on this blog that I feel someone is fairly objective without the extreme biasness. I thank you for that objectiveness from the centre of my heart. I did let it get to me all the way down to hell but it’s a lot easier to recover when hope is recovered.
May you all have a great day!
Elena, I’m only interested in what is effective. I am sixty; my accumulated experience tells me that I am not going to effect change in the organization called the Fellowship of Friends. Perhaps at one time the organization was intended to benefit the members, though I doubt it because the founder was corrupt from the start. What is for sure is that the organization now only exists for its own sake, and moves to preserve itself. The best advice indicates that it mostly operates within legal parameters, and is basically invulnerable as long as it continues to do so.
So, I’m only interested in individuals. The way I see things, there are (at least) three main methods to effect change in individuals. One is force, another is example, and another is reason. Force inevitably leads to methods like the Inquisition. Torquemada and his many successors through the centuries believed that the ends (elimination of heresy) justified the means. To me, that is an infallible sign of the lack of an operating conscience. Example is personal, but can range from the physical to the moral, and includes manifestations in the blog. That leaves reason, and even there, my experience leads me to believe that one cannot ‘change the mind’ of another directly; all one can do is to present information that may seep between the cracks and lodge there, waiting for the time when the person is ready to change their mind. I repeat, in my opinion, the person must already be open to change for genuine change to occur.
If you disagree, I would be happy to study any examples you have experienced where this is not true.
I picketed at the gate with you two times. The main reasons were: to support you against the bullies (for example, I noted that Steven Dambeck braked sharply when he first saw me, then accelerated away when he saw who I was), and to observe myself and others in a very novel situation. I did not expect to change any minds, but I expected that some thought patterns would be rearranged for a few minutes. I felt twice was sufficient. Ditto with coming with you to court; I wasn’t aiming to make friends with you, but to give you moral support as best I could.
You have only a certain amount of energy, as I do. That energy is limited, so the question may arise, how best to marshal and focus the limited energy? You are answering in the way you conduct yourself, and in the results you achieve. If you tell yourself the truth about the results you achieve, and you are happy with the results, then by all means continue along the same path, you are realizing your aims, and only you can determine that. If not, doesn’t common sense suggest that you should try different methods?
Elena, I’m only interested in what is effective. I am sixty; my accumulated experience tells me that I am not going to effect change in the organization known as the Fellowship of Friends. Perhaps at one time the organization was intended to benefit the members, though I doubt it because the founder was corrupt from the start. What is for sure is that the organization now only exists for its own sake, and moves to preserve itself. The best advice indicates that it mostly operates within legal parameters, and is basically invulnerable as long as it continues to do so.
So, I’m only interested in individuals. The way I see things, there are (at least) three main methods to effect change in individuals. One is force, the second is by example, and the third is with reason. Force inevitably leads to methods like the Inquisition. Torquemada and his many successors through the centuries believed that the ends (elimination of heresy) justified the means. To me, that is an infallible sign of the lack of an operating conscience. Example is personal, but can range from the physical to the moral, and includes manifestations in the blog. That leaves reason, and even there, my experience leads me to believe that one cannot ‘change the mind’ of another directly; all one can do is to present information that may seep between the cracks and lodge there, waiting for the time when the person is ready to change their mind. I repeat, in my opinion, the person must already be open to change for genuine change to occur.
If you disagree, I would be happy to study any examples you have experienced where this is not true.
I picketed at the gate with you two times. The main reasons were: to support you against the bullies (for example, I noted that Steven Dambeck braked sharply when he first saw me, then accelerated away when he saw who I was), and to observe myself and others in a very novel situation. I did not expect to change any minds, but I expected that some thought patterns would be rearranged for a few minutes. I felt twice was sufficient. Ditto with coming with you to court; I wasn’t aiming to make friends with you, but to give you moral support as best I could.
We only have a certain amount of time and energy. Given the limitations, the question may arise, how best to marshal and focus the limited energy? You are answering in the way you conduct yourself, and in the results you achieve. If you tell yourself the truth about the results you achieve, and you are happy with the results, then by all means continue along the same path, you are realizing your aims, and only you can determine that. If not, doesn’t common sense suggest that you should try different methods?
If you disagree, I would be happy to study any examples you have experienced where this is not true.
I picketed at the gate with you two times. The main reasons were: to support you against the bullies (for example, I noted that Steven Dambeck braked sharply when he first saw me, then accelerated away when he saw who I was), and to observe myself and others in a very novel situation. I did not expect to change any minds, but I expected that some thought patterns would be rearranged for a few minutes. I felt twice was sufficient. Ditto with coming with you to court; I wasn’t aiming to make friends with you, but to give you moral support as best I could.
You have only a certain amount of energy, as I do. That energy is limited, so the question may arise, how best to marshal and focus the limited energy? You are answering in the way you conduct yourself, and in the results you achieve. If you tell yourself the truth about the results you achieve, and you are happy with the results, then by all means continue along the same path, you are realizing your aims, and only you can determine that. If not, doesn’t common sense suggest that you should try different methods?
By some freak accident in cyberspace, the machinery has posted two variants of my message. Here (hopefully) is the correct one:
Elena, I’m only interested in what is effective. I am sixty; my accumulated experience tells me that I am not going to effect change in the organization known as the Fellowship of Friends. Perhaps at one time the organization was intended to benefit the members, though I doubt it because the founder was corrupt from the start. What is for sure is that the organization now only exists for its own sake, and moves to preserve itself. The best advice indicates that it mostly operates within legal parameters, and is basically invulnerable as long as it continues to do so.
So, I’m only interested in individuals. The way I see things, there are (at least) three main methods to effect change in individuals. One is force, the second is by example, and the third is with reason. Force inevitably leads to methods like the Inquisition. Torquemada and his many successors through the centuries believed that the ends (elimination of heresy) justified the means. To me, that is an infallible sign of the lack of an operating conscience. Example is personal, but can range from the physical to the moral, and includes manifestations in the blog. That leaves reason, and even there, my experience leads me to believe that one cannot ‘change the mind’ of another directly; all one can do is to present information that may seep between the cracks and lodge there, waiting for the time when the person is ready to change their mind. I repeat, in my opinion, the person must already be open to change for genuine change to occur.
If you disagree, I would be happy to study any examples you have experienced where this is not true.
I picketed at the gate with you two times. The main reasons were: to support you against the bullies (for example, I noted that Steven Dambeck braked sharply when he first saw me, then accelerated away when he saw who I was), and to observe myself and others in a very novel situation. I did not expect to change any minds, but I expected that some thought patterns would be rearranged for a few minutes. I felt twice was sufficient. Ditto with coming with you to court; I wasn’t aiming to make friends with you, but to give you moral support as best I could.
We only have a certain amount of time and energy. Given the limitations, the question may arise, how best to marshal and focus the limited energy? You are answering in the way you conduct yourself, and in the results you achieve. If you tell yourself the truth about the results you achieve, and you are happy with the results, then by all means continue along the same path, you are realizing your aims, and only you can determine that. If not, doesn’t common sense suggest that you should try different methods?
Thank you Ames, I agree with you in most of your comments. Yes, it was clear you were not interested in friendship then, just doing a job for a personal interest – no real contact with the individual you chose to help. Interesting style! Don’t we all carry our Fellowship luggage?
I have multiple aims in how I’m working with solving my leaving a cult and dealing with it. It’s all a struggle and I’ve already lost about half a leg and an arm but my spirit is intact. You might think they are a complete failure, but the fact that people like you and DXP are willing to participate, is to me a pretty good success! We hear each other at times and that’s good enough for now.
Copy of an email sent to the office of Senator Dianne Feistein, some time ago, when X-ray gave us all contact details…..
Dear Senator Feinstein
I have emailed you before regarding a little of ‘my story’, that it may go a little way to honour “all that was good and could be again” (Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones”), for your great state and the sake of all free peoples that the United States has the duty to uphold. I had to use my mentor friend from Pacifica as a contact address for ‘access coding’ into the email and I hope you will not break a confidentiality as I have copied and pasted this underwritten email to him this morning (GMT). Please feel free to contact me or telephone me after 1500hrs (your time) on 011 (44) 1392 462103
Dear George
I believe you are, perhaps, the most discreet person I have come across.
Should you have received mail from authorities regarding my contacting
them about the ‘cult shambles’, I sincerely believe you would have told me.
But you went on, in your email, to support your and my artistic connections
and that was your beautiful curve-ball! (“See if you can hit my curve” – ‘Field of Dreams’).
To ‘lay my cards on the table’, I take part in a blogsite called ‘The Fellowship of Friends Discussion’, set up by ex-members of ‘the cult’. Our aim is to ‘drain the victim pool’ and to pave the way for halting the evil that is perpetrated by Robert Earl Burton (the leader, ‘guru’ and my personal ‘Kurgon’ [see the film ‘Highlander’ with Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery]). You once said that “to look back is to become a pillar of salt” – that is Biblical – however Vedantic Scripture states that one has to return to ‘confront one’s daemons’. As you know, I was given an excellent and broad English education, a superb training in my craft, THE POPE GLORY (a critical point in my life and a ‘weapon in this fight’), and the chance of ‘gathering together the whole shebang’, by training to, and becoming what I am now – a Teacher of Adults in Metal Craft, and an owner of a successfully growing and, supported hugely by my family, small business. And with a mother by the name of Wallace (Scotland’s greatest freedom fighter!), dare I turn my back on all the noble virtues she taught me (courage, honesty and LOVE ‘for all sentient beings’ (Gautama, the Buddha) and not stand up for the noblest cause in the Universe – FREEDOM (“Maybe that is what freedom means – to fulfil your purpose” – ‘I, robot’, starring Will Smith)?
With gentle love to you and the hope that you may, in patience, allow me to see through this struggle for the sake of, maybe, a slogan displayed at the Monaco Grand Prix – ‘PEACE AND SPORT’…..Nigel.
Dear Ames
You see, I am one of life’s dreamers who has had a dream come true at the age of 53 and believe that nothing, given God’s grace, is impossible to achieve. What is your aim on this blogsite?…..Nigel.
Elena (#79-247), you ask what I was doing to help you while you were trapped in the Fellowship for so many years. I feel this question reveals a great deal about you, your maturity, and your sense of responsibility for your own decisions.
Elena, I chose to perform an experiment at the time I left. When I and other friends had decided that enough was enough, I talked the future over with them. Some decided to leave right away, but I decided to try to change things from within. So, I talked with whoever would listen. I interviewed whoever would accept questions, including figures of authority. I published my little newsletter. The experiment was to observe, in real time, what the reactions from individuals and the organization would be. The responses came, as warnings about my spiritual welfare, summons to meetings with ‘higher-ups’, averted gazes, anonymous letters, requests for help, and so on. The culmination was being banned from public meetings, which order I disregarded. You were there at my last meeting, and ironically the question I defended was yours! The next day I was expelled.
You had every chance to ask me why I was thrown out. I lived in Oregon House for the next four years. You had every chance to protest the way Girard and his minions looted the mails for ‘subversive literature’; if you didn’t see it happening directly, you heard about it. And I know that someone, though unbeknownst to me at the time, but who has regularly blogged here, took it upon herself to copy every bit of information that I had accumulated and sent out over many months, and mail it at her own expense to every member of the FoF in Oregon House. This information included the suppressed letters of Samuel Sanders, Thomas Easley, Richard Buzbee and others, many of the essays I had written trying to understand what was happening (which I have published previously on the blog), and my own final summary letter (also published here).
All this and more was available to you. You could have contacted me or any of the others who were thrown out at any time before, during, or after. You made your choices. Were you too busy making goo-goo eyes at Girard and planning your ascent in the hierarchy? Do you expect knights coming in on white chargers to rescue those who don’t want to be rescued? You had enough, and more than enough information and help available; you chose not to accept it. That’s your prerogative, but it is ridiculous and immature to complain about the results of your choices. Where you are today is a result of accumulated choices and actions, and you are responsible.
When Abraham deposed me in the Troy Buzbee lawsuit, I not only sent him all the material he requested, but I sent identical copies to every member of the Board. They knew, and know now, what is needed to make correct, responsible decisions. And, it appears that every member of the FoF in Oregon House was sent a copy of the ‘David Springfield letter’. Many thanks to whoever did that, but I don’t expect, nor have there been, mass exits from the cult as a direct result. However, the information is out there, in people’s brains and memory, and from that, the impulse to graduate from the FoF may flow in due course.
Your attacks on Whalerider, DXP and other targets of opportunity appall me. Your screaming tirades revolt me. I get the impression that you regard the blog as your personal pulpit, and in the end your blogs are mostly about you, despite the cover. You scream for attention––to you. Your many positive contributions are, sadly, far outweighed by your negative outbursts, in my personal opinion. I don’t expect you to change, you seem to be imprisoned by your belief in yourself as some kind of Joan of Arc. Good luck with that.
In fact Ames,
Without Laura, Cake and their generation, I lost all my fingers,
Without Bruce I lost the whole of my arms
Without you and Jomo, James and Whalerider
I would lose both my legs
But if I exchange my self
For the comfort of friendship that I so long for
The whole battle would be lost.
Nigel (#79-261), you are also one of life’s repeaters, and you have already graced us with this particular rambling letter (#260), full of inconsequence and non-sequiturs, and many others of the same ilk. Déja-vu all over again, as they say, as they say.
How did Senator Feinstein respond?
I have already stated my aims about my participaton on this blog a sufficient number of times.
Elena, when you write several long posts in succession, people will tune out, and they are tuning out, and many of them tuned out a long time ago. Maybe you’re sensing this? So you’re shouting louder and being more negative with people to get the attention you want? Maybe that works for a minute or so, but people will tune you out even more after that, so you’re achieving just the opposite of the intended effect.
People, for the most part, have been very patient with you on this page. I share Ames’ point of view in 262, and I agree with a lot of the criticism being directed at you above.
You’re not the only one with a weakness here, but don’t you see some truth in what Ames and the others are saying? (And with no buts?)
What I’ve learned through personal experience is that If I want to evoke a negative or opposite response from people, and if I want them to stop paying attention, overstating my point, being antagonistic, using superlatives, and saying the same thing continuously in the same conversation will all get the job done.
261, Nigel,
It’s been my opinion that simply talking about the FOF, period, is going a long way toward weakening the Burton agenda. (That’s exactly why some people are occasionally sent here to disrupt things.)
This was one of my indirect points in adding the quotation above from the German resister during WWII. If people hear different information than the party line, than the propaganda, it makes it more difficult to act without accountability. Without propaganda in a closed system of Nazi Germany, there would have been no World War II, no death camps, no Hitler staying in power for 12 years.
To keep his agenda going, Burton needs a similarly closed system of propaganda. That system is no longer closed, and it’s done some damage, and it will continue to do so. I’m sure every word here, by everyone, is helping, even if it’s just one follower checking in every week or so (I’m guessing it’s a lot more than that). I know you asked Ames, and not me, but I think that’s what makes the blog a good thing. Giving as many people as possible some space to contribute helps, though.
Hi Ames,
Your post came in, sending my last one.
Thank you for sharing your impressions.
The day that we were at that meeting I had just landed from a Fellowship trip to India to find that one of Robert’s boys, who had been a close friend of mine and had proposed marriage to me at some point, had not given the house to some people who were willing to rent it for a very good price because he’d been living there for free for six or more months and since he was one of Robert’s favorite boys at the time, felt he needed to continue in the house and I deserved it for not marrying him.
I had just landed perfectly sick, vomiting and with diarrea from the trip in which the couple in India, had organized a trip with Fellowship members which was my interest but when I got there they said they wanted to go walking in the Himalayas. When I said that was a great trip but that I could not go because I doubted I’d ever have the chance to come to India again and would travel in India, even if it meant on my own, they said they would not give me the money back because it was part of how they were paying for their trip. I finally managed to get my money back with the pressure from other students and went alone on the trip which was wonderful but very tough and by the time I got back was very sick from the Indian water.
At the meeting you did stand up and protest with others but like me often, the five of you, I think it was, went over the top, were what at the time we called, negative and disrespectful of the person leading the meeting and never contacted me after. The incident was minimized by the same cult mentality that judged the negativity that came from you but not the issues. I wanted to talk about it but the five of you just flew away with the question I’d made which was: How are we going to deal with abuse of friendship amongst us? and the last one finally insulted Linda, who was leading the meeting.
The next day when I went to see Girard with Robert’s boy and the boy simply negated that he was supposed to give the house to the renters and I got upset about it, Girard almost slapped me, he raised his hand, I moved back and he contained himself. I should have left, of course, but what happened was that during that day I had an inner experience in which I convinced myself that the fact that I’d been paying the Fellowship a little less than ten percent and sometimes late, meant that they had set the play up with my friend, so instead I apologized!!! I was only stopping in San Francisco on my way back to Colombia and left shortly after so I never got the information you mention, never, ever heard anything personally negative about the Fellowship from anyone until the blog was sent. Few people spoke to me after that. Few people spoke to me ever but the few that did, did it with the whole of their heart. A few years ago, Gerda A. told me she had hated me for being the reason for you five to get expelled, that she had hated me for years… I had no idea but the vibes amongst many people came through.
This does not mean that you’re not right in a lot of your appreciations in that cult members, once invested do not want to be deviated from their aim (and I was no exception) and THAT is what makes the isolation so dangerous, THAT is why I insist that picketing has to continue, THAT is why I affirm that the Fellowship needs to be closed down so that it stops hurting people.
You have the right to attack me for my blogging, to interpret me as you wish. The credit you don’t give me I carry in the spirit that leads me and in it, I know myself transparent. If I am carrying the weight of this blogging to a great extent, I did not chose it as an opportunist, it happened this way, I did not know I would have to take it on. You all seem so much better equipped.
Dear Fofblogmoderator and visitors,
I’m a long time PAST poster and long time lurker who has felt impelled to delurk for a bit here. Perhaps this is a time to note that despite the length of this post, after earlier having said my peace, it has seemed to me that fewer syllables per idea per day is generally a good thing – been living by this code. BTW, in my experience with other blogs – only about 10% of viewers are active. This blog may have a much bigger impact than people have more recently expressed.
1). I’m with Ames from a bunch a posts ago when he articulated several possible aims for the blog, the LEAST and last being – the rant. (and his new recent posts)
It seems to me that the blog has done a lot of good – as evidenced by the posters here that note that they left the Fellowship of Friends a few months back, etc. In this regard, the emotional abusers of this space – do a high disservice to the people that they claim to want to help.
Consequently, I think that Elena ought to be banned for good from posting – as though her intentions may be decent, the effects of her emotional inappropriateness (and damage), and ongoing drama and space-taking are highly destructive and diluting in the balance. The difference in the tone of the blog when she was recently gone – as compared to now might be a particular case in point.
Also, for what it’s worth, I think that Nigel’s posts-limit should be one reasonably lengthed post per day. He’s a good fellow and has an admirable insight into himself and often strikes a high emotional tone – but there might/ought to be an imposed limit for the benefit of someone who is clearly well-intentioned but that at times cannot limit themselves.
2). I may have previously mentioned (thousands of posts back) a book that was very helpful to me on leaving the Fellowship after twenty years. On recall, it was entitled “Strange Gods” and was written by two psychologists or psychiatrists. Trying to find it just now on Amazon – could find similar titles but was unable to ascertain that any were the exact book. In large part this book is a study of possible long-term damage to ex-cult members including those from at least three disparate cults including the Moonies, etc. There were any number of points in this book that helped me.
ONE, (and most importantly) it helped me see better then that the Fellowship was a cult. ALSO, they made a compelling case that Brand X religions with charismatic leaders (most would be defined as cults) have been with humanity as far back as we can know. In the United States this phenomenon that includes the Fellowship of Friends did not start with the 60s – but all the way back – including sects of Lutherans, protestants of all denominations, Oneida, Shakers, and so forth and so on. FINALLY, their study of the psyches and physical well-being of ex-cult members mirrored my own tentative internal observations and conclusions – that unfortunately for a number of years I was somewhat in a position to see. And that was that the harm by the Fellowship was distributed almost in a “bell-shaped” manner – that some members appeared to be DEEPLY harmed by their experience (thinking of those such as Brixn Sixler and Kexin Kxlly), some appeared to be helped by their experience, and the majority perhaps fell in-between.
This is NOT meant to be interpreted as a defense of the Fellowship of Friends which I consider fraudulent, and of the most odious nature. I believe, for example, that Robert Burton visited sexual humiliation, shame and crippling psychological damage on many – certainly hundreds of otherwise young heterosexual seekers, possibly many more. That he damaged the decent impulses and trusting nature of many thousands of those seeking emotionally enriched lives. That Robert Burton is in fact truly a spiritual criminal – he is the play of crime that he freely accused others of perpetuating.
THIS case can be made, and does not need to be overstated to help others not enter the trap, or to help untangle the binds that hold those who are already ensnared. The danger in overstating the case, for example, is that those in the Fellowship will not see themselves in the mirror per the overstatement – and may thus stay even longer.
Also, if you think about it carefully this discussion tends to conflate two similar but distinct ideas. Like the difference between public health and individual health outcomes. In fact there is a name for this – the “public health paradox.” What can be bad for the whole – at the individual level can be bad for some, and good for others.
Additionally, it took me personally a long time to more deeply understand the Fellowship experience – and even when I thought I had understood it long after leaving, this blog helped me see that I had more to learn. Understanding is indeed a journey.
To me, there is a great danger in insisting on over-conformity as a stifler of expression if, as a group, a critical mass of writers to this blog were to try to impose a standard view on every sincere ex-student who post their honest differing views. A kind of ex-cult political correctness….
This is why I think that opinions such as DXP’s (who does not appear to me to be a Fellowship of Friends plant) – do not seem unreasonable. And honest opinions ought to be in fact welcomed – and not be used as fodder for unhealthy emotional attacks. That it is decent and true to encourage honest and diverse opinions, recognizing that we’ve each had different experiences and are at OUR own (and not necessarily superior) stage of understanding.
Thank you.
Old FOF
Agent 007,
I have not felt any negativity in any of the posts I’ve written today. I did not intend to write more after I wished you all a great day and am only answering to people writing to me.
I do have a right to respond, I assume.
007 Posts are coming in very quickly, I hadn’t even seen your post 265 when I sent in 267.
In September 1994, Christina Bishop (as I knew her) called me for a meeting about my activities. I suggested we meet for lunch at the Lodge, and took my tape-recorder, as was my habit in those days (I still have many tape cassettes, some of them now crumbling, from those last months).
Here is the heart of the conversation, with the numerous ‘ah’s, ‘umms’, partial sentences, interruptions, cross-talk and so forth of the actual conversation edited out.
C. “… I really want to know why you’re resisting so much. Robert has never personally harmed you, and swears that sex with Troy Buzbee was consensual and that he didn’t know he was under seventeen. So why are you pushing so hard? You’ll only have to leave, and you’ll lose everything.
A. This is pretty strange; you’re a representative of an organization that holds a central principle, “Verify everything, question everything”, and yet when I do, you react blindly to protect the organization’s identity, which in this case is Robert’s identity clothed with a few layers. So I’m not going to talk to you as a representative. I am willing to talk to you as an individual and on the basis of friendship. Do you want that?
C. Yes, I do. I’ve known you for sixteen years, and I feel that we are friends.
A. Well, I can’t say that, but there has always been that potential; we haven’t spent enough time to actualize it, that’s all. But I’ll talk to that potential. I’m acting now, publishing my newsletter, talking to people despite Robert’s demand to stop, because it’s the right thing for me to do at this time. I’m at the point where if I don’t act, my conscience will die. I’ve been burying it for sixteen years, and this is my last chance.
Look, I joined the school to develop my conscience, to learn the difference between morality as predicated by society, and my true internal guide, and I’ve found that I’ve actually joined an organization that preaches wakefulness and induces sleep. I have to take this chance, and I can no more help it than Robert can help trying to squash it. I feel I’ve woken up from a nightmare, I’m on the surface coming up for breath for the third time, and that what is happening will lead to my freedom. Robert can threaten that my soul will go to feed the moon, but he doesn’t know and can’t know. I’m taking back my power regardless of the consequences, and for me, this is being true to myself.
This is the most important thing in my life, and means more than life. It’s just the way I’m built. I can’t claim to be right, but neither can you or Robert. No one can know for me. I feel I’m a child of God, a particle of Source, and Robert has no place between me and God.
So, there it is, go and tell him that, if you dare! I honestly think he won’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about…”
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
I like to think that Christina appreciated this conversation (melodrama and all), but that is unknown. What I did hear is that when later she became director of the London center, she was asked for advice by a struggling student who was considering leaving the FoF. I was told that she answered that it was a matter of conscience, and that if the student’s conscience said it was better to leave, that was the correct course. This was reported to Burton, and he demanded that she and her co-director husband leave the FoF, which they did. She is dead now, but I hold her in my memory as one of the few honest, open, and decent ‘authority figures’ I knew in the FoF.
I don’t get this?!?!? Does Ames feel the need to ‘downplay’ the way other bloggers ‘put their word out’ (Elena and myself for two of them) and then put his vanity feature firmly on display and show how well he has followed his conscience and ‘navigated himself’ into, through and out of the FOF?…..Nigel.
“It’s been my opinion that simply talking about the FOF, period, is going a long way toward weakening the Burton agenda.” (007)
Information is a good thing and simple information is probably a large reason so many people left. I liked Ames’ idea “The way I see things, there are (at least) three main methods to effect change in individuals. One is force, the second is by example, and the third is with reason.” The very nature of a blog is not force – that would be legal action (and probably the only way to effect change for RB). But example and reason are possible. I also think that direct contact with people who leave is really helpful. I’ve heard that there are many ex members still in the OH area and support is available thru them and on the GF too. People have to feel empowered to leave willingly. Any support of that might be good.
Your history in the fof is fascinating Ames. Nigel, this is not “vanity” (!!) – it is actual inspiration and witnessing how others discover and follow their consciences is probably the most inspiring. Witnessing how others wake up, heal, confront their lives, ask for help are all very inspiring. Reading other’s attacks, not inspiring, or empowering.
I don’t know the membership status of the fof now, more people leaving? joining? Recruiting done in the US or in other countries. I followed in2it’s advice (I think it was that person) and did searches on the fof and found lots of information. Of course it was in English. Not sure if most info is in english or if it was because my googles were in english or a combination of that.
271. nige
I respect this is your opinion, but I’ve known Ames for many years and I can tell you you don’t know what you’re talking about in relation to him, and neither does Elena. I have never perceived anything but the most noble, open and compassionate of sentiments from Ames, and yet we all have our personal limits on bull shit. Of course people are going to continue to live in and defend their version of reality but Elena’s view, and your defense is transparent and deluded crap..
As I said Bruce, Ames was extremely accurate in his account of what happened in court and I’m still grateful for that, it shows that you Ames, have enough integrity to be truthful in significant enough areas included in your post in which you confirm that you had no interest in friendship and where therefore not friendly. That is all I said and you confirmed it. It was surprising when you expressed for the journalist the warmth and openness that you didn’t have for me, I really wondered then what you were doing there. Nevertheless that didn’t stop me from being grateful to you for the gesture of being there or picketing with me after. It seemed you had a clear agenda of your own and it coincided with what I was doing although you made it clear that there was nothing friendly about it. I don’t suppose any of you have an inkling of how that shocks one in such a situation but coming from the Fellowship it was just more of it.
We are worlds apart and it doesn’t look like they are going to get any closer. The mutual ego feeding club is about to start and confirm again the comfort of display in the alikeness of each other’s programming. Have a happy feature party, I’ll drop in for the next show or maybe you can find another professional photographer willing to work for free!
DXP Reading other’s attacks, not inspiring, or empowering.? Unless they are directed to the right person?
Your biased minds will keep at least you, in that sweet confinement.
Elena: 112,118,120,121,122,124,127,130,131,138,139,143,144,145,146,147,172,178,179,182,183,200,204,213,219,220,223,225,228,240,242,247,248,251,254,255,259,263,267,268,269,274…….;.
274 elena
Elena has found the words that I was witholding. I do not wish to add to her post tonight…..Nigel.
Nige, Elena,
I’m wishing good things for both of you. Keep your heads up; I’ll do the same.
Would somebody send me some cannabis seeds?
277. arthur
Arthur – If I had any I would. In the meantime, take a look at this, and try not to drool.
http://www.planetskunk.com/
277 arthur/278 James Mclemore
Don’t send me any. ‘Weed’ gives me funny physical effects like I feel I am freezing to death and my brain goes ‘soggy’, if you know what I mean, man!
After reading 276
You 007? You turn yourself around as soon as it seems convenient to you because you’ll lose readers, aren’t you already tired of the passarella from the Fellowship?. Patient with me on this page? How far do you want me to laugh? How patient do you think I’ve been? You’ve insulted me almost every day for two years one way or another and I’m still here: The issues remain the same, the question here is not Nigel or me or Ames or anybody else for that matter, the question here continues to be Is the Fellowship of Friends inhuman enough to stop it? Or are you going to keep buffering that with whether I say it screaming or gently or kissing somebody’s ass? because if I’m not willing to, what I say is never good enough for you people to consider. You say my positive arguments are darkened by my outbursts but when there are no outbursts you keep dead quiet and learn while ostracizing me so that you can say them in turn and applaud to each other for doing so. God, you are such gems.
The question here continues to be very simple. If you can put me down all the way then you won’t have to think about the inhumanities of the Fellowship and the fact that it needs to get closed down no matter the effort it takes. If you take me out then you won’t have to think about it, then you’ll allow your selves to forget. What you want is to sit back in your comfort of pretty angles and the already made decision that there is nothing that can be done against the Fellowship? You’ll talk with one and another member here and there when they allow? Good for you, go ahead and do that. It’s your cult, your country and your way of life, let whoever get fucked because you are not willing to interrupt your friends who are there for the social club and then you can also have your social club talking about how they are in a cult.
Nigel you’re fucking crazy and a nuisance, you’re like the joker in the castle, you’re fucking wonderful and at least we’re not pretending to be absolutely perfect like this suckers who think they can buffer just about anything because they keep a straight face and are as numbed as each member of the Fellowship inner circle but think they are not deluded!
Ames? You might have some wonderful things Mr. Gilbert but when you came to court and treated me the way you did and then turned around and bent head over heels for the journalist and modelled for him for pictures and talked so much that he couldn’t interview me there and had to make an appointment for another day, you pealed your copper clearer than I could have ever done for you. You managed to accomplish that because what matters for you is not the individuals but the show. The imaginary picture that Ames Gilbert is such a wonderfully decent guy who helps others but can’t even look at them because you’re too busy looking at yourself: the t-shirt, the pants, the ass.
You’ve been out of the Fellowship for over fifteen years and you still expect me to scream with a gold alchemy sound that doesn’t hurt anybody’s ears. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
AHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
It’s so good to scream, you should all try it every once in a while, maybe it’ll help you be alive and at least look at people next time you try to help them. At least I was able to look at Dorothy Heather and Eileen, but you? You wouldn’t come close to them even if they paid you. No, you couldn’t do that, you have to look at them as inferiors because other wise it wouldn’t feed your imaginary picture.
If you were at least honest with your selves and at least said where exactly I hurt you, we’d be so far ahead, but no, you have to buffer that and make up the show that it’s just because I’m saying FUCK, but that’s not it, it is that here I’ve questioned our lives over a hundred times and they are pitiful but what is most pitiful about them is that we are going to let the Fellowship Cult go on with the show.
Elena reminded me, but this is not about her and me in particular…..
“It is the crazy people in this life who get things done” (nhp 2009)
We won’t get anything done Nigel, we are idiots too, shut yourself up, go to bed, rest, be your self else where, it’s not worth it and you aren’t helping me, you’re a fucking nuisance too and they are right in saying so and that’s O.K. but stop, please stop, get a life in real life, there ain’t any here.
Don’t wish to be disparaging, Elena, but I have had a ‘napping’ night and it is now morning. I work today through Thursday, 11am – 9pm (with a couple of breaks) at my teaching classes and that is my crazy dream! Even my father, who is a retired ‘gentleman’ bank manager said to me, “I thought you were going to ‘fall flat on your face’ after a month, but here you are, making it happen for yourself and the students who love what you do for them”.
There is a reason for the blog and, despite all the bickering, I am sure that we can maintain the aim of ‘draining the victim pool’ until such time makes itself apparent to be ‘the straw that breaks the camel’s back’…..Nigel.
Elena and Nige could you just post one to two meaningful posts per day?
Communicate your private issues per email?
Thanks
284 Panoritsa
So we do not ‘go round the mulberry bush’…..
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78/#39. fofblogmoderator – August 1, 2009
Hey Ames- Regarding your post #35. Good points. I did publicly ask Nigel to restrict his comments to a handful per day and he basically complied. If you noticed, DXP posts more than Nigel but no one seems to mind. I’m not sure what that means.
Elena, you seem to get “worked up” without too much outside impetus and you do get abrasive and you have been posting more than most. It’s feels as if you can’t stand the “silence”.
Let’s try this self-discipline idea. There are some rules and regulations posted at the top of the blog. One of the new ones that I put up was asking people not to take up too much space. Unfortunately, that term (taking up space) was used in the FOF quite a lot and I try to avoid using FOF terms- just because. So let’s just say that;
1. If you have more than 3-4 posts in any given day, then that’s probably enough.
2. If you disagree with somebody try not to call them names.
3. If your post seems rather personal and directed to another individual on the blog ask them for their email address and write them privately.
My email address is : nogurus@yahoo.com and my name is Steve.
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77/#67. nigel harris price – August 2, 2009
Judging by what is being posted recently, I feel we should have ‘rigorous debate’ about what a blog site concerning the FOF/Burton/members and the ‘journeys’ of ex-members should be all about. Despite the fact that I would have wanted to defend my position about why I ‘vent’ and ‘rant’ and I am sure Whalerider would have adequate knowledge of that, it is not really now necessary. Are we about to expand horizons and become inventive about the blog ‘world’, or is it going to be rules and ‘nice’? I do not see us staying as before…..Nigel.
Panoritsa…..I have no hidden agenda and, besides, Elena has only once replied to me by email and Steve, never…..Nigel.
268 & 276 are new
It seems it might be best if Elena sits out this next page
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