Fellowship Of Friends/Fourth Way School/Living Presence Discussion – Page 144 December 4, 2014
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Fellowship of Friends - Living Presence Discussion 
INDEX TO THE BLOG
Animam Recro – Fellowship of Friends – a cult for intellectuals, and Fellowship of Friends Discussion
Part 1 through Part 10
http://animamrecro.wordpress.com/2006/04/16/fellowship-of-friends-a-cult-for-intellectuals/
The Fellowship of Friends Discussion – Free speech is a dirty business
Part 11 through Part 33
http://fellowshipoffriends.wordpress.com/
Fellowship Of Friends/Fourth Way School/Living Presence Discussion
Part 34 through the current page
https://fofdiscussion.wordpress.com/
These links will allow you to access every page of this blog from its beginning in 2006.
Read with an open mind and you will find out the truth about Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends.
And if you are a member of the Fellowship of Friends you may find your path to freedom.
244. Linda Jo – December 4, 2014
One more worth re-posting
286. waskathleenw – December 31, 2009
Someone,
It can take a long time to fully understand what happened in the Fellowship of Friends. It’s common to hold the reasons for leaving in one hand and the reasons why it was all worthwhile in the other — for a very long time. Holding both this way softens the edges of what is hard to look at and admit. It took me a lot of years to let go of that psychological balancing act. It sounds as though you aren’t there yet, and you are preaching to people who have seen way more of the exit process than you have.
You may feel differently about all this in 10 years, and I think you could learn a lot from the people here if you would listen rather than preach about things you don’t yet have the experience to understand.
I wish I’d had this resource when I left.
to 241 Whalerider…..
For some reason (and posted before, ages ago) I was born with the surname PRICE…..ooohh!! Robert ? Did I not pay enough ? ooohh!! Robert, your teaching was wonderful…..NOT…..the usual pyramidial, heirarchical sick s**t that we see in corporations, politics and churches today. So far removed from teachings of the pure spiritual paths…..all is SPIRIT….. the SELF wanders then finds itself directed toward the SOURCE….. struggles upstream/counter-torrent rather than drifting toward “the wild and wasteful ocean” (Henry V, W Shakespeare)….the TEACHER, when not in sight is seen through the ‘inner eye’ and heard through ‘the inner ear’ but the efforts ARE GAINED, NOT GIVEN…..unlike the silk shirts and underwear of FOF ‘pretty boys’…..Jesu Christe…..all were to blame for each and every unneccessarily suffered moment…..and each passed ‘glory time’ in the Galleria, Lincoln Lodge or Frollicking Vineyard……
Yes…..there are still some ways beyond the complainery de fof…..it’s the school of hard knocks and there are NO SOFT OPTIONS…NIGEL
“In feeble-minded or mad persons, aberrations from the average pattern of responses and actions are the results of their mental incapacity to adhere to the ordinary ways of the world. Through inherent psychic weakness, their directive effort has come to an impasse, or has fizzled out. The cases of break down of the mind in ordinary madness are as often due to aimlessness in life, as they are due to insufficiency, or to an inadequacy of the available “will power” or mental strength. There are usually many other contributory factors in such cases. Persons who find shelter in mental hospitals are generally those who have been subjected to unusual mental shock or strain. They lose their balance of mind due either to insufficient mental development or to the operation of physiological or psychic forces of disruption. Though these physiological or psychological forces that have caused mental disruption are irresistible, they are of the ordinary kind. In ordinary madness, the collapse of the normal functioning of the mind has come about by unmanageable conflicts or disintegrating factors; and the best that can be hoped for by removing the causes of disturbance, is the restoration of the previous state of normality of mind.”
– From the Foreword to The Wayfarers
Re: #4
What did you do with Mick?
I suppose I can confess—after the fact— to being feeble-minded for joining the FoF in the first place but, I would prefer to just think that I was gullible and living with a bunch of “hippie chicks” didn’t hurt the allure. That old satyr, Gurdjeiff, noted that most everything we do—or did— is driven by sex and I agree. The idea of being somehow superior to everyone else didn’t hurt my ego either. Finally, the notion that a “scientific approach” could be applied to studying the magical realm was appealing to me (various intoxicants helped with this misperception). All in all it was a very compelling brew of lies and circumstance in the early 70’s.
I’d be curious to know from someone who joined in the last ten years whether the formula has been changed much.
Bob Stolzle
Occasionally I like to indulge in other forms of madness. In this case I didn’t want to let #3 be politely ignored.
@nigel
Thank you for revealing your Source…Will Shakespeare!
“Polonius: Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t…How pregnant sometimes his replies are. A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of”
~Hamlet
It is almost a year since I entrerd this site. Glad to see that most of those who used to write here don’t do it anymore. I think it’s a heathy sign. All members and ex-members are entiteled to be happy, within the FoF and outside. There is not enough time do dedicate so much of it to preaching other adults how they should live their lives. There are less than 1500 FoF members worldwide, most of them are in thir 60‘s and 70‘s. Why bother?
“Why bother?”
It’s not a bother at all. One person may read something from this page (or the previous pages) and decide to free themselves, or skip that prospective cult-member meeting. Well worth a few minutes now and then.
Darn it all, Someone!
I was trying to lead a happy and healthy life, and avoid wasting my time posting here.
Then you, loyal defender of Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends, had to show up yet again to remind me why I had bothered.
To my knowledge, the current membership, the majority of whom have been recruited outside the U.S., is considerably younger than you suggest. (Perhaps you’re thinking of the old-timers in Oregon House, CA.) And, as of November the official count was 1,597.
I guess the positive news is that, despite its dozens of social media recruiting sites, the Fellowship is attracting few new members.
Thank goodness someone (not you Someone) continues to warn the young and naive (as we once were) about the dangers posed by Burton and the Fellowship.
Happy holidays!
8. Someone – December 6, 2014
Because your daddies are evil, you lying bitch.
8. I think you intended to write “fewer than 1500….” But I don’t mean to preach.
Way back in time, I wondered: Exactly what IS wrong with Horn and Gans? Have they ever really questioned, doubted or observed themselves? . . .felt remorse, guilt or shame? Do they have anything real in themselves – any real human qualities, values or virtues, conscience, intelligence or integrity – eyes to see or ears to hear? How could they both be so selfish and self-centered, pompous, proud and arrogant, hateful, sinful and vicious, absurd, insane and obscene?
I was not alone in this quest. . .
To name something correctly gives us a certain amount of power over it. Through its name we identify it. We are powerless over a disease until we can accurately name it.
We cannot even begin to deal with a disease until we identify it. . .
The treatment of an illness begins with its diagnosis. But is evil an illness?
Dr. M. Scott Peck in People of The Lie: The Hope of Healing Human Evil
#8 Someone says “There is not enough time do dedicate so much of it to preaching other adults how they should live their lives.”
That wouldn’t be you dedicating time to preaching to us how we should live our lives by any chance?
(Though evidently not enough dedication to ensure accurate spelling on your part)
Linda 13
re: “To name something correctly…” in the past I’ve thought of burton and his ilk as “sociopaths” — which may be part of the picture but it’s worse than that… plenty online info comparing sociopaths with psychopaths.
“…Psychopaths, on the other hand, are unable to form emotional attachments or feel real empathy with others, although they often have disarming or even charming personalities. Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people…. Psychopathy is the most dangerous of all antisocial personality disorders because of the way psychopaths dissociate emotionally from their actions, regardless of how terrible they may be.”
light reading on a dark subject:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Psychopath-Test-Journey-Industry/dp/1594485755
This didn’t get through the ‘moderator’ first time… second try in 2 parts:
Linda 13
re: “To name something correctly…” in the past I’ve thought of burton and his ilk as “sociopaths” — which may be part of the picture but it’s worse than that… plenty online info comparing sociopaths with psychopaths.
“…Psychopaths, on the other hand, are unable to form emotional attachments or feel real empathy with others, although they often have disarming or even charming personalities. Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people…. Psychopathy is the most dangerous of all antisocial personality disorders because of the way psychopaths dissociate emotionally from their actions, regardless of how terrible they may be.”
light reading on a dark subject:
http://www.jonronson.com/psycho.html
12. Parson Yorick – December 7, 2014
I’ve had a few words since. I just wish I could tell it/her/him how I really thought. (someone).
One thought was the disgust at the recent Tony Blair Christmas Card, on a couple of TV shows. It’s like that. Shock. Embarrassment. Disgust. That’s Horn, Glans and Conscious Bob, having a great big spunk in God’s face and never ever living it down. And to continue to spectate in that? Milk of the poppy. Bad acid, baby. So there so many things one could say. Put a nazi swastika on Christ’s face. Picture your mother’s face being smashed in by a hammer. That’s a teeny bit why. Because it’s an education in Evil and Madness and what is not Human. Because it lacks Awareness. Walks on Water, Sucks Satan’s Cock. Yeeeeuuuuuuch.
I think I could forgive it if it were remotely tasteful, human or natural, like an audience reaction.
It is a waste of time. That is why. But then I find it all hilariously funny. I have a very dark sense of humour, though. In Salad Fingers I see Burton.
18. Paul … I don’t know why this was addressed to me. I try to maintain my equanimity w/r/t Burton and the FoF.
Sociopaths may or may not kill and are mostly a product of their social environment, but all serial killers are Psychopaths, they are born different, it shows in the images of their brains.
I see systematic lying equivalent to serial killing of human innocence, vampires feeding on life essence…
Thanks ton2u, for your comment on psychopathic-sociopathic personalities and cult leaders, which reminded me of several previous comments:
15. paul gregory – July 31, 2014
I don’t get how rape equals sex, whatever kind of sex it is, or rape, for that matter. Rapists have preferences for a sex, his preference is for the male sex, particularly that part of the male sex that doesn’t want to have sex with itself, or him, but wants to have sex with ladies, which we call ‘heterosexual’. When, to take an example, a ‘heterosexual’ has violent non-consensual sex with a ‘lady’, do we take that as the act of making love to a lady? The act of sexual violence is a negation of all of life’s values and meaning. Violence never makes sense.
Bob is a ‘goddess in a man’s body’. It does sound a bit gay, doesn’t it? The ‘A’ influence analogue of Bob would have to be the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. A person, with a beard, breasts, and a long glittery dress like starlight, provoking mingled confusion, fear and wonderment. A hallucination at the end of a rather long strange party – in this case, a fancy dress party where everyone came as accountants, librarians and university professors.
How is a rapist entitled to the term ‘heterosexual’ or ‘gay’? By committing an act of deliberate sexual violence and harm, surely you forgo the sex part of the sex act? Is rape sexy? Is rape ‘gay’? Is it ‘straight’? Gay is a word for same sex love and relationships. Love is nice. What bob’s doing isn’t. Where is the love in his actions? Where is the love of men in his ‘homosexuality’? How is it that malice aforethought towards others’ minds, hearts and genitalia on a mass scale can be regarded as being harmlessly, just a bit ‘gay’? or ‘gay’ at all? Maybe, for some, it’s ‘one of the expenses of being in this school’.
It is not merely promiscuous, but a deliberate violation of what should be sacred to every individual, by means of grooming, corruption, intimidation and insinuations, leading to sexual violence which can and almost certainly must have lifelong implications. Not gay. Not even remotely ‘homosexual’. More Holocaust.
‘You’re a wasted face
You’re a sad-eyed lie
You’re a holocaust’
Alex Chilton
. . . . . . . . . .
16. archer – August 1, 2014
Paul, thanks for bringing some clarity.
Slightly different topic. One of my own most vivid recollections of this cult was the often bizarre contradictions and dysfunction with respect to couples… heterosexual or gay. A lot of it’s probably just one of the symptoms of the diseased attitudes about sex and love handed down from Burton himself, but whatever it means, I can at least describe what I remember.
For one, couples rarely showed public signs of affection — perhaps as some sort of pretentiousness that they weren’t “identified” with each other or their partnership. I wonder if that’s changed by now, but in the old days you didn’t walk hand in hand in the vineyard, stop to kiss each other in the hallway at the Academy, or put your arm around each other (even for a few seconds) while sitting at the Town Hall. You often sat separately at meetings. And when dining at the Lincoln Lodge, couples usually interacted with each other like they were colleagues at work.
There were exceptions; but overall, one of life’s pleasures—something spontaneous and natural and that makes you feel good to experience and to watch in others—was almost nonexistent.
Meanwhile, the pressure to get married and show a commitment to one partner was ever-present. Although we know now that all of that was for show, since the group doesn’t really foster lasting relationships. I’m all for having fun and enjoying consensual sex with multiple partners, but the “rule” that people needed to get married was such a joke when you consider everything that Burton had been doing from the very start. Lots of just plain hypocrisy in this cult. Hypocrisy sometimes seems relatively benign, but it’s not.
. . . . . . . . . .
19. Tim Campion – August 1, 2014
From “Upper Lobby,” a blog about a Boston-area 4th Way cult:
The Day We Told Our Wives About Cesareo’s Sexual Abuse
As perpetrators learn from other perpetrators, it is important that survivors learn from other survivors.
I’ve been enjoying the past few months’ conversation, and especially the addition of Robert Stolzle’s voice.
Many thanks to all who write here.
. . . . . . . . . .
20. brucelevy – August 1, 2014
Thanks Tim. Your link led me to this…
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/01/the-master-2?currentPage=all
4 Mick and onwards, so forth, in a strong full moon, no less…..
Actually, I almost had the guts to go through with a formal complaint against the NHS Partnership Trust, backed up by my local Member of Parliament and gay rights activist (no, I am not gay myself, but respect his championing local worthwhile causes) and MICK…..
Do you actually know what being sectioned in a mental institution is all about ? ….. I doubt it !
I did write a brief sending to my Ward Manager in my last section…..
“I am not an icon to be displayed in the ‘victim pool’ that has become The Cedars Psychiatric Unit. If people like me can ‘bite the bullet’, as they say in all the best Western Movies, and not give way to the ‘revolving door syndrome’ that indulgent mental patients illustrate, then there is a chance that their suffering can give forth, as Keats put it so well, to…..The Wakened Anguish of the Soul.”
And, MICK, just to put you in your small-minded place, are weak-minded individuals prepared to apply to the Wellcome Trust for a grant to examine mood disorders and couple it with bio-science, both as displayed in the artistic arena ?
Just to give you a hint, when they put ‘chronic mental illness’ on my ward chart or some such document, I struck it through and put ‘ongoing mood disorder. And the mood I am in is being pissed off at people who hide behind irrelevant passages from pseudo-science (i.e. psychiatry) and POST IT AS TRUTH…..!!!!!
Nigel.
Sorry Parson, I fully respect your position. I sincerely apologize. I was very touched that you commented. But I am a bit. It’s a talent. I think I was addressing someone more, the position that disgusting crime be unremarkable or unimportant, reflecting the unfailing hardness displayed in pretty much every fof friendly personality here. Usually I screen my own words because having re-read them, they horrify me, or have sometimes. I haven’t read anyone else… but xo, whatever…
I used to love people when I was someone else. One still does. I have my own convictions, and recently someone, for instance, told me a past life story that blew my brains out. Everything we do and don’t do makes waves and every tiny pulse of them is of incalculable value, so I fail to see the utility of attaching oneself hand and foot to a Goat-Fucker. I could go on, but it get’s nastier from there. The further one get’s from it, the more a very obvious absurdity it is. Identity theft by paying consent for a sparkly image of the inside of God’s bottom. Because that is all that is, a kind of spew of true images tortured into false ones like a toilet bowl full of puke. Because Nothing comes of Nothing. Social lubricants and a contentious hole in the ground. An erection! A Raphael print! A uniform! Big deal. Unorthodox taxidermy of the lowest order.
Yes, Linda Jo, thanks for what you’ve posted here for a while. It’s brought new light to things for me. I recall the cult as having an aspect of mini-me’s, as that is only natural, but that’s not at all sexy or natural, and what could be natural about Bob, or these other fuckers. If your a butterfly, why do you strangle yourself like that? Looking up so as not to cry. Not being under so much Feminine Dominance, which seems to be a genuinely banal and disfiguring idea.
In another life he could of sold bleach or colonic irrigation, but he got lucky and met a piece of shit who’s name sums up everything about both of them. In their own tennis shorts, alone, with only the back of a dog for company. (Back of a Dog represents the rest of the universe in a bad/good painting of a man in hell, in many ways, a masterpiece.)
W/r/t 23. ” Everything we do and don’t do makes waves and every tiny pulse of them is of incalculable value, so I fail to see the utility of attaching oneself hand and foot to a Goat-Fucker. I could go on, but it get’s nastier from there.”
That is pretty standard Buddhist doctrine that can be expressed like this: “Every action, either physical or mental … produces a ‘seed.’ … Likewise, the innumerable energy seeds launched into the universe by Desire, Aversion, Love, Hatred and the actions caused by those feelings … tend to reproduce the counterparts of their parents, either psychic or material. In order that the seed should be sown, it is in no way necessary that the feelings we experience should be materialized in action. … Furthermore the hidden activity, always at work in spite of ourselves in the subconscious part of our being, is one of the most powerful sources from which are thrown out these seeds.” That is taken from a slender little volume by ALexandra David-Neel called “The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects.” So, when Jimmy Carter “lusted in his heart” apparently he launched a seed into the universe that will have consequences sometime, somewhere.
If I am coming across as “FoF friendly” I think you are misunderstanding me. It has been over 30 years now, and my feelings re the F0F have had time to settle down. I’m also a lawyer and I like to chose my words with care.
Plaintiff denies that sex act with goat was non-consensual.
🙂
Do I sense a trend developing here?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/09/australia-s-underage-yoga-sex-cult-the-survivors-speak-out.html
Nope, Parson, I didn’t interpret you any way as far as I know in terms of your ethical position. I don’t know much about Buddhist thought… the places round me I’ve been to have been good for me, that’s for sure. It was a sort of recent intuition from my friends story and other things… but I’m pleased it’s thought, if that isn’t a demeaning word, takes a low view on experimental animal husbandry techniques involving cheese-making animals with cloven hooves. For as they sayeth in the scriptures: ‘Give a man an artisanal cheese and he dines for an afternoon, give him a Goat, and he’s got a friend for life, but he that has an abundance of Goat’s with his face may be one to avoid in an alley or place with no immediately apparent exit’.
So, a farmer boy brings his cow over to the farmer girl’s place to be serviced by a prize bull. As they are watching animals copulate, the boy turns and says to the girl: “Gee, I wish I was doing that.”
Catching the drift the girl responds: “Well go ahead, she’s your cow.”
Wonderboy Gurdjieff claimed he could kill a yak with the power of his mind…
Although he made the claim he possessed this power, there is some question in my mind if he actually succeed in doing so.
I don’t recall any of his ardent followers traveling to Tibet with him for a demonstration and then writing about it.
And certianly killing a cow or goat or even a chicken in the French countryside would have sufficed to verify he was telling the truth.
Or maybe that was Gurdjieff’s way of warning this followers that he had a dark nasty side…and had to make a great effort not to use his power for nefarious purposes.
But you better not make him mad and pay your fees, or watch out! He could put the whammy on you without you even knowing it!
Now if you believe that, you will believe just about anything.
Whalerider: that was my main point in posting that link to the movie trailer for “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” Mr. G made that claim in his “third series” and added that it was one of the abilities he had had to give up in order to further his spiritual development. Was he issuing a warning? Good question. I’m not saying I believe any of it. I really don’t know whether it’s possible.
Did anyone ever watch the 1970s film “The Holy Mountain” from the South American director Joderowsky. It’s a sort of debunking of the “fourth way” and it probably influenced the popular Matrix movies. A Chicago taxi driver named Mark, who joined the Chicago centre and had the good sense not to stick around for very long recommended it to me back around 1978 and added that it was “very disturbing.” It took me until after 9/11 to get around to watching it. He was right. I doubt that the film-maker could claim that “no animals were harmed in the making of that film.”
33. WhaleRider
Maybe G was just trying to illustrate the gullibility of his students.
“I really don’t know whether it’s possible.”
People have the power to manipulate using words that evoke fear, shame, anxiety, and self-doubt, and by appealing to a person’s vanity or ego–or whatever word you might want to use to describe that part of human nature that wants to be different, special, unique, and better than others.
That explains how Burton can get so many followers–at least until they perceive this and head for the exits.
I know much less about Gurdjieff, since I’ve never met him, and have never had first-hand and second-hand accounts of his activities as I do with Burton. But I will say this: Many of Gurdjieff’s words evoke fear, shame, anxiety, and self-doubt. Additionally, they appealed to that part in a person that wants to be different, special, unique, and better than others.
Yaks and other large animals have many other more pressing concerns.
Spelling correction: “Joderowsky” in my previous post should be “Jodorowsky.” Alexandro Jodorowsky.
Jordowsky is an interesting personality… saw El Topo and The Holy Mountain back “in the day”… his genius is obvious and after seeing Dune recently I think so too is his egomania… nevertheless if you’re a “fan” it’s worth a look:
Jodorowsky was with Gurdjieff’s group for a short time in Paris. Ram Pera, an ex FOFer, was his roomate. He said Alexandro would go outy to meetings but wouldn’t discuss them with Ram. He later found out where he was going.
I have not followed this blog for several years. I would like to search the whole thing for comments submitted by Bonita. Can anyone advise if/how to do this? You can email now ack im AT yahoo .
My interest again revolves around the question of how the body type teaching developed in the first years of the FoF. It happens that I heard of the “Michael Channel” only for the first time in the past few weeks. Questions (re)arise about it due to that. I am particularly interested if anyone remembers what sources other than Theory of Celestial Influence were used, and when / how the center of gravity /playing cards arrived on the scene, which clearly did not happen until at least 1973…
Michael Nowacki (“Woods”) ’77 – ’94
I corresponded with Bonita for several years beginning in the late 1990s. She said nothing about that subject. You might have a look at Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s book Messages from Michael which can be found as a used trade paperback for almost nothing. Reading it one sees a great deal of borrowing of FOF doctrine. Have a look at this link: http://mef.to/newsletters/v01_i01.html
42. Jomo Pinata
Well…..bu**er me. Julie, my first Reiki Master, said she was channeling Archangel Raphael. Samantha, my second Reiki Master, said she was channeling through a Sioux Indian who will always be with me. Alan, my third Reiki Master, said that a Black Dragon called ‘Osphorus’ was present at the session.
Not to start a bl**dy stupid argument about ‘channeling’, I do not notice anything coming or going during my Reiki sessions…..it is in the days after and the ‘strength of withstanding the outer world’ that makes me move to this outstanding (formerly Japanese Zen) Buddhist practice. Two weeks ago, I was brutally attacked by my paranoid-schizophrenic-sociopathic-alcoholic downstairs neighbour. The police and attending medics said my response and conduct were outstanding – perhaps all I need to know. What other people in my street need to know, to avoid dealing with him, is he received only a ‘caution’ for his conduct, despite my pressing charges.
Can you imagine Burton getting anywhere near a police cell, let alone being sentenced to a ‘stretch’?
For your mental delectation, Reiki means – ‘application of universal energy to the human body and emotions’. Good enough for me – and it works!…..Nigel
42. Jomo Piñata
According to this remembrance from former Fellowship member Kathryn (Hannah) Fitzgerald, her parents Alice and Richard Hannah, among Robert Burton’s earliest students, helped create “Messages from Michael.”
No specifics come to mind, but I recall some people in the cult were experimenting with ‘channeling’ about 25 years ago. Through the grapevine, I heard they were sent packing by Burton, or given an ultimatum to give it up or lose Influence C, whatever.
In retrospect, Burton was concerned about anything that would lead to any type of comparison to his own cult. He feared that people would begin seeing it as something rather ordinary rather than extraordinary (“there are angels with us in this room right now”). And in the process, people would question the need to be there, and the underlying problems with Burton would come to the surface.
And then there was the Amway movement in the mid to late 80s. Same thing — people were told to give it up, or say goodbye. Again, Amway stirs some comparisons.
Every cult has its own fictional account of the world. The Bible is one long, grueling, violent story, with one person after another being killed or tortured. Catholics, Mormons, Scientology, Gurdjieff and Ouspenksy books — all of them — have weird ideas about the nature of the universe. It’s almost as though someone wrote a sci-fi/fantasy novel, and thousands or millions of people began seeing it as truth.
Personally, I find sci-fi and fantasy fascinating because it draws me into a more creative realm, where imagination can be healthy, stimulating to the mind, and inspiring to the heart. Some stories are more plausible than others. Catholicism and the Fourth Way seemed plausible and fascinating to me at one time because I found some of the ideas compelling. I still do. But very strange that so many people would actually “follow” such fiction as a type of truth that required guidance from a guru, or many gurus. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s a like joining a cult that professes verification of The Force, and joining up to get my light saber.
As I should have said in my previous post, I am looking for those who were FoF members from as early as possible before ’73 when the Michael Channel began. I am not interested in MC per se, but I have not encountered any large group unconnected with the FoF that knows the body type enneagram before. I am in touch with Kathryn H. from whom I got some info.
FWIW I have the desire to see this knowledge in the hands of other than the FoF or, it seems now, the MC people. My experience is that it is real enough and I continue to have perceptions about people that are due to knowing it, and that I would rather have than not. I think they do constitute a direct perception beneath the conditioning that is referenced by terms like personality, ego, identity and culture. I also think the knowledge is very undeveloped, and could integrate a great deal of scientific psychology, no small body of which I have studied for the past 20 years.
It was a surprise to me to encounter a person who IMO accurately sees types. Following her indication of the MC, I quickly recognized that she only had a re-telling of the FoF teaching. I found stories about the genesis (sic) of MC in which Sarah McCord was said to be friends with a couple named Hannah, and that they count exposure to FoF as among their influences. That prompted me to contact Kathryn, who also addressed some questions about the history several years ago without mentioning the MC.
So it seems straightforward enough that Sarah McCord dabbled in the FoF for a while and had already exited before ’73. Kathryn said that to her recollection the cards were not in use before that time, which explains why the immortal being happened not to include it in its revelation.
There is the issue of just exactly how the very sketchy treatment in Theory of Celestial Influence was fleshed out into the knowledge I got circa ’77. Kathryn has said that she once stumbled upon a book, seemingly to her at the time to be of medieval origin, which showed the whole teaching. She was a kid, and freaked out, and said nothing. There are now interesting tidbits easily available about Jacob Boehme that seem to describe planetary types, but K says she is now less sure that Boehme is the author of that book. She was never certain. This at the least is something I would like to uncover.
Another detail supplied by K is that the Alex Horn cult also had the body type info. I recall a small handful of ex-Hornites in the FoF when I first joined. Does anyone have access to such people, or even remember any names? Robert Tully is the only one I can recall at the moment. Haven’t seen his name here.
Any assistance you are kind enough to offer is appreciated. It is not my intent here to instigate a discussion about the merits of channeling, or spiritual work in general. If you would need voluminous correspondence to describe your knowledge or memories, I would be happy to just talk by phone or skype to make it easier. -MN
46 nowackim
I’m friends with an ex-FFr who went to one of Alex Horn’s prospective student meetings where REB was present as a student of Horn’s, but I’m under the impression he never joined Horn’s group. Instead, he joined the FF. He never discussed any of those details during his time in the FF. When I asked him a few years ago for details, he didn’t have much to impart.
…and now the rest of the story.
@nowackim
I’m interested in how you think the theory of body types might benefit the field of Psychology.
I’d prefer to keep the discussion public, for several reasons, if you are willing.
Many years ago Joel F. wrote and published a book called, “Body Types”.
The information is in the public domain, yet it has not caused a revolution in Psychology.
For instance, do you think a mood disorder like depression might be simply caused when an individual’s personality is out of sync with their so-called essence? I don’t think so.
IMO, the tantalizing theory of body types might be a palliative to a young person experiencing an identity crisis, much like learning about their astrological sun sign might be, but I don’t believe having that knowledge will change anything.
Wouldn’t developing a personality that is more in line with one’s so-called essence just serve to make that person more “mechanical”? I believe the root of happiness goes much deeper than that.
Personally, the theory of glandular body types and their progression on the Enneagram fell short for me by observing the anomalies, such as a “lunar/martial” type, who was the result of a lunar parent and a martial parent. The traits associated with glandular body types are genetic variables, and are passed on through our parents, which have nothing to do with having this or that overdeveloped endocrine gland. I once quizzed an Endocrinologist on that very subject.
IMO, the theory of body types is akin to the meme of “race”. Despite all the wide range of differences in human appearance, genetically we are exactly the same species. Same with dogs.
Animals have endocrine glands too, do they have body types as well?
If a person really wants to learn about their so-called essence in a way that might benefit them, I recommend that person seek the help of a trained professional to uncover the precognitive relationships with their parents or caregivers in early childhood. The difference being that that uncovering process carries with it an emotional content which can help a person heal, grow and change. Pure knowledge without emotional affect changes nothing, in my experience.
48 WhaleRider
Oh God ! …..the mere term TRAINED PROFESSIONAL drums up images of all (except one – my last – a Jamaican lady psychiatrist called la Donna, who said to my face, after I had twice ‘hauled her entourage over the coals’ for mismanagement – “Nigel, you’re a GOOD MAN!”) the bloody idiots who have ‘dabbled with my mentality’, stuck me in the local asylum with lunatics – druggies and drunks who had fried their brains on substances, religious maniacs and sexoholics who had lost the plot of their lives – ‘place of safety – my foot’!
Why am I interested so much in a Buddhist approach ?
It is not religion, cult, dogma, following or worship – no deities, just the Life Spirit – akin to what is taught in the Celtic classic, “Anan Cara” (meaning ‘spirit friend’). I know there are several paths, much like G. taught the 4 ways, but, underlying is ‘The Self’ – “only you can tread that path” – Walt Whitman.
I think the biggest stupidity any of you (and here I make an assumption – mainly California guys) make is not stepping out into the whirlpool that initiates the torrent of your aim. Like I said – do you float down to the ‘wild and wasteful ocean’ or is the struggle to the river’s source your goal? …..Nigel
Re: nowackim and the body types/enneagram-
I joined the FoF in January 1974 and the “body types” and enneagram were not being presented as anything new to the FoF then. I had the distinct impression, then, that these ideas had, in good secret society fashion, been handed down through the ages, most recently from Horn”s group. I recall a body type handbook with a reflective front cover being printed about 1975. Harold Wirk’s drawings of FoF members that were the “pure types” accompanied a summary of the expected behaviors. I cannot remember where, but around that period there was a book, unrelated to the Fourth Way, that suggested the modern deck of cards originated as a memory devise for describing personalities.
More recently, in the early 90’s I came across a couple of books that addressed those subjects. One, by Don Richard Riso (supposedly a Jesuit who left the group) published a book titled “Personality Types”, “using the enneagram for self discovery”. The other by Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert was titled “Discovering the Enneagrqam” “An ancient tool for a new spiritual journey.” Although Gurdjieff received mention in both, neither made any references to the “Fourth Way” or any of those groups. There was little or no correspondence that I could see between the FoF usage and the personality types described in these books.
The “body type information” has stuck with me all these years and still, unintentionally, influences my assessment of people. I like using it but, I am personally convinced this “system” seemingly “works” or looks like a deeper “truth” simply because it provides a framework for remembering different people and their behavior— and the “glandular” explanation is just silly. As a simple memory device it allows the user to “pigeonhole” and thereby impose some order on the randomness and chaos that is human personality. It is perhaps the most useful information I got from the FoF, but like all of these ideas, it comes up short (as a refined sort of prejudice) when it is allowed to guide one’s reactions and interactions with any individual or group.
I might be wrong, but I never thought RB was clever enough to have thought up the body type or deck of cards ideas from his own narrow mind. Forty-four “conscious beings”, sure, but anything more complex seems doubtful, especially since someone posted here that he bragged about not having read most of the Fourth Way texts. I also never heard of the “Michael Channel” in my time with the FoF. I seem to recall references to the “Archangel Michael” guiding RB and the FoF but nothing beyond those comments. What are you talking about?
Robert Stolzle
FoFer ’74-’77, Tahoe and Carmel
“The most precious bit of knowledge we possess today about Man is that he is the creature of his glands of internal secretion. That is, Man
as a distinctive organism is the product, the by-product, of a number
of cell factories which control the parts of his make-up.” ~Berman
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10266
Review: Inconclusive.
THE ENDOCRINE PERSONALITY
“If a single gland can dominate the life history of an individual it
becomes possible to speak of _endocrine types_, the result of the
_endocrine analysis_ of the individual. Studying endocrine traits of
physique, life reactions, disease tendencies, hereditary history and
blood chemistry, one may gain an insight into the composition or
constitution of an individual. The endocrine type of an individual
is a summary of these, his behaviour in the past, and is also a
prediction of his reactions in the future…” ~Berman, 1922
I have recently and reluctantly come to the conclusion that psychiatry is a particularly pernicious pseudoscience. As defined by wikipedia pseudoscience is ‘a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.[1] Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.’
My arguments are based on pseudoscience being correctly defined here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
1. I will start with ‘absence of progress’. Hippocrates stated that an imbalance in humors caused melancholia. Modern psychiatry claims that mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. There is no scientific evidence that shows this is a fact.
2. Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims. This is rife within psychiatry.
3. Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation. A detailed reading of published research shows this tendency. See Pubmed.
4. Personalization of issues. i.e Tight social groups and authoritarian personality, suppression of dissent, and groupthink can enhance the adoption of beliefs that have no rational basis. In attempting to confirm their beliefs, the group tends to identify their critics as enemies.
5. Use of misleading language – Creating scientific-sounding terms to add weight to claims. Dementia Praecox or Schizophrenia?
This is just a starting point. The problem as I see it is that psychiatry is viewed by the majority of society as a benefit to their own circumstances and it becomes very difficult to dislodge this kind of thinking. For example, those in authority can question any dissent. Those persons defined as ‘deviant’ to the accepted norms can be ‘scapegoated’ and stigmatised. Psychiatry can be used by certain groups.. such as the family to get rid of ‘difficult’ members. Institutions, such as schools, care homes for children and old people can ‘manage’ ‘misbehaviour’. Individuals can readily excuse their own behaviour and bad decisions on a ‘disease’. (‘I cannot help it!) There is much money to be made from propagating this idea, from Pharma corporations to individuals who can claim extra welfare benefits.
In saying this, I do not underestimate the suffering of those who are defined as having a ‘mental illness’.
I would like to add that I think that the scientific method, a la Karl Popper, is humanities best attempt to overcome the shortcomings of our evolution. I am an atheist and do not subscribe to any religious belief. (Although I am fond of the Tao Te Ching (Arthur Waley).
I am happy to be shown to be totally wrong in my views. (I am used to this and thank those that point out my errors). I also think that this issue is very important to society.
Anyone willing to debate? –Dirk Steele (talk) 03:01, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
The Transcripts of the Michael Channeling Sessions from the early 70s contain some interesting comments from individuals who had recently left the Fellowship:
Professor Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University conducted a study at Petrified Forest National Park in an attempt to stop people from stealing petrified wood by posting a sign: “Many past visitors have removed the petrified wood from the park, changing the state of the Petrified Forest.” Even with this warning, theft rates stood at 5 percent. So they made the sign more severe: “Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly by a small piece at a time.” This warning influenced theft, but not in the direction you’d expect: stealing jumped from 5 percent to almost 8 percent.
The message people received was not “Don’t steal petrified wood,” but “Stealing petrified wood is a common and socially acceptable behavior.” We have the same reaction when we learn about the ubiquity of stereotypes. If everyone else is biased, we don’t need to worry as much about censoring ourselves.
If awareness makes it worse, how do we make it better? The solution isn’t to stop pointing out stereotypes. Instead, we need to communicate that these biases are undesirable and unacceptable.
Professor Cialdini’s team slashed the theft rate to 1.67 percent by adding a simple sentence to the sign: “Please don’t remove the petrified wood from the park.”
– From an article in the New York Times by Prof. Adam Grant.
So, with that in mind, along with all the anti-Burton/Fellowship bias that often appears in this blog:
PLEASE DON’T JOIN THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS
Mick,
That might be a more appropriate title for this website:
PLEASE DON’T JOIN THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS
(But should it be shouted?)
Re: #56 & 57
I like it!…..caps and all….
A couple of additional questions, though.
We live in a world full of biases and prejudices that probably originate in some ancient survival mechanism; i.e., I am much safer with my clan than those strange folks in the next valley over, etc. In my thought experiment, if we all became brown and the same size, I would probably dislike you because you have better ear lobes than me. As you say, our best hope is to “mature” beyond our egotistical differences but, isn’t the other side of the equation to have a thick skin and not be offended every time one’s belief system is questioned or challenged. Can’t we all be secure enough in “ourselves” to not be angered by other people’s biases and ignorant behavior? Isn’t being thin skinned also a weakness?
I have no idea how many current or possible future FoFers ever look at this blog, let alone understand how to persuade them against wasting time, money and personal integrity in the FoF. Like most everyone posting here, I can only hope that the arguments that might have dissuaded me will help someone reconsider their options. It is why I persist in asking about “magnetic centers” here. The better we understand why we joined, the better we’ll be at dissuading others from being stupid.
I’d like to imagine that there is one persuasive and overpowering argument that would make everyone turn away from the FoF……except, perhaps, for the few who believe “the stairway to heaven” lies hidden in bizarre homosexual behavior. Having reviewed a portion of the early postings here, it is difficult to imagine that there are any new arguments to be made, let alone rising to the level of pain and emotion they present all too often.
Is there a better way to combat this evil?
I can’t believe the charade has survived for so long.
Robert Stolzle
P.S. Happy Hanukah and Merry Christmas and Nirvana to all!
(sorry if your belief got left out)
Ongoing stress in the fof is like white-noise, relief can’t be appreciated until it’s turned off. Departure allows the ability to think critically clear about what you’ve been through.. but you need time and space away…
Amen, silentpurr.
re 151 Bob Stolzle
I agree there are few new arguments to be made – holidays are a busy time in FOF, receptions, dinners, lunches, concerts, visitors, third line, set up, glass washing, breakdown, breakfasts, etc etc. may not be too many moments to sit back, reflect. Perhaps the New Year. People do leave, even those who have been there >20 yrs. I admire their bravery. After 20 years in, it is a bit of an adjustment.
Fellowship of Friends – awakening through the Herd Instinct – NOT POSSIBLE !!!
Memory and imagination have been shown to be affected by one another. “Images made by functional magnetic resonance imaging technology show that remembering and imagining sends blood to identical parts of the brain.”
Long, 2011, My Brain On My Mind
This seems to suggest that when one attempts to “remember oneself” one is also “in imagination” not in the present…in other words, one is recalling who one imagines oneself to be, which may or may not be who one is…neither machine nor god…just a human being… human.
“Imagination” gets a bad rap by the FOF mind-control ideology…
http://hermetic.com/moorish/mundus-imaginalis.html
63. WhaleRider – December 20, 2014
64. ton2u – December 20, 2014
yes, it lacks imagination, yet everyone is dreaming up RB’s imaginary picture of rental-consciousness. And to think, someone might of euthanized a pet for this.
paul
or aborted an unborn child
62 ton2u
We all know FOF-fers have shit4brains. You can only be ‘thought of as thinking’ if the organisation’s/leader’s material realm is supremely added to.
I find this hermetic/mundus-imaginalis link extremely mind-expanding. It is like fables that are used in ‘formal meditation’.
You see, the FOF restricted and still restricts ACTUAL PASSIONATE THINKING. Then you wonder why people like me get into ‘psychiatric’ trouble ?
I meant 64 ton2u
We don’t even really have to contemplate these things, or at least, I don’t right now. Want to know what evil is? It’s killing your gerbils because Leonardo’s best friend suggested your gerbils are an unnecessary burden right now in your ongoing conscious-rented self-exploration opportunity. BUY NOW WHILE STOCKS LAST. DANCE ON THE BONES OF YOUR GERBILS! DANCE! DANCE! (in costumes by shakespeare, from a dramatic interpretation by Walt Whitman played Backwards Slowly.)
So, Paul, I’d interpret your experience as conscious Bob’s hold on you being threatened by a very small rodent…..I mean why didn’t he just vaporize them with his magnificent mind if they were such a bother? Perhaps he’d just watched the rerun of “Sophie’s Choice”.
There are so many things wrong with the FoF and RB; how can he possibly claim to be Man #? and not demonstrate some magical ability aside from persuading members into behaving stupidly. But, there really is no behavior that can’t be justified within the confines of the FoF “Group Think”, is there? All the miserable experiences are “intentional suffering” and thereby beneficial, and black is white, etc.
At the very least one might reasonably expect the exalted leader to be walking around in an aura of white light (which could be arranged by any good Hollywood prop man). If he was anything but blather and BS, he would have converted the religiously inclined half of the population by now. The old goof ball needs to work up a couple of good magic tricks.
Thankfully, not everyone is as gullible as we were.
Bob Stolzle
What turns the world ? Money, power and sex.
What fuels the FOF ? Money, power and sex.
I think most of us, in search for some spiritual path, got mixed up in the FOF or something similar (a cult, sect, dogmatic religion) and saw the sham for what it was (hopefully not too late that it had caused psychic damage) and this blog may continue to be healing.
However, REB, the disgusting pile of filth that he is, with his slithery tongue and his ‘aroma de M. Givenchy’, ACTUALLY MESMERIZES HIS “CONGREGATION” – group think is no thought and lemming like, one by one, they take their death.
A true spiritual master is servant of the path and wishes the total benefit of all that sincerely ask for his/her help.
Reality is out there (and within) – the two need to be in a place to be conjoined.
Nigel.
Please, explain about reality.
Remember the sex exercise?
Irishman went into the confessional and said to his priest, ‘I almost had an affair with another woman.’
The priest said, ‘What do you mean, almost?’
The Irishman said, ‘Well, we got undressed and rubbed together, but then I stopped.
The priest said, ‘Rubbing together is the same as putting it in. You’re not to see that woman again. For your penance, say five Hail Marys and put £50 in the poor box.’
The Irishman left the confessional, said his prayers, and then walked over to the poor box.
He paused for a moment and then started to leave.
The priest, who was watching, quickly ran over to him saying, ‘I saw that. You didn’t put any money in the poor box!’
The Irishman replied, ‘Yeah, but I rubbed the £50 on the box, and according to you, that’s the same as putting it in!’
70. Robert Stolzle – December 21, 2014
I don’t know if I experience a ‘hold on me’, but it is a bit violent for a school of rented agape-lite, don’t you think? Not that I go in for that kind of thing myself. Hopefully not again. The taste of it is metallic, yet without taste, it’s moon-food without the humanity and tastes of chicken. Mechanically recovered pork-meat, but with package tours thrown in. And so old and untrue.
72 marconi
Damn good question, actually – stops my trying to be ‘too poetic’. Do you remember ‘In Search of the Miraculous where Ouspensky relates a feeling that he came to after working with Gurdjieff (for how many years?)? He said it was as if he had reached a place in himself that, if ANYTHING HAD TO BE TAKEN ON OR HE HAD TO WORK WITH SOMETHING IN HIMSELF, HE WOULD BE UP TO IT.
I remember that beautiful passage from ‘Desiderata’ by Max Ehrmann…..
“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars,
You have a right to be here
I suppose, in my own words, ‘reality’ is ‘a surety of being’…..
Comes with age and hard work. W B Yeats stated…..
‘Hearts are not had as gifts, but hearts are earned,
By those who are not entirely beautiful.’
This season teaches us that there is always Light and Light is Unstoppable…..
Nigel
And, for those too young to recall it, there was, inevitably, a parody which can be found here:http://dmdb.org/lyrics/deteriorata.html
I would hazard the likely unpopular suggestion that quoting others, rather than evoking a sudden sensation of urgent awareness of reality, likely masks and dampens the possibility of such a sensation. Rather than placing another man’s words into the chaos of my own mind I would struggle instead to remove even my own thoughts as means of directly contacting the reality that confronts me.
Messages from Macaroni,
Yes. Though intoning profound aphorisms may coax and guide our efforts, the words must not obscure the precious Third State we so desperately seek. The importance of silencing the many “I”s cannot be overstated!
From what I have heard, most of our old friends now inhabit the Fourth State. That must be nice.
Tim, goodness…
May I suggest John Legend’s cover of “Bridge over Troubled Water”. Believe me, the original song WAS INFLUENCED by the bridge over the River Exe in Bickleigh, Devon, UK (despite Paul Simon’s denial of it). Trust me – in December 2012, my workshop there was flooded to desktop level – DEVASTATING !!!!!
I do not understand the last three posts that seem to state that what we were all about was reaching A COSY INSULARITY DEVOID OF HUMAN INFLUENCE OR THAT OF THE NATURAL WORLD.
However, the FOF was/is all about some feeling of specialness devoid of passionate aims, spurred on by the compassionate empathetic needs of The Human Condition…..robots with I/Me/My as the focal point. And if your ‘friends’ have different views – avoid them, or try to have them chucked out on some technical error.
Re 79 Messages from Marconi
Really?…tell us more…
New Age neo-Advaita. It was all the rage here a few years back.
thanks marconi, sounds like everyone has one the lottery.
Merry christmas to All!
I doubt that anyone here thinks RB has reached any exalted state of consciousness, and I will claim, for the sake of provocation, that I am every bit as elevated on the “Man Scale” as he, just a little less crazy. Try to prove otherwise. His charade rolls along because of his minions efforts and beliefs. “If he says it it must be true!”—Gag a maggot!
This leads to my question du Jour—A large part of the FoF advertising was that the exalted leader was indeed conscious–Right? Well I never observed any real evidence of such a state; did any of you???
In fact the many cockamamie comments and pronouncements he was inclined to make contributed to my relatively early exit from the cult.
To my way of thinking, the one saving grace of the Fourth Way is that it ostensibly required personal verification of the “angles of thought” (including RB’s) and this circumstance should eventually lead all FoF members to eventually depart—yes? I mean, how long does one spend trying to prove that black is white? “The lower cannot see the higher” would seem to obviate this argument, but isn’t meekly accepting the exalted leader as such a sort of recognition and no less “mechanical” than serious questioning. Man #7 indeed!
Froliche Weinachten,
Bob Stolzle
Robert Burton got everything he wanted. Why isn’t that consciousness? I can’t get everything I want. Can you? Isn’t manipulating the world to rearrange and order it to suit your every desire consciousness? And…he has more or less kept it up for over 40 years. How is that possible unless you are conscious? I couldn’t do it. Could you?
Money. Sex. Admiration. Control over the lives of others. Very nice place to live. Even…your own version of reality.
Isn’t that consciousness?
@Bob Stolzle
“Well I never observed any real evidence of such a state; did any of you???”
What would you consider evidence of “consciousness”?
I believe burton’s grandiose claim of being a person of “evolved” consciousness, exempt from scrutiny, rests upon his strong conviction that he can perceive “angels hovering above the dinner table”, sending exclusive messages to him, including directing him to have sex with his young male followers, which his followers then rationalize and condone as “crazy wisdom”.
Otherwise, to the rational observer, his reliance upon delusional “ideas of reference”, coupled with his narcissistic, exploitive and traumatizing behavior qualifies as pathological, IMO.
Over the years, these “angelic messages” have taken the form of burton’s many failed prophecies, which he interprets as the angels attempting to “humble” him.
Judging from his ongoing delusion of grandiosity, it appears the message hasn’t gotten through to him, nor his mystified followers.
Certainly burton could be described as a successful spiritualist, but by no means enlightened.
I argue that burton’s advanced “consciousness” is of how easy and profitable it is as a self-proclaimed guru to exploit the weaknesses of others, once one has sufficiently disabled one’s conscience…as he learned to do from Alex Horn.
I don’t believe enlightenment involves the dehumanizing of others as narcissistic objects to be used for personal gain.
Let the sexual predation begin…celebrity + relegion=new cult.
http://www.vice.com/read/andrew-keegan-started-a-new-religion-814
Delusions are an occupational hazard for people who get to a certain point on their various spiritual paths. Perhaps at one point he could detect the Astral Light (if it exists). In Zen hallucinations are well-known and are called “Makyo.” They present a snare for the unwary. The other Robert Burton, the one from the 17th century who wrote “The Anatomy of Melancholy,” discussed these hazards at unreasonably great length in that book.
From:
One of the Stars of ’10 Things I Hate About You’ Started a Religion
‘While Third Eye and his fellow members see Keegan as a visionary and a leader, the actor said his community is not cultish. “I very much speak what comes through [while] in the collective. We create a resonance of balance and equality of the crew,” he explained. “When you feel those chakras aligned, there’s guided messaging coming in. If there is something of spiritual ego within that, it must not exist.” His followers assert that each core member has a “lot of creative latitude” in the community, but in the end, the star has the ultimate say in the decision-making process.’
Money. Sex. Admiration. Control over the lives of others. Very nice place to live. Even…your own version of reality.
I left out drugs. Don’t forget drugs.
“Very nice place to live.”
Maybe I’m misreading, but you sound a bit envious.
My guess is that it’s only a “very nice place to live” to the extent that you can be satisfied and content with it, and if “controlling the lives of others,” for example, fits your definition of happiness.
I would describe it more as, “an insatiable desire for money, sex, admiration, and control over the lives of others.”
… which at the very least is probably a mixed bag.
Marconi #86, et al-
I suppose evidence of “consciousness” is what you make of it, but for the most part I was wanting to hear that Burden had been observed engaged in one of the “classical” metaphysical practices….i.e. foretelling the future (accurately), mind reading, astral projection and, my favorite, levitation. There are others, but I find the argument that the FoF is evidence of consciousness thin to say the least.
This particular argument has been slyly used since the 70’s but it only suggests to me that there is a group for everyone. If the logic of “he must be conscious because of the existence of the FoF” has merit, then Scientology should be a far superior system—ancient aliens and all. If the criteria is his lifestyle and wealth, I’d suggest that studying under Taylor Swift or Warren Buffet should yield marvelous results. I always preferred the guru as Jesus, but maybe Kim Jong Un’s (N. Korea) lifestyle suggests he knows something we don’t. Really, he and Burden probably utilize similar techniques.
The continued existence of the FoF as evidence that there must be “something” to this “teaching” is a type of “a priori” argument that can be made for any group at any time. And it seems that Burden’s technique can be distilled down to that old chestnut, “the end justifies the means”……even if no one has any inkling of what “the end” is supposed to be. If there are no criteria for judging “consciousness”, it probably doesn’t exist.
Bob Stolzle
93. Robert Stolzle
Excellent reply.
Open statement:
You are not on a divine ladder in The School working your way through one of your lifetimes. You are on one of your laugh-times. If you are or were a Fellowship of Friends member/Robert Burton student then this life is a wasted laugh-life. You’re not an elite cosmic voyager on a journey to satchadanada, no. You are in fact a laughingstock, a silly self-serious jester. Someone caught in the snickering jaws of an impractical joke.
Bit-o-Evidence #1: “Renaissance will eventually exist on the new California coastline after California falls into the Pacific Ocean, all thanks to the plans of C influence.” Remember that? How do you buffer that bit-o-insanity out of your mind? Remember when C influence was going to destroy half of California and make the Holy Land of Oregon House oceanfront property? This was the divine plan. You knew about it and you stayed in the cult after that bit of Bob madness circulated through the crazy congregation.
Do you seriously think there is even a moment of consciousness circulating in the empty heads of people who entertain such stupidity? This isn’t your “evolving lifetime,” this is your devolving laugh-time. The Gods laugh at your amazing gullibility and lack of intelligence. People paid Burton thousands per month in part for the promise that miserable scrubland will transform into beachfront recreation property. Instead you got a ruined vineyard and a half-ass zoo. Pay up you laughingstock cuckoos. By-the-way, even a tiny bit of geological research by any half-intelligent layperson would have informed you that California physically falling into the ocean is not even remotely possible.
What happens when people bring pertinent points like this up for public ridicule? Well, old Bob’s got a retort to that: “He was identified with prophecy.” See, here is what the morons are paying for now: All the prophecies were simply a test. Yes, that’s the ticket! It was all just a test to see who was identified with prophecy. Now, all of you divine ladder climbers who didn’t fall for the old prophecy-identification trick–PAY UP!
You’d have to be brain-dead not to have noticed that no one was more identified about his psychotic inspired prophecies than Burton himself. You’re an embarrassing joke, even to those Gods of Hollywood who rule over all ignorant cult life festering in bubble-brained California.
Are people in the Fellowship of Friends enjoying consciousness? Not even for a moment. They are enjoying moments of senselessness guided by a certified psychopath. Now, PAY UP.
conscience becomes buried with all this attention / emphasis on “consciousness” — consciousness without conscience is….
?
http://search.tb.ask.com/search/AJimage.jhtml?&searchfor=reptile+images&cb=BDG&pg=GGmain&p2=BDGmff998YYAus&n=780c50b1&qid=896fc44e3bd74b57ba2f0f07bc2200b9&pn=1&ss=sub&st=hp&ptb=3D48DBCF-0D0E-4B22-B581-D78DD606AEA4&tpr=sbt&si=downloadunzip&imgsize=all&safeSearch=on&imgDetail=true
I think consciousness is overrated. Most notably by those who claim to hold the keys.
ton2u, you raise the essential question.
ton2u-
So far as I can think, the absence of conscience, regardless of any claims of consciousness is, as has been pointed out here innumerable times, psychopathy. Without empathy or sympathy for others, there can be none of the traits that seemingly set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. One can surmise that, even IF it started out with the best intentions, the quest for money to further the cause will eventually corrupt the organization. No one can serve both God and mammon.
Marconi-
I never heard the “He was identified with prophesy.” justification. But, when I took my leave Burden was just beginning to play around with the idea of multiple lifetimes. That idea covers so many of the FoF’s shortcomings that it is surprising that it wasn’t wholly embraced by Ouspensky or Gurdjeiff. Thinking through that concept could lead one to conclude that if they aren’t going to flit among the stars with RB this time around, “I’ll just catch you in the next lifetime.” and summarily take their leave.
I do remember the “being tested by C influence” justifications for the failed prophesies, but Burden was only a #5 then. Even then it seemed contradictory that a being with supposedly greater awareness could succumb to the vain (not to say stupid) predictions of a sea side farm in the foot hills of the Sierras, etc. The beginning of my end with the FoF might have started with Burden’s pronouncement that the Digger Pines, which might have interfered with the plans for a vineyard, were a degenerate species, a failed experiment, and had to go…..and out came the chain saws. I knew then, that Burden either had no understanding of the natural world (a large failing for a conscious being, No?) or that he was more than willing to justify his decisions with Fourth Way BS instead of being honest about the pines removal. Either way, that pronouncement was, to me, inherently a failure and identified the exalted Man #5 as someone who should not be trusted.
And yet he prospers,
Bob Stolzle
re: the marconi open letter… very well put.
It should be emphasized that there is life after the FOF. Survivors are changed by the experience and are not who they might have been otherwise, but people can and do move on to productive lives post FOF. Unfortunately this is not good news to those so locked into “the system” that they fear and avoid anything associated with the idea of “life” and living.
95. ton2u – December 26, 2014
“conscience becomes buried with all this attention / emphasis on “consciousness” — consciousness without conscience is….
?”
97. Tim Campion – December 27, 2014
“I think consciousness is overrated. Most notably by those who claim to hold the keys.
ton2u, you raise the essential question.”
* * *
Tim Campion, I agree. Beautiful dialog here in 95 and 97.
One more thought: Maybe “consciousness without conscience” isn’t consciousness at all.
Consciousness and conscience are two sides to the same sword – just like a tongue – it cuts many ways. You cannot have one without the other. Consciousness alone can lead to sociopathy. Conscience alone can paralyse or lead to suicide;, as Shakespeare said:
‘Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o’er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action.’
Hamlet: Act 3, Scene 1
Conscience is mentioned a few other times in that play; here is another one:
‘The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the
Conscience of the king.’
Hamlet: Act 2, Scene 2
Here is a possible allegory
on the consciousness/conscience issue:
The Old Testament of
the King James Version of the Bible
The First Book of the Kings
3:6 And Solomon said [to the LORD], Thou hast shewed unto Thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before Thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with Thee; and Thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that Thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.
3:7 And now, O LORD my God, Thou hast made Thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.
3:8 And Thy servant is in the midst of Thy people which Thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.
3:9 Give therefore Thy servant an understanding heart to judge Thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this Thy so great a people?
3:10 And the speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.
3:11 And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment;
3:12 Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
3:13 And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.
3:14 And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.
3:15 And Solomon awoke; and, behold, it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and offered up burnt offerings, and offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants.
3:16 Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.
3:17 And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house.
3:18 And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house.
3:19 And this woman’s child died in the night; because she overlaid it.
3:20 And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.
3:21 And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.
3:22 And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king.
3:23 Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
3:24 And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.
3:25 And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.
3:26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.
3:27 Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.
3:28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.
Out take from film:
Solomon and Sheba (1959)
Yul Brynner as Solomon
Gina Lollobrigida as Sheba
[Check Wikipedia on the film.]
‘Real wisdom lies
in the ability to
decide between
the true and the false.’
Conscience is what knows the difference between states of consciousness and bouts of craziness.
From what I recall in the FOF, people could talk about “consciousness” for long periods of time, and repeatedly. Discussions about “conscience” ended fairly abruptly.
106 leaf
In the FF, a lot of ordinary words never made it into our everyday vocabulary. When I was leaving the FF, I felt that the FF’s language was part of our indoctrination, and that it was necessary to examine how FF-speak had controlled me/us. It was not only the expressions we constantly used to frame our experiences, but also, the absence of certain terms that resulted in our not honing those values (such as ‘conscience’).
Our values and behavior were framed by words and terms that removed us from developing a moral compass. I was talking to a friend last week, and he mentioned a concept presented by the linguist George Lakoff where juxtaposed words can influence you to think a certain way without your realizing it. It reminded me of the mind control technique of “loaded language”.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/03/humanism-religion-reason-our-best-hope
Humanism’s faith in reason represents our best hope
“Religions, despite what people think of as their personal consolations, have not served the world well. They create division and conflict, they impose unlivable moralities of denial and limitation, and they demand that we think of the world as our remotest ancestors did, thousands of years ago. The cry raised by defenders of religion is: but what would you put in its place as a view of the world by which we can live? The answer is: something far better, deeper, kinder and warmer – and far more rational – namely: humanism.
“Humanism is a non-religious ethical outlook based on an interest in human affairs at the human scale. It is not a doctrine or a set of rules; it is a starting point, its founding idea being that ethics must be based on the facts of human experience. For some, the result of thinking for themselves about ethics might be close to a conventional moral outlook; for others, the result might be less conventional. Either way, there are just two constraints: that one’s choices must not be aimed at harming others, and that one must be able to make a solid case for one’s outlook if challenged by others…”
* * *
“Religious moralities assume that there is one great truth and one right way to live for everyone. Another great flaw with religious morality is that it says if you do not obey, you will be punished. The threat of punishment is not a logically adequate ground for moral behaviour, even if it is prudent to avoid punishment by behaving as ordered. Unless one’s moral outlook comes from being thought-out and chosen for oneself, it is at best an imitation of morality, at worst a subversion of it.”
107. Fee fi fo fum
“When I was leaving the FF, I felt that the FF’s language was part of our indoctrination, and that it was necessary to examine how FF-speak had controlled me/us.”
I wholeheartedly agree with your comments/perspective. One of the words missing from the vocabulary was the simple word, help.
People did not “help” one another. That would be “feminine dominance.” People “externally considered” one another, which evoked the feeling that any actions to assist others must come from a utilitarian emphasis on your own “work,” being more “conscious,” helping “further the aims of the school,” and more.
The idea of helping one another in the FF ran counter to the party line, mainly because it would evoke a more humane treatment of one another. It would also lead to a tighter questioning of the behavior of the cult’s leader. In the end, the best help that I could have given anyone in the cult was to suggest they leave, and to persuade them that a better, healthier, and more productive life was waiting away from the cult.
109 leaf
Yes, that’s a good example: help as ‘feminine dominance’ (therefore ‘mechanical’ therefore ‘bad’) vs. ‘externally considering’ (must be something en route to consciousness, right?)
In fact, maybe George Lakoff the linguist would have said that combining the 2 words ‘externally’ with ‘considering’ is an example of how we unknowingly absorb an attitude and then believe it just by virtue of always hearing those 2 words together. ‘Considering’ suggests being considerate. That’s an old ‘life word’, but we know what it means. Yet, ironically, ‘externally considering’ someone can involve acts of unkindness, selfishness, or worse. In common parlance, we can justify acts of cruelty and coldness by thinking we did something for that person’s own good. We were ‘externally considerate.’
I remember someone in our teaching house saying that she was leaving the FF and therefore that she was moving out right away, to her own apartment in downtown SF. She didn’t have much, just a few boxes of clothes and books. No one offered to help her. Why? Because she had become an ex-student. On the same afternoon, that she made several bus trips by herself to move her belongings, my teaching housemate and I took a drive downtown to a SF function. We passed this woman at our local bus stop. She was holding a large box in front of her. We were in a 4 door sedan with room to spare. My housemate said, “I ‘want to want to’ help her, but I don’t.” So she didn’t stop to pick up this now-ex-student, and I didn’t suggest that we stop. I remember feeling that I had failed a small test of being human. But ‘being human’ was not a FF term.
I can relate, and missed similar chances to extend a hand to people. I think they have forgiven me. Sometimes people missed a chance to help me, too, and I understand. I’m so glad to have moved on. Through it all, hopefully stronger.
Re: leaf #108
This posting is one of the better expositions of morality, and by extension, conscience, that I have read in a while….thank you. The balance between the presumed civilizing influence of religions and the conflicting dogmas that those same religions gives rise to is certainly open for debate but, I would like to understand why most all of mankind is inclined to various religious beliefs? I don’t believe there is any such thing as a “magnetic center” leading us to a deeper comprehension of how the world “really” works, but it is odd that humans apparently have this need to believe, isn’t it? Is it just fear of the unknown?
No one ever posted an explanation of what the “Michael Sessions” were about that made sense to me. Was this some RB BS that supposedly involved him conversing with the Archangel Michael? or something else? Another idea that hadn’t yet bloomed in Burden’s fevered mind before I left was the “feminine dominance” I’ve seen mentioned here several times as a bad thing. I grasp the male vs female halves of the enneagram, but I don’t recall any supposed benefit of one over the other. In those days any “body type” was comparable to any other and the “task” on the way to greater consciousness was to understand and incorporate the positive aspects of the other types into ones own behavior. Made good sense at the time and provoked some interesting discussions with friends. I gather this “understanding” must have been “upgraded” later to place his own “saturn” type at the top of the heap.
To paraphrase an old joke about divorce, “the reason that leaving the FoF is so difficult is because it is worth it.”
Bob Stolzle
112. Robert Stolzle – December 29, 2014
http://robertearlburton.blogspot.co.uk/1973/01/the-original-michael-group-forms.html?m=0
Something symbolically evocative about this Cat Stevens song…..
Father
It’s not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
You’re still young, that’s your fault,
There’s so much you have to know.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I’m happy.
I was once like you are now, and I know that it’s not easy,
To be calm when you’ve found something going on.
But take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you’ve got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.
Son
How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again.
It’s always been the same, same old story.
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.
Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.
Father
It’s not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You’re still young, that’s your fault,
There’s so much you have to go through.
Find a girl, settle down,
if you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I’m happy.
Son
All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,
It’s hard, but it’s harder to ignore it.
If they were right, I’d agree, but it’s them you know not me.
Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.
Run while can…if you are IN, exit…if you are OUT, but stll stunned…wise up in yourself…..Nigel
112. Robert Stozle
“Another idea that hadn’t yet bloomed in Burden’s fevered mind before I left was the “feminine dominance” I’ve seen mentioned here several times as a bad thing. I grasp the male vs female halves of the enneagram, but I don’t recall any supposed benefit of one over the other.”
The idea of “feminine dominance” was never clearly defined, but in context it was the idea that people often think in “shoulds” — what you “should” do or “should not” do, as opposed to making decisions based on consciousness or conscious effort. The idea that this was “feminine” sprung from the twisted idea that women (especially mothers) were the main culprits for this type of thinking. Concerns of morality, conscience, compassion, and kindness were often grouped together with feminine dominance. It was always considered a weakness that prevented people from actualizing their full potential.
So, you can see how that pesky conscience thing would get in the way, and why the term “feminine dominance” was emphasized by Burton so frequently. Anything that questioned his behavior or showed concerns over the consequences of his behavior was reduced to feminine dominance.
On feminine dominance:
Likely theory:
Robert Burton’s youth was dominated by familial women, possibly even abused. This gave rise to the ‘feminine dominance’ views and deprication of women, generally, in the Fellowship of Friends. This could be seen as a mechanical reaction in his mechanics that has become aculturated.
Feminine dominance, as an exercise, is not necessarily a 4th Way work idea. Nevertheless, it could be useful for work on oneself.
One approach that I encountered and attempted to apply was: Try to comply with reasonable requests of a feminine dominance nature and then go beyond it. This was better than rejecting what ‘feminine dominance’ asks. Otherwise, ‘feminine dominance’ becomes a thought and emotion terminating tool wielded by false personality.
Feminine dominance can have a civilizing influence.
Re: Paul # 113
Thanks for the link explaining the “Michael Sessions”. From the references, I had assumed the FoF was involved. Back in the early ’70’s many students, “allowed or not”, investigated all manner of Yoga, Tai Chi, and other esoteric disciplines. Since Gurdjeiff presumably “taught” through the discipline of dance and RB had no interest in any serious moving center exercise, those extracurricular activities were seemingly tolerated.
The image of two MD’s hunched over a Ouija board and “talking to the spirits” is really laughable and extremely bizarre. It is a good example of those times, though.
Re: leaf #115 and AP #116
Thank you for the explanations of feminine dominance. I can imagine that RB, having to compete with female members for hetero male attention, would see women as a threat. Thinking about it now, I’d bet that his Man #7 BS came about because he was able to coerce hetero males into his homosexual frolics,; thereby demonstrating his control of “sexual energy”…….the poor deluded old bastard, may his end come soon, slowly and painfully!
(So far as I can tell from the Psalms of the Bible, it is OK to pray for God to “rain down fire on the heads of my enemies”……if it’s good for King David, it’s good enough for me.)
What do you think will happen to the FoF when the exalted leader is gone? From what I’ve learned here about today’s FoF it should be rife with all manner of “palace intrigue”.
Happy New Year,
Bob Stolzle
IMO, the FOF cult exercise of resisting the toxic meme of “feminine dominance” is the means by which burton teaches his followers to override their conscience and become better narcissistic sociopaths like him.
It has turned the FOF into a rape factory.
Attaching the word “feminine” simply masks burton’s own dominance over his followers, enabling he and his cult to justify breaking not only social taboos, but laws as well.
Dominance is dominance and has nothing to do with gender, IMO.
In fact, I’d argue that being subject to the “pangs” feminine dominance is synonymous with having a conscience…in other words, if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t right…even though the excitation or arousal created by breaking a social taboo, rule, or law might make a person feel more “conscious”…as narrowly defined by FOF cult standards.
FOF is a high intensity-high control cult because followers mistake emotional intensity (or in burton’s case-psychopathic mania) with being more “conscious”. It is not the same as being driven by one’s conscience to commit an act of civil disobedience to raise the level of consciousness of society. Making a career of breaking laws is another matter.
Self remembering, non-expression of negative emotions, feminine dominance, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, all concepts are equally perverted by Burton for selfish ends. Learn how, join now.
There’s only one way to undo the twisted, tangled Gordian Knot that the Fellowship has become.
Leave it behind, and warn others.
The classic answer is to cut it to pieces. Walking away doesn’t exactly untie it, does it?
I agree with the sentiment if there are legal means, but I feel more sadness (occasionally) about the FF and it’s negative impact on people’s lives, and less anger at this point, although I can relate to the anger. The FF may just go away quietly, as people one-by-one gradually wake up, move away, and look to rebuild their lives in another place and with different people. Or maybe 400 people will always be there, still believing that there will be an ark in little ole Oregon House, Calif., until the day they die. Or there may be some event that brings it down, but I’m not connected in any way so I have no idea if that’s likely.
To me, the continued presence of any cult is due to the control of information within the group. The fact that any member of the FF might be reading the posts on these pages gives me hope that a significant number of people will continue to escape. Hence, the occasional troll who tries to disrupt the conversation here so that followers will be less likely to see a post that resonates with them.
Hello to all the what I assume are past followers of the doctrines of the fellowship of friends.
I am perplexed by the angry comments of past members , I was a member in 1976 -1977. We had our house on the south side of Mercer Island (by Seattle) on the shore of Lake Washington The house was beautiful in a wonderful setting. A Gold alchemical ideal. I was deemed to be a Saturn-Mars and in my late twenties Our group had a few young ladies who were in some cases eager to master their sexual energy by sublimating it with my member in their clitorises.
What is now called Apollo was called the farm during my tenure in the FoF.I traveled to the farm frequently, where I emulated our somewhat obese “teacher ” by fucking anyone with a skirt on and willing. With the difference that Robert was not interested in females he preferred the youthful Saturn boys, who pranced around him akin to canine puppies with adoring looks to their master.I certainly hope that the obese, but enlightened teacher was able to get his member stiff enough to overcome his fat belly to enlighten his flock of Saturn , or Saturn-Mars body types
In the defense of the Fof I will state during my tenure in this cult I was introduced to wonderful Music , great food. Literature and the biographies of what I still consider remarkable human beings The appreciation of these cultural enrichment’s have grown since my departure from the Fof.I took my hat and departed when I suspected that the ( the number 5 teacher) may be involved in pedophilia and that some members were developing a dependency of this Cult.
Having said that I met a few fellow friends in the FoF, who i truly liked and mostly appreciated their intelligence. I am certain these people have all left Robert to his new flock of the never ending naive individuals searching for fulfillment of their spirituality. I am grateful for this fantastic learning experience .
Wolf (at that time known as Bill) Wiese
. .
“Hence, the occasional troll who tries to disrupt the conversation here so that followers will be less likely to see a post that resonates with them.” ~Leaf
A troll to a cult is anyone who successfully challenges their agreed on agenda and disrupts the continuous smooth running chit-chat that incessantly reinforces the group mindset. The predictable reaction is to eliminate the “troll” so that the perpetual psychological group hug can continue uncontested. All closed societies are like this: “We only want to hear our side of the story and not have to feel the stress of examining and reexamining our collective point of view.” In this way all people with a mutually agreed on agenda are a cult.
This blog is a cult in the same fashion. Any dissenting voice that opposes the regulars is silenced and then all the routine minds come out of the dull woodwork of blog purgatory and praise the moderator for his selfless service to humanity.
Why is it that every little pocket of “like minds” believes their view of things is “how reality actually is”? There is a pathetic need in the core of human weakness that insists “we” are the few fortunate ones with the true view of the situation and anyone who messes with that sentiment, anyone who challenges our delusion, is an agent of evil.
Advice: Don’t agree with anyone. Always try to find the view that has yet to be discovered and then look through it for only a day or two before continuing the endless search for truth. Don’t hesitate to be a “troll” because the alternative, the cowering weaklings huddling together for mutual support in the service of their collective lie, are far worse off than those who have no so-called “like minded friends.”
greg’s back
Top of page:
“…as well as deliberate attempts to unmask people taking part in the discussion might result in a warning followed by a ban or a leave of absence from the discussion.”
Why post a rule when its enforcement is utterly conditional on the prevailing group opinion of the one being “unmasked?” Why the blatant hypocrisy?
Post this: “If someone we decide is a respectable ally in our half-ass attempt to disband an organization with 10,000 more volts of enthusiasm than this blog could generate in 1000 years is unmasked then there will be trouble. Otherwise, anyone ‘we’ deem unworthy is fair game.” ~The Management
Whoa, hit a nerve with that “troll” comment. I wasn’t talking about you in particular. You seem incredibly sensitive to feedback and criticism.
I am sensitive to complaints about “trolls.” Naturally we would have to define trolls. But, in general I am offended by people who are offended by people who offend them. Why isn’t a challenging voice exhilarating rather than demoralizing? What are we afraid of? That any leakage of the truth into the general mindset might complicate the issue?
https://www.facebook.com/ggurdjieffusa
Gurdjieff – Becoming Conscious
“Conscience is a state in which a man feels all at once everything that he in general feels, or can feel. And as everyone has within him thousands of contradictory feelings which vary from a deeply hidden realization of his own nothingness and fears of all kinds to the most stupid kind of self-conceit, self-confidence, self-satisfaction, and self-praise, to feel all this together would not only be painful but literally unbearable. If a man whose entire inner world is composed of contradictions were suddenly to feel all these contradictions simultaneously within himself, if he were to feel all at once that he loves everything he hates and hates everything he loves; that he lies when he tells the truth and that he tells the truth when he lies; and if he could feel the shame and horror of it all, this would be the state which is called ‘conscience. A man cannot live in this state; he must either destroy contradictions or destroy conscience. He cannot destroy conscience, but if he cannot destroy it he can put it to sleep, that is, he can separate by impenetrable barriers one feeling of self from another, never see them together, never feel their incompatibility, the absurdity of one existing alongside another. But fortunately for man, that is, for his peace and for his sleep, this state of conscience is very rare.” G. I. Gurdjieff, quoted by Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous pg 155
“For the sake of attaining enlightenment, one should try to attain the unattainable and endure the unendurable.” Buddha
Has your conscience begun to awaken?
***
This gags me. This is Burton’s new attempt at attracting the unsuspecting into his rape factory.
I also believe this: Nature gives the ruthless and the unscrupulous aggressors all the resources they can take and rewards them with survival while all the passive, restrained “good people” sit around and complain and gradually go extinct.
I think Burton will die having grabbed everything he wanted and then he will go to Never-never-land without the least threat of punishment for his crimes against those who suffered because of his greed, his lust and his insanity. Why do I believe such a thing? Because the universe is obviously in no fashion just or fair. What is fair in our universe is that beasts survive and outlive their opponents in order write falsified histories that portray them as the heroes and the opponents as the villains.
Gurdjieff had no conscience at all. Burton has no conscience at all. Asaf Braverman, the one running the Burton site, has no conscience at all. And the admirers of these breasts out number us ten to one.
I am confused, perhaps because my intellectual level is of inferior quality then the present bloggers.Was the troll comment directed at me? I am presently spending a few days at home and out of curiosity and perhaps of boredom I looked up current information of the Fof. and found this discussion group.
My comments were intended to add levity to the so serious discussions of the absurdity of of the so called teachings of R.B. I will reiterate the fact the benefits I received during my tenure with the FoF. are appreciated, which as far as I am concerned outweigh the absurdities. The ideas and so called teaching were up to me to believe or not. I have left this organization 32 years ago and I see no reason for me to be angry or involve myself in further discussion of the subject. I hoped that perhaps one or two of the members at that time would remember me and we could chuckle at our youthful naivete and the what I recall the pleasant moments we experienced at the farm or in the house on Mercer Island.Therefore you will not be confronted with further B.S. from me.
I wish all of you a happy and prosperous 2015 and may you find what ever it is your searching for.I bought a lottery ticket yesterday the price is 40 million $ winning the 40 million is all the spirituality to last me a life time.Good luck to everyone especially to me.
Wolf ..
Lots of great posts folks! I’ve been quiet lately and just enjoying the ride. Besides, I can’t say the truth any clearer than you do, just a little different perhaps. All right, I hear you. So I’ve been a little lazy…..
Therefore some thoughts:
120. leaf – January 1, 2015
Leave it behind, and warn others.
I agree. This is really the only effective thing to do. Years ago I used to fantasize about “exposing the cult to the world,” etc. Now I see this was only one of many ways I used to process the anger I felt, and feel, about the despicable spiritual crimes of Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends.
Right after I left the group I was in touch with other former members with some regularity for several years, and heard lots of horrible stories: dishonest homosexual seduction, ordered abortions, and defrauding the government via the social welfare system, the tax system, and the immigration system.
But all of you know all this, and examples are all recorded in these pages. So why wasn’t the government sending in the good guys to clean house?
When I started reading this blog a few years ago even more dishonest and illegal dealings were described, and I thought, okay, this should do it. Major cult investigators have been contacted, reporters from the Marysville Appeal-Democrat are on the case, the DEA is close to connecting the FOF with large scale pot farming. Surely Homeland Security is concerned with misuse of religious worker visas which could be providing cover for terrorists!
Then nothing happened (again) and I realized the truth (finally). Unless one of you reading this has hard evidence that the FOF has violated the law NOBODY CARES.
No matter how meaningful our experiences were in the FOF to the world it is just a minor, bizarre group of religious cultists, of which there are many in our large nation. If laws have been broken, I suspect any police official or government agent who has looked into it has concluded it is not worth their time to do anything.
The FOF is too small and too meaningless to bother with.
Frankly, this understanding cheered me up a lot and helped me put my experience in perspective. Yes, my FOF involvement was a BIG DEAL for me, and lots of hard work to overcome the damage of being lied to by a spiritual thief. But significant to the world – not at all.
This blog and your writing here, however, are important. I make one assumption; that those who post here are overall honest in reporting their experience and their truth. Based on that assumption I know:
– this blog has helped myself and others recover from FOF abuse
– this blog has helped others decide to leave the FOF
– this blog has helped others decide not to join the FOF
And to me, preventing the abuse of even one person is worth the small amount of time it takes to contribute here.
I hope that something I’ve written has been helpful to you; please know that your words have been extremely helpful to me.
Happy New Year!
That is a great thought Tempus Fugit
“The FOF is too small and too meaningless to bother with.
Frankly, this understanding cheered me up a lot and helped me put my experience in perspective.”
A corrective to the very special feeling of superiority we felt toward “life” when we were fully committed members of the greatest conscious school in all of history, with a play that would define life on earth for the coming millennia.
By reading my last blog you may ask why is this guy continuing with his crude and likely contrary remarks regarding our little club of oh so justifiably outraged and oh woe is me victims of the FoF. Did he not state to refrain from further comments ? However here are further comments from me.
I joined this organization after actively seeking out a school. As all the members of the FoL did. It has been my observation that in individuals with a curiosity for the occult or spiritual fulfillment are all seeking a( club,sect ,cult ,religion )which hopefully will aid them to alleviate the deep felt emptiness in our being.
We seek to be with other entities of the same mindset and not least of all for companionship with fellow human beings.Once the initial enthusiasm of finding what we initially considered the way to the ultimate truth, power over others and a feeling of uniqueness over other members of our species, we become uncomfortable with some or all ideas or beliefs, in the group we had eagerly joined.This was after all what we assumed the path to still the restlessness of our emotions and longing to attain power.
Once we realized that the alchemical transformations did not materialize, doubts arose in our newly found way to make us happier individuals. These doubts then lead to an inevitable removal of oneself from the of the belief system, which originally made us feverish with anticipatory expectations, much akin to a sexual conquest pre. consummation, of the certainty of seeing paradise, nirvana and most of all more power not over ourselves but over material circumstances and other creatures inhabiting our planet. With this bitter disappointment we left whatever we thought would eliminate the feeling of emptiness and give us power.Blaming the nomen Klatura and (demigod) of the cub. They were not gods on the contrary they had desires , carnal, material and most important they had power over us. When we so fervently desired to be like them.However most of us did not have the insight of the lacking charisma in ourselves to be like them.Hence the poissoness cesspool of resentment in us toward our former self proclaimed demigods..
If at this point if one is blessed with the insight that all our deepest desires may be obtained from within ourselves and external stimuli may temporarily induce ecstasy much like hallucinatory drugs, but will produce inevitable damage to our physiological structure.
Those who understand the concept of” know thyself” with the realization of salvation emanating from within our selves, will go on with their lives and count their blessings. Those of of us angry at whatever organization or teaching disappointed, are condemned to stew in the juices of hatred , anger and frustration. With the likely result of inducing further pain. Therefore it is my opinion to forgive ourselves for our past naivety, but love our self for seeking.
These are my thoughts .
Wolf
Speaking for myself, I joined the FOF cult seeking a surrogate “conscious” family.
At the time my parents had divorced three years earlier, I was 21, living on my own, and I was quite comfortable quickly immersing myself in the group. All the love bombing felt pretty good, compared to all the yelling that I was used to in my family, particularly from my alcoholic father.
One month later, I became roommates with a student renting a house, and looked forward to moving into the main “teaching house” with the center directors when I could, which remarkably happened in no time at all.
Not once did I check in or reality test my choices with any of my former friends or family. It probably would have benefited me if I had.
Being in the group was nice at first. It always is. burton would make a pass through town every few months, but only center directors were invited to dine with him.
#2 Miles came through once or twice, along with other noteworthy “traveling teachers” and I was particularly impressed with Miles’ seriousness and sincerity.
It felt great to be with others interested in self-improvement and being the best people they could be. Most of my friends back home were content destroying brain cells as their main past time, and I was happy to be living a clean life.
After about a year, the center closed, and I moved to CA to be closer to the “center” of the cult; the center of which is burton. I was two years into the cult before I met him.
All the bullshit about Armageddon and the big Earthquake coming didn’t matter to me, and I never once entertained the notion that all my family and friends were going to be blown to pieces or swallowed up by the ocean. I was there to learn about consciousness from a father image, and burton claimed to know more about it than anyone else, which is ludicrous when I think about it these many years later.
Once I got to know burton on a personal level, and Miles left as an act of conscience AND the big stock market crash didn’t happen, I didn’t hang around. It was evident what was going on. I had no intention of adopting burton’s ethics or lifestyle either. It made me sick to my stomach, and I didn’t talk about it with anyone for decades.
I am most ashamed of not speaking out sooner, for some of burton’s action may have been curtailed. For, as a result of Miles’ vocal exit and acting from my own common sense, I was spared from the years of burton’s insanity that many have since endured.
By the time I left, nobody to my knowledge had committed suicide….burton hadn’t yet slept with an underage child of one of his followers and given him herpes…there was no fire sale of art to pay for legal fees…you couldn’t put your so-called donations on a credit card…and rhino shit was just plain old rhino shit.
More than anything, I am so grateful I didn’t have to go through the insanity of preparing either physically or emotionally for a cataclysmic event that wasn’t going to happen, just to prove my allegiance to a cult leader.
I am also sad my shame and revulsion has prevented me from taking more action to spare others from going through what I went through and what others have gone through since I left.
I am truly sorry to all those who came after me.
Wolf on post 123 wrote: “In the defense of the Fof I will state during my tenure in this cult I was introduced to wonderful Music , great food. Literature and the biographies of what I still consider remarkable human beings…”
Hi there Wolf. I didn’t know you because my tenure was 1978-1982, but I agree with what you wrote here. In some respects, however, the FoF tastes were strictly “entry level.” Music in particular. I remember trying to interest the centre (sic) director at Chicago in some perfectly fine music by Paul Hindemith but she was quite uninterested. Hindemith, it seemed, was not on Robert’s approved list. For me the cultural stuff, while impressive, was an insufficient reason for staying in the cult once I’d been around long enough to know with reasonable certainty that that is what it was and is. I hope you stick around (here on the blog.)
Personally I like the Blog better when the posters are unconcerned about results, profundity or popularity. At the same time it is enlightening to me to hear about the fallacious aspects of the FoF and it serves to counteract their propaganda and to expose their leader as a hypocrite. On the other hand, as has been pointed out: it is a small-time sham organization; there have been many others and worse; there will be more to come; and, very few people care one way or the other.
Good morning to all:
Before I comment on the more negligible thematic aspects of the our experience as members of the Fof, I am compelled to relate to fellow cross bearers of a traumatic experience I suffered of late. Those of you who read my blog of Jan. 2nd. 2015 will recall that I had purchased a lottery ticket promising 40 million $ to be won. I DID NOT WIN!!!!. ALTHOUGH I PAYED FOR THE TICKET AND WATCHED THE COMMERCIALS ON TV DEPICTING HAPPY COUPLES RIDING BRAND NEW EXPENSIVE MOTORCYCLES IN BUCOLIC MOUNTAIN SETTINGS AND HAPPY FAMILIES FROLICKING ON A TROPICAL BEACH, ALL CLAIMING THEIR ECSTATIC HAPPINESS RESULTING FROM THEIR WINNING The SAID LOTTERY. I PAYED FOR THE TICKED EXPECTING THAT THE PROMISE OF THE LOTTERY COMMISSION WOULD BE FULFILLED. I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO RELATE TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF THE PROFOUND DISAPPOINTMENT AND FEELING OF BEING CHEATED OUT OF 40 MILLION $. THEREFORE MY ALTERNATIVE WAS TO RELATE THIS FRAUD AND HYPOCRISY TO THIS GROUP , HOPING TO FIND SOLACE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE DEEPLY FELT PHYSIOLOGICAL FRAUD PERPETRATED BY THE LOTTERY COMMISSION ON ME..I WILL EXPOSE THE THE ADMINISTRATION AND THE LEADER OF THIS COMMISSION BY WARNING EVERYONE OF THE DANGERS OF PARTICIPATING IN THEIR SCHEMING FRAUD OF THE PUBLIC.
I wish to thank Parson Yorick for his comments directed at me and I take the liberty to advise the whale-rider; to ride the whale to depth of the ocean where he will find a new world not yet seen by most of us. This ride could be compared to a descending to the depth of our subconscious.Good luck on your ride and don’t forget to check your breathing equipment.
Have an exiting week in this New year and yes I am of the opinion that the FoF is a led by an ego-maniacal, consumptive sociopath. However we all have choices to make The choice once made , must be the responsibility of the individual choosing ..E&OA its early in the morning. :
Wolf
,
I’ve said it here before — I repeat, the fof is just another garden-variety cult.
http://doubtfulnews.com/2012/10/alien-doomsday-cult-had-weapons-stash-in-carribean/
“What I find interesting is that anybody would ever follow these people. Virtually every cult leader be they leading a doomsday cult, or the more garden variety kind is clearly suffering from various personality disorders.”
By extension, and in association with their leader, followers suffer from some degree of said disorders. In hindsight it is indeed a ‘curiosity’ that so many people are ‘sucked’ into so many variations of cult mentality / behaviors…. what is it about the human psyche…? is it basically attempting to satisfy a need to believe in something ?
George Carlin on religion (and cults):
133. Parson Yorick – January 5, 2015
I had the audacity to play Steve Reich’s ‘Tehillim’ one afternoon at a centre for someone. I was told it was like ‘pop music’, and to turn it off.
As long it as happened before about 1890, your OK. Modern art, according to Bob, is ‘insane’. The 20th Century got it all wrong. Perhaps they got the atom bomb right… but we are supposed to be returning to a non-electric age. That’s why your supposed to look at all this old shit. Because you can’t go wrong with it, and he/they want/believe in a future built on it. Something to do with billions of life people getting their contracts terminated by an angry Lewis Carrol. And you end up digging around in someone else’s mathematical bison shit, the logo of the sequence. 6 turds in a heap, drawn by a cave-man on mushrooms after a hard day sussing out animal movements. And to think, it was all worth while in the end.
The massive amount of intellectual and emotional food on offer in all these old things ends in a kind of tyranny of genuinely creative thought, which requires all kinds of experimentation, and a respect for what it means to offer up something new from genuine experience and long work, as well as for things that some might consider less than ‘gold alchemy ark-certified’. Making things involves destruction, violence and passion, spontaneity and intuition, and the kind of impulse is very difficult to have or maintain on an ark of appreciating old meaningful things.
Surely, if you had an ‘ark’, you’d want people to make things well? Maybe you can learn something from making something well? Like glass, for instance, or ceramic. And it’s relatively cheap. But you might make something wrong that daddy doesn’t like. So don’t. Daddy doesn’t ‘get’ new things. The perpetual appreciation of the fof, the fof of the fof, and the fof of the fof of the fof imparts nothing but a starry-eyed idolatry of old things, and the fact that really they are quite new when you think about it. Wow. 44. Your credit has run out. Please insert 50c into the slot provided.
Come to think of it, to even consider ‘aesthetics’ within the confines of the fof bobby/bobbetta mindset is ridiculous.
135 tom2u:
“What I find interesting is that anybody would ever follow these people. Virtually every cult leader be they leading a doomsday cult, or the more garden variety kind is clearly suffering from various personality disorders.”
What is even more interesting is that all the non-cult leaders, the ordinary people everywhere, are also suffering from various personality disorders. Cult leader or not, everyone is fucked up to one degree or another. People are ‘not right in the head’ in general. Which why, when watching CNN, the world seems to be going mad an alarming rate.
122. leaf
leaf, contrary to what we might expect, I think the trolling typically seen here comes from outside the Fellowship.
Trolls are susceptible to sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
139. Tim Campion
Of course. I’m sure both are true. Also, I think some of the posts challenge the world views of some trolls, so they come lashing out.
Many trolls are clever at straddling that line between normal commentary and debate and taking pleasure in disrupting the conversation. As your article states: “Sadism means delighting in the harm of others, psychopathy is an antisocial personality disorder, and Machiavellianism means a person’s tendency to be unemotional and deceitful. Trolls seem to have all three on lock.”
Re wolfwise: Unknown # (the one about the lottery)
Sorry you did not win the $40 million. As you mention, you decided to relate to fellow cross bearers here your disappointment about the fraud and hypocrisy of the lottery scheme on this forum. Since this is a forum where people go “woe is me!”? Is that your point?
Me personally when so many many times I did not win the CA powerball or megamillions lottery to the point where my lack of multi million winning was threatening my retirement plans, I also felt quite disappointed with the megamillions advertising, although on closer examination, I found their advertising scheme to be if not completely accurate, at least pointing to the truth of the situation.
I realized this when I did the very slightest amount of digging around and found out that it has been elegantly displayed that the probability of winning those lotteries (mega millions/powerball) are about the same probability as being hit by lightning twice in one’s lifetime.
While the advertising does the show the state of wonder of the winners, it also kind of shows that the winning ball presumably shown by the red ball is rare. Its a nice ad.
Possibly the ad for your 40 million lottery did not have this pointer towards the truth of the situation and hence your disgust may be much greater than mine.
Anyway, my point is here, with very very minimal research, I found that my “woe is me!” on not winning to be somewhat offset by understanding why it was unlikely.
And while there may be a bit of “woe is me” on the blog, quite a few people pass through here however briefly to do a bit of “understanding” as to WTF they ended up in the FOF as well as to bemoan that occurrence.
Why do people hate being outwitted and despise having their world-view undercut by a more all-encompassing, more comprehensive view of the little psychological pond they inhabit? Answer: No one likes the realization that they are mediocre and monotonous (mediocre and monotonous are stand-in terms for the cult word “formatory”) in their understanding of circumstances and events. There is hardly a more volatile insult than to make it clear to people that their outlook is limited and therefore inadequate. Mediocre and monotonous people hate to have to defend their view of things which they feel is simply self-evidently correct by the virtue that it has been tested in the court of majority opinion and deemed infallible–the accepted group “think.” This is why genuinely intelligent people do not confront or openly undercut the views of others. They make an effort to utilize diplomacy and present correcting viewpoints in a gradual, investigational fashion so that others can acclimate their psychological attitude to a possible broader view. These kinds of patient and compassionate people are generally popular, well-liked and respected. Being liked is more important to them than being right, not because the truth is unimportant compared to one’s reputation, but because the feelings of others is more important than being right. Generally intelligent people thoroughly vet their point of view before presenting it, so that they quite understand that it is a more viable sense of reality than the currently accepted mindset.
Others are not so sensitive to the tender egos of the local population and tend to blurt their opinions out into the marketplace without regard to the damage and chaos an unexpected point of view might produce in the local psychological pond. If the opinions of such people are obviously unintelligible or easily refuted then the “troll” is regarded with amusement and even with some degree of affection. After all there is no ego threat from some who is obviously dumber than “we” are. The trolls lacking obvious insight are tolerated because they inflate the egos of the “thinking group” that has established a territory somewhere in the intellectual Valhalla of cyberspace. The insightful trolls, on the other hand, instigate cyber feudalism among the established landlords and inspire an all out holy campaign to erase any trace the heretical and insolent interloper deposited into the comforting routine and agreeable hobby of daily adding yet another tidbit of pointed collaboration to the universally understood facts of life.
The aggressive, insensitive troll is always by nature a single individual unsupported by either lieutenants or outspoken sergeants-at-arms. The population of the pond, on the other hand, is organized and united in their chauvinism and ultimately exercise the muscle of mindless censorship. Generally groups would rather not know the truth rather than discover that they are wrong in assuming their collective has arrived at the truth.
Now excuse me while I go do something significant with the day rather than counter veiled slights from people who imagine they belong to a communal “we” in possession of irrefutable cultural wisdom backed up by the inane babblings of psychiatrists.
Are you going to take Wolf with you?
Macaroni,
When you do come back, here’s an idea for your next pseudonym:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Caulfield
Marconi, Wolf etc.
You refer to mediocrity and monotony as if they are inherently bad and apparently well beneath you. I can say that I have embraced both and they aren’t fatal…..or even a hindrance. I’d complain, but there is always someone worse off and louder. I thought that being important wasn’t important, anyway.
Perhaps like yourselves, I personally experienced no sexual or other overwhelming manipulation during my 4 year tenure in the FoF; and while I wouldn’t mind a conversation about Fourth Way stuff and away from the perverted teacher, I am certainly persuaded by all the preceding pages of pain and anger that RB is evil and should be shut down. He obviously provides a benefit only to himself.
Since undoing the FoF that can’t be accomplished legally and directly, the few remaining options include this blog wherein the occasional seeker might be persuaded to take his search elsewhere. I fail to see how the postings on this blog are so irksome and stimulating to you. Having left the FoF is there a void? Do you still need some belief to follow? The world is full of religions.
The incessant drumbeat here against the FoF and RB will hopefully keep some naif from wasting time and money in a fruitless pursuit. What is wrong with that?
Bob Stolzle
When a speaker has nothing dynamic or insightful to say and speaks anyway then he undermines his own cause by presenting a listless monotone that repels rather than enlightens. The lethargic rehash of a point simply makes the opposing point of view seem more attractive.
Put some energetic creativity into it or forget about it.
Macaroni this is the Fellowship of Friends Discussion forum
Not a forum for you to bait and insult bloggers here.
You’re a smug, self absorbed troll, end of story, now piss off.
Asaf’s insightful angle of recruitment for the day:
Gurdjieff – Becoming Conscious: “When you learn your own ‘cast of characters’ and connect to your true Self, you will be able to know another’s true Self and their false selves.”
https://www.facebook.com/groups/605114212832937/
“When you learn your own ‘cast of characters’ and connect to your true Self, you will be able to know another’s true Self and their false selves.”
Bullshit! IMO, there is no “false” self.
There is only one Self, the totality of which an individual has greater or lessor awareness, depending upon their level of maturity.
Even though a person with dissociative personality disorder (once called
“multiple personality disorder”) may have incongruent and competing personalities with seemingly different agendas, (like Wolf and Marconi) they still have only one Self.
Balkanizing the Self into good and bad parts is called….
“Splitting (also called black and white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole. It is a common defense mechanism used by many people. The individual tends to think in extremes (i.e., an individual’s actions and motivations are all good or all bad with no middle ground.)”
~Wikipedia
asaf is merely recruiting others willing to “consciously” employ the same unconscious defense mechanism.
He ought to rename his Facebook group.
“Becoming Conscious” is a misnomer.
The Asaf/Gurdjieff quote – “When you learn your own ‘cast of characters’ and connect to your true Self, you will be able to know another’s true Self and their false selves.” – neatly encapsulates the odious hidden agenda that lurks behind many a project of self improvement – which is to congratulate oneself on how much better one is than other people (on account of the monumental efforts made and hard won personal insights gained)
“I am of the opinion that the FoF is a led by an ego-maniacal, consumptive sociopath. However we all have choices to make. The choice once made, must be the responsibility of the individual choosing.”
IMO, this is not always true.
The sociopath is clever and adept at entrapping and manipulating his or her victim to accept responsibility for the sociopath’s actions by creating the illusion of choice, as in a card trick with a stacked deck.
Yes, the victim ought to take responsibility for being fooled by learning how to avoid being fooled again, yet, being fooled is not a crime and entrapping or defrauding others is.
One reasonably expects the perpetrator of the fraud (not the victim) be held liable for damages or fined by the authorities.
On the other hand, gambling against the “house” is a risk some people undertake for fun or sometimes livelihood.
If the gambler loses, he or she does not blame the house. They are aware of the risk at the start, which adds to the excitement of the game.
If the gambler gambles out of addiction however, he or she still has to take responsibility for his or her loses, yet the gambling house ought not to be allowed to feed the gambler’s addiction by sending them free bus tickets to the casino…like a dealer giving a heroin addict free samples.
No one expects the casino to host classes to combat gambling addiction; therefore it is true the addict must accept responsibility for their own recovery if they are able, and sometimes a big shock or some other kind of intervention is necessary to save the addict’s life.
Dependance is a form of addiction.
If followers become dependent upon the cult for identity and validation, just as an addict does they will predictably do harm themselves and others by draining their health and financial resources to fulfill their need to belong.
If the cult leader feeds the follower’s dependence by intellectually and emotionally disabling them with cult dogma, then IMO, the cult leader ought to be held responsible and stopped before followers unknowingly damage themselves or be traumatized by the narcissist cult leader.
I do not agree that causing a person’s conscience to diminish by following a doctrine of “resisting feminine dominance” will help that person evolve…no matter how many exclusive wine cellar dinners with the cult leader one is persuaded with promises of immortality to attend…conscience is the frog that gets cooked to death in the boiling pot of water…when you turn the heat up slowly.
IMO, if a follower is taught that it is fine to lie to others not in the cult, then the follower without a conscience can just as easily lie to themselves.
Femenine Dominance sounds like an elegant alternative term for Misogyny… “the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence”(wiki).
I once produced an audio work titled “Whitman and Women”, a selection of poems from Leaves Of Grass…
(BTW, “Leaves of grass is essentially a woman’s book: the women do not know it, but every now and then a woman shows that she knows it: it speaks out the necessities, its cry is the cry of the right and wrong of the woman sex–of the woman first of all, of the facts of creation first of all-of the feminine: speaks out loud: warns, encourages, persuades, points the way.” – “Walt Whitman made this remark to Horace Traubel in the late summer of 1888, thirty-three years after the first edition of Leaves of Grass was published. This seems a curious statement, especially since Leaves of Grass has, with very few exceptions, been read primarily as expressive of male sexuality and desire.” Mullins Maire, Leaves of Grass As A “Woman’s Book”)
I wanted to please the teacher with my latest production so I gifted a CD copy, in person. What I think I sensed at the time is that, was not quite pleased with this particular production… I think the reaction was mostly about the title selected for the production. Few moments after receiving the item I got asked if I was aware that Whitman was ‘gay’.
-Page 143 / 40. paul gregory:
“A long time ago I read of bit of Anders Nygren’s ‘Agape and Eros’. That’s a good book…”
I agree paul gregory, thank you again for your good book suggestions!
My friends, all the above is just a cluster of opinions, feelings and a little bit of memories…
Peace on Earth ~ New Year 2015
153. Barbara – January 6, 2015
There surely has to be a bit more to say about the Feminine than ‘dominance’, but the concept sort of barriers any other consideration of that.
feminine dominance
it’s your mum’s fault.
it’s your mum’s mum’s fault.
it’s your mum’s mum’s mum’s fault.
It is the fault of the SuperMum Law that stops planets from falling into other planets.
The SuperMum doesn’t want you to be SuperMan because she likes you clean-shaven. Only SuperMan can be SuperMan, but SuperMum can be SuperMan’s maid/accountant. Good SuperMum. Bad SuperMum. GoodBad SuperMum. BadGood SuperMum. 44.
There is much more to the Law of SuperMum than meets the eye. The Law of SuperMum is Everwhere and cannot be resisted for long. The Law of SuperMum makes people nice to one another. if it was not for the Law of SuperMum then people would be more nastier a lot of the time, like Medieval days.
Women have also made an important contribution to civilization and sometimes were almost even Kings. ?
That is why the pictures of ladies with babies in the old galleries are really really meaningful. It is because they are you and you. You and you are much more important than ladies. Ladies with babies are less important than the meaning of paintings of ladies with babies, but only whilst you are rentally conscious. Rental Consciousness is more important than the SuperMum Law because it is Mighty and Profound, like a Mighty Profound Cruise Ship or Swan Pedallo at Skegness.
SuperMum cannot come to the party. We don’t want no SuperMum law. SuperMum go Home! SuperMum BadGood GoodBad. SuperMum can come later to tidy up and take us all home.
The End.
Whalerider makes an important point in identifying the concept of “splitting” — a key to deconstructing the machinations of the cult. “Splitting” is a psychological propensity that is exploited and used as a tool for mind control in FOF dogma/ indoctrination… belief in the idea of good/true self vs bad/false self is the FOF mind-game which reinforces splitting within the individual, in effect to ‘divide and conquer.’ Once inoculated / infected with a belief in a divided “true” / “false” self, the follower of burton projects notions / ideals of a unified “true” self onto the leader or other “conscious beings” and diminishes the possibility to real-ize it (make it real) for him/herself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
Re: #146
Mr. Macaroni-
That is a wonderful suggestion! Give us your dynamic and insightful assessment of the Fellowship of Friends. In your energetic and creative way, please show us how to best dissuade anyone from going near Robert Burton and the FoF!
Lethargic Bob
divide and conquer…
“Sports & War metaphors to explain sex is essentially a male tradition. Even the word “vagina” is derived from war, as it is the latin word for “sword sheath”. The proper English word is ‘cunt’, but that word today has become quite offensive to many women.” Charles Moffat
http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/malefeminism/The-Origins-Causes-of-Misogyny.html
Just to be clear, I used the phrase “divide and conquer” here to describe what occurs within the individual psyche when the cult reinforces “splitting” with indoctrinated beliefs such as “true” vs “false” self, etc. Keeping the believers divided within themselves is designed to “conquer” them — another aspect of cult mind control.
In post 22. I used the term ‘revolving door syndrome’, as it is used in the psychiatry profession, to describe patients/clients, who start exhibiting psychotic behaviour, are hospitalized and ‘somehow made better’ – you can probably surmise what that entails – are released into ‘daily life’, find themselves ‘relapsing’ – in other words falling into the same old traps of behaviour and are again hospitalized, and round it goes.
Some bloggers have made reference to The Self – not higher or lower, not inner or outer, which I can only ‘sense’ as an emotional/intellectual stability that one derives from ‘journeying/slogging through life up to the hilt’, taking full responsibilty for one’s past and present actions and
fuck the group think…..leave the FOF behind
Asaf’s insightful recruiting:
Gurdjieff – Becoming Conscious: “Yes, our imagination seems very real when we are lost in it. On another scale, I understand that both MIT and Fermi labs are conducting experiments to determine if the universe is an illusion, something like a hologram. Essentially, in the Fourth Way cosmology, the world of our perception is a false. The aim involves connecting to the Consciousness behind the illusion. The unseen is more real than the seen.”
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+pay+no+attention+to+the+man+behind+the+curtain&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=4FC9D96AF13690C305CB4FC9D96AF13690C305CB
132. WhaleRider – January 4, 2015
The deep shame we all experience is not a natural given because we are alive. I can’t prove it, but I sure feel that’s correct. And I would not change my opinion even if I could win a $40 million lottery.
Grok it: dysfunction with family; dysfunction with teacher/student dance; dysfunctional feeling of shame with one’s response/behavior, etc., etc., etc. (empathy is the appropriate expression to feel). This description could be boiler plated on to almost all of our lives. Dysfunction is the “medicine” of our development – don’t like it one bit, but I don’t kick that dog anymore, either.
Dr. Mario Martinez has a beautiful synthesis of healing the dysfunctional archetypal wounds. Each wound has an associated “healing field” that can be engaged to resolve the wound through contemplative, nonlinear contact. My feeling is we can do this dance.
We ground the wound (energy) into the archetypal field through an idea of cultural contextualizing. He is a clinical neuropsychologist who is quite a good teacher through his expression in a book. Another self-help book – blaaaahahhhaah.
I’m so grateful I persevered past my “burnout” point; that being, 72 years of age is a long time to be working on this shit. Sometimes, though, we find a real friend who loves us, worts and all; that’s my measure of where I velcro these years. Even then, as in nature, energy changes and its time to go and grow somewhere else.
The book is The MindBody Code by Dr. Mario Martinez. Best of courage to us all for 2015.
In the Fellowship of Friends (FoF), according to Robert Earl Burton (REB), women will not become conscious in their current lifetimes. This is deprecatory. Women are, as REB sees it, inferior vessels. (How fundamentalist is that? But what would you expect from Arkansas Bob?) Even amongst the 44 angels assisting FoF, only one is a woman: Elizabeth I; whom REB saw as being ‘male’ in her role in that lifetime.
Women who are strong, independent minded and empowered, need not apply. And, if you are, best to keep that to yourself. Or, go play with the other women.
Also, REB does not want women who will be competition with him for the affections and sex partners with those men who are in his harem or potentially in his ‘stable’ of sex partners/conquests.
The main desired women are those that have money, make themselves indespensible (subservient) in some way (like laundering and ironing REB’s underwear or becoming center directors to scout out for young men for REB’s harem – narcissistic supply and potential sex conquests), and/or have some other value to him.
Ladies, dears, better luck in your next lifetimes.
A psychopath doesn’t feel the social emotions that inhibit people’s actions and allow us to live in close proximity to each other. They often “study” emotional expressions of others with a view to pretending to have them, to allow them to operate undetected. Burton came up with another approach, once he heard the ideas of the 4thway from Horn, he realised his lack of emotion could be presented as something high and noble. Feminine dominance was then his catch all phrase to describe the debilitating effect that social emotions have on people. He never had to work against it, rather he had to work hard to understand the emotions others have, which he concluded are largely unnecessary, and caused by the pernicious effects of Feminine Dominance or supermum.
I believe that we are who we choose to be.
Nobody is going to come and save you.
You’ve got to save yourself.
Nobody is going to give you anything.
You’ve got to go out and fight for it.
Nobody knows what you want except you, and nobody will be as sorry as you if you don’t get it.
So never give up on your dreams
Nigel,
Sorry, I must disagree. I don’t see that anyone is who they would choose to be. Regardless of looks and wealth and status, very few are ever satisfied with who and where they are. Getting to that point was at least half of the urge that led most of us to join the FoF or pursue various self help agendas in the first place. This attitude of dissatisfaction is part of the human condition and what drives us.
I take your point regarding personal responsibility and understand that most of us are not yet ready to fully accept what fate and God have given us. It seems that neither personal effort nor chance alone, but some combination of the two is necessary to push us onward into the fog of life…..
and, let’s not even talk about meaning.
Bob Stolzle
166 Robert Stolzle
In a sense, you are right – I borrowed that passage off a ‘quotes’ site and, as it has done you, I hoped it would stir some ‘radical feeling’. You do, however, miss one point completely – choosing who you are has NOTHING TO DO WITH LOOKS, WEALTH AND STATUS…..
A chance friend, who was a barman then a counter-assistant in a betting shop, quoted to me…..
“Success is the continuing pursuit of worthy goals.”
I look back on my days on what I am glad were ‘on the outer fringes’ of the FOF – not having a Woppa-Doopa Centre Director role or something like the Asaf Braverman (collect as much bullshit as you can from ‘ancient knowledge’ and shovel it down the mouths of aspirants – oh! having to please REB, of course) role, or be content with a ‘vineyard-tending peasant’ role – and the list goes on.
As poor as I was, not having a decent loving relationship, having businesses go from under me and still bloody going now, by having the aim to move to a town in the valleys of the Brecon Beacons, in South Wales.
I sense there were/are still bloggers who inherited the aim of a school, ‘to give them something to do’ and now feel duped by what happened to them. If they had had an aim beforehand, it might have been different, but in the end…..
“We have to take full responsibility for our own lives.”
Je suis Charlie
Moi aussi
Je suis Charlie!
The unhealthy aspect of splitting is how far some people go with idealization and devaluation.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”
-Voltaire
Ok Charlie, so you want to piss on/off the scene…
just ‘like’ an Old English Joker… cool
is it whalerider or WhaleRider is it Shard_of_shard_of_oblivion or something like that
you know what?
whatever
164. shardofoblivion – January 7, 2015
BRILLIANT
Je suis Charlie (“I am Charlie”) is the chant on the streets of Paris today, after the “terrorist” attack there. (Reference to the newspaper that was targeted.)
oops – obviously I was totally ignorant of that going on outside OH/Yuba!
Re: French terrorists
I always believed that any real god would not even be ruffled by some poor human’s attempt at levity or any other behavior. Can anyone here explain why some of the followers of Islam have such an insane drive to protect “the Prophet”. Regardless of the existence of God, the world’s religions are our pitiful assumptions regarding what HE/SHE might want of humanity and as such are fair targets for any and all commentary.
Kind of like the FoF, how does one counter absolutism that kills?
Bob Stolzle
a sense of humor (and all that implies), would help…. something fundamentalism/ fundamentalists of any stripe appear to lack
The Notebooks of Rainer Maria Rich-Dad.
An ark in time.
Chapter Five, if Daddy says so.
Trees. Ah, the trees. And also, the girls. The girls and the trees.
Please insert 50c into the slot provided.
The trees. Make boat. Boat against time. Mighty Boat against time! Viking river cruise holiday. Mighty Viking river cruise holiday against bad time with good old times like we really get it like in Olden Times but New and better than that, if that’s alright with you guys! Anchors away, me-hearties!
Is it? Two boys? Each with an identical Leonardo-Gucci Butt-plug. They go away and come back again and it’s all different but the same. Is it possible? Why wasn’t I billed for this? How am I expected to change channels without the remote? Get your own batteries, that’s my advice.
Please insert 50c into the slot provided.
Yes. It was written in the ancient animal faeces of old. Oh fecal dregs of Six-Reality, how important thou art, in the sacred studio of the unquestioning 4 dimensional shit polisher and attendant turd worshippers everywhere. Behold! The bison has shat again for the caveman with the charcoal pencil collection, from which I will now magic a package holiday. Shazam!
Maxed-out on credit cards again.
The trees. Mindful Mindless Wordless Wordless Silence Silence. A lego brick falls but no one hears it. The girls. The man upstairs with the strange obsessions. Transexual Satan worshipper with a mighty hankerin for Egypt, and a line in lingerie that drives Bent Vicars wild. Might pop in later and see if he wants a cup of tea.
Is it possible?
Is Please insert 50c into the slot provided
It Please insert 50c into the slot provided
Possib Please insert 50c into the slot provided
Le?
Fuck it. It might as well be.
Rumi-vision. Is it Rumi-vision? If it’s all right with him then it’s alright with me. Butt-plug. Spiritual Anal Bleaching and Colonics Viking river cruises against the tide of your SuperMum Time. Badtime Goodtime. Bad boy, naughty boy, in your bed. Alexandrian Penis-Extension wall-attachment security lights, not for the feint of heart, which may I say, goes all the way up to 11.
Thankyou very much. Life people are almost God. I have a coracle waiting for you. I can show you how to make one if you’d like, curious life-person!
A touching incident involving a life-machine that makes you all want to cry. You see? Sometimes we can all be a little ‘life-people?’ ‘Life people’ do the funniest things when they twitch!
Please insert 50c into the slot provided.
Ah! The trees, but no, really, The Trees, this time. Leonardo breath-strips with added anti-slime. Seems to be doing the trick. Having difficulty swallowing. That’s better.
Dames! Lots of em! Enough to breed with for all eternity, Mein Fuhrer! And real big important people. They make me feel important too! Leonardo butt plug montaigne wet wipes darvon psychic enema Man-Clit. I had him in the back of my cab, once. Earls Court.
On the good ship Mighty Man-Clit, we are all happy profound sailors! Old things! Old things are like New things! Old things are really groovy. Sometimes even ladies can come and do the washing-up and shit. We listen to The Beatles, too!
Mental note: ‘Lord of the Pork-Rings’. No word yet from PJ. Can we ‘cosher’ it up for the lads in the mess? Yes, and indeed we must, with military precision. All hands on deck for the kosher pork-ring to end all kosher pork-rings, dear, my precious, with man-cheese fondue appetizers for all concerned, from delightful Austro-German China. Kerching!
Please insert 50c into the slot provided. You have run out of credit. Your Leonardo-Gucci-Mercedes butt plug has all broken down and there’s no-one to mend it for you for years and years. Raise you wine-stems to The CheeseMaker if you please, but the goats are getting thin now.
Internal Memo: for the strict attention of student 1248, 1873, 3749 and 4032.
‘Re: Marketing opportunities for second hand Leonardo-Gucci-Mercedes Butt-plugs. Hands-on outreach to potential life-people. Milton toilet paper, Dantean Employment Solutions. ‘We at Dante Employment Solutions have the ideal Leonardo-Gucci-Hermes butt plug solution for all your Viking river cruise edutainment meditational needs. Not suitable for animal consumption. Battery-Jesus batteries not included. Battery Jesus costumes with additional Abn Irabi quotes. Have your photograph taken with Battery-Jesus, before or after your McJesus-McFlurry. Free entry to Michael Jacksons diamond studded Gucci sock drawer and the ‘Bubbles’ International Art Collection. Doubles up for trick or treat. Custom made beard-wigs, for ladies who dare.’
The trees. The delicately laced golden straightjacket, with centres going all the way up to 11. The marketing opportunities. The degenerate artists. I love the smell of degenerate artists in the morning. Smells like…. Hitler Petrol. Hit the Hitler Petrol. Hit me up with Hitler Petrol, before we all blow up. But heh? We’ll always have Paris in the Springtime with Napoleon McFlurry Battery McJesus.
To speak of… the Numberplates. Ah. Yes. The Numberplates. But also, the girls, who are significant. Hubba Hubba. And some imported Sufis from, like, ages ago, guys, OK? Thank you very sufi-much, you important oldsters! We understand you! Kerching!
For the sake of a single 44 numberplate, a man must have many finely pressed informal/formal slacks. A man must have his loafers arranged neatly at all times, but not in an obsessive way, and must also be prepared to pick up his loafers at a moments notice. A man must learn the difference between loafers and deck-shoes. A man must always have a spare Gucci-sock, and a chicken goat bone for the Emperors lucky dog ‘Wheels’.
Poem
Autumn.
A man without a Gucci sock
will never have one,
now.
The trees. The girls. A violin.
I have a personalized Gucci sock so fuck you, life-person?! ?
Rainer Maria Rich-Dad
(Now – Conscious Now-Now)
Please insert 50c into the slot provided.
Please attempt the Leonardo wet-wipes for your safe disposal, located towards the right of the Anti-SuperMum Bunker. Chicken wraps obligatory. Profound Chicken-Wraps are now pet-friendly, and come in a range of 12 charitable hyrdogens, for all your animal husbandry/child-rearing/personal beauty needs.
Potential marketing opportunities:
The trees!
So much wood. So little time. McFlurry McJesus help me now. McFlurry McJesus the fit is mastering me! Potential marketing opportunities: Mcflurry McJesus with Golden Sprinkles, in a forest wonderland with boats advert – slowmo for Xmas and easter, with like, profound sports calendar models with shiny teeth and shit, and a guy with wings like in Barberella. Almost genuine chocolate flavour. Kosher Aryan Super-Chocolate flakes with Mercedes Pork-ring Roulandes, lightly dusted with Hitler Petrol. With barbeque sauce and Leonardo wipes. But make them pay for the Leonardo wipes.
(Tax deductible for don’t mention the war veterans and supporters of Man-Clit United).
Now available on Amazoff, Kindle-Egg Surprise and all reputable Jesus-pornographers, but only on the right side of the wall/illegal settlement.
Splashproof covers available Conscious Now Now.
179. paul gregory – January 9, 2015
but the goats are getting thin now
Custom made beard-wigs, for ladies who dare
The delicately laced golden straightjacket, with centres going all the way up to 11
and a chicken goat bone for the Emperors lucky dog ‘Wheels’
***
That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout…now we’re getting somewhere.
paul… brilliant bit of creative writing!
macaroni… don’t quit your day-job.
Goddess Bless those who suffered in France’s dance of humanity, be they the devil or the angel, metaphorically speaking.
Are we willing to embrace what comes before a “terrorist”? A “terrorist” can be seen as the effect. We know there was a cause because cause and effect are not mutually exclusive.
Should we blame the terrorists for extreme fundamentalism (which one could say it is), then we enter into the reductionist approach that has held this paradigm in place for too long that the Earth is gasping for breath, literally.
Just a little tweak in perception would bring up the Empire’s torture and Colonialism’s decapitation of whomever they wanted to Rape, Loot or Plunder for a very long time. How long did slavery (openly) exist? Capitalism cannot exist without slaves, period. It is a pathology upon this Earth, like a cancer that it has no limits.
I personally feel great empathy for both sides. “But for the sake of God go I”. My internal prayer is to endeavor to behave just as honorably as possible each moment I am alive, which requires verbally apologizing for any misjudgments I’ve made. And I don’t mind apologizing because my ego does not command my performance, and she knows her place and job. We are a good team. She (ego) gets to dress me up, and I go out and do the work. Not certain who I is yet, but I love her as I never had before.
My dysfunction which vibration-wise matched me to FOF and eventually tore the lid off naivety, left me standing in a pile of “poop” and alone in Oregon House. My decision was to face the ” psychic vampire REB” head-on and be the feminine counterbalance to his sick maleness. I almost died once. Upon turning to see the person who had struck my car, I saw a man standing on the roadside with blood dripping from his lips as one sees from a vampire. I knew the message – drop the vampire talk or you’re done. Maybe so, but I’m a good girl and I stopped. – until right now.
Our dance is good when we accept our goodness. When darkness approaches, I duke ‘um up with great fervor – holding the cord of my humanity every step of the way. My dance is mine, and I encourage others to be brave and take up the dignity we are born to display.
Terrorism – no such thing. Just a dance of justice for all. The deeper the denial, the deeper the pain, the deeper the prayer (energy) to heal .. the dance of life!
Marconi, great job at breaking norms and expressing some appreciation for a change.
Maybe we are getting somewhere.
Ms. Lew is a good read as well.
Marconi! Is that hipster girl a pal of yours? She sure is good with the pole – I’m impressed. Seems like a good hearted video to me, like to imagine you are mellowing out in your old age 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bziA2A68Y-w
“Crimes against humanity” include any of the following acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
murder;
extermination;
enslavement;
deportation or forcible transfer of population;
imprisonment;
torture;
rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
persecution against an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender grounds;
enforced disappearance of persons;
the crime of apartheid;
other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or serious bodily or mental injury.
Re: #182
Ms. Lew Neal-
I get your point; there is only cause and effect, yin and yang, running our world and from one angle, that is why we found the FoF so attractive……not that the FoF organization was any better! I also understand your ire regarding capitalism. No one gets rich without the help being under paid….again sort of like the FoF.
I have pondered on this for some time and see no better way than the economic Darwinism we call capitalism. The socialist systems might look better on paper, but recent history (and, again, the FoF) shows that greed and the lust for power and nepotism— and all our human weaknesses—serve to undo the best laid plans of mice and men.
So, my question is, what system do you imagine might better serve any society of mankind? And, please don’t suggest Jesus as dictator, I thought that one up back in college and there is ample evidence that RB ain’t Jesus, no matter what he might proclaim.
Bob Stolzle
Just a little story from me of late…I had been suffering from the bad cold/influenza that had been going about – hating the low mood that physical disorder brings about – but was still managing to email and talk with my peers at my voluntary post.
What improved my mood was realizing what was the dream…no, not the cameraderie, not the intricate pieces of jewellery or sculpture, but we all accorded that the TEACHING AND THE PASSING THROUGH AND DOWN WAS THE REAL DREAM. I suppose if you can make anything of the FoF that has caused relic of your soul – hold the teaching pure…..Robert Earl Burton was/is nothing more than a thug/faggot with psycopathic tendencies…..he is as much prisoner as well as dictator of all he seems to protect himself with…..INSIDE HIM THERE IS NOTHING!!!!!…..Nigel
http://robertearlburton.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/robert-burton-stretches-to-enforce.html
Read the “Post From Ollie”, describing the fact that Burton opens his mouth and any old stuff comes out – in other words – BURTON TALKS GUFF!!!!!…..Nigel
Something more beautiful and sublime…..from “Prelude”
by William Wordsworth
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society. How strange, that all
The terrors, pains, and early miseries,
Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused
Within my mind, should e’er have borne a part,
And that a needful part, in making up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end!
Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ;
Whether her fearless visitings, or those
That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light
Opening the peaceful clouds; or she would use
Severer interventions, ministry
More palpable, as best might suit her aim.
thanks, Marconi and Ton2u. It’s just a relief to get the whole World 12 Leonardo Alexandrian wall-mounted penis extension security light butt-plugs off my chest. Even though they come in Artisanal Goat’s Cheese/Chicken/Dog and Houmous flavours, It wasn’t the product I thought it was, and I think consumers should know about this. I was toying with an Amazoff review and the heat of the moment just got to me.
According to standards of conduct exhibited in the FoF it is acceptable for those with power to engage the less powerful in sexual activity under any pretense. Mothers, don’t let your children grow up to be students.
Moving on to less controversial issues: Did the Dallas receiver have possession of the football before the ball touched the ground?
Mick-
Are you saying that RB’s game of hide the weenie was being played amongst the underlings, too? And not just for fun and games, but for some perceived advantage on the Road to #5? When were you in?
I was delighted to see Dallas lose but, yeah, they got robbed……I’m claiming that I had Pachelbel on in the background, though!
Looks like the “Gregorian Rant” (#179) wore everybody out…..or said it all. Some of the nuance was probably lost on me. The palace coups that will inevitably happen when RB finally moves on should be entertaining—–from the outside. Hope it happens soon!
Bob Stolzle
#179 was classic; somewhere between T.S. Eliot and Spinal Tap!
Not sure if pulling two ropes is what this blog is about at the moment…..
1. A healing environment for those traumatized by their experiences in the Fellowship of Friends.
2. A sounding board for those who were in and have healed/a megaphone for smart-arses who had nothing to do with the Fellowship of Friends or whose stay therein was unaffected by what happened.
I still believe there is a Path to be Trod in the Name of Evolution in this lifetime. My experiences with a ‘gang’ of psychiatrists and community psychiatric nurses is that ‘their road’ is that of ‘social reconditioning’ – to make way for ‘better citizenship for the twisted mind’. The fact seems to be for me that after each consecutive ‘sectioning’, I emerge stronger, more defiant and more determined to be steered by my INNER SELF – and I do not mean that of Burton’s determination – the self that wears a delicate silk suit, lizard-skin shoes, attends twee ballet performances and takes ANAL ADVANTAGE OF PRETTY YOUNG MEN.
Ella (a former blogger) posted this…..
We need only turn to NISARGADATTA…..
“The self by its nature knows itself only. For lack of experience whatever it perceives it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns to look out and live alone. When right behaviour becomes normal, a powerful inner urge makes it seek its source. The candle of the body is lighted and all becomes clear and light.”
As you know, by recent hints, I have taken a simpler, more traditional Path in Reiki Buddhist Healing and know that we must make good of this lifetime.
Nigel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgq_LR7kiW0
Thanks, Nige, for the youtube.
Here is some song and poetry:
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Chorus:
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
I looked over Jordan, and what did I see
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.
Chorus
Sometimes I’m up, and sometimes I’m down,
(Coming for to carry me home)
But still my soul feels heavenly bound.
(Coming for to carry me home)
Chorus
The brightest day that I can say,
(Coming for to carry me home)
When Jesus washed my sins away.
(Coming for to carry me home)
Chorus
If you get there before I do,
(Coming for to carry me home)
Tell all my friends I’m coming there too.
(Coming for to carry me home)
Chorus
And from Emily Dickinson:
THE CHARIOT.
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ‘t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
Nige, you know fuck all about me. In the game of suffering top-trumps, surely, you win hands down, but then, you’ve shown your cards. You had cornflakes for breakfast. I know. I know it till my eyes turn to jelly, all your amazing top-trump factoids. You’ve spilt your beans; mine remain in the can, as minty as the day they were born.
I know fuck all about you, multi-coloured rainbow of mystery that you are. Remind me again of your cornflakes, back it up with quotes if you like, but spare yourself the anxiety of reflecting on mine, because it doesn’t fucking matter.
‘Goodnight, Godbless, and may your God go with you.’
Dave Allen
While on Dylan,
here intro’d by Pete Seeger,
flash back 50 years:
Mr. Tambourine Man (Live at the Newport Folk Festival. 1964)
198 paul gregory
Hate to be anyone’s ‘shrink’, but sounds like you need help – maybe more of this blog, maybe some kind of therapy…..
I have done with anger – it does not work on me…..
In fact what I sought to attain through Burton’s group, what I learned after and what I have now…..
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried”
If you wish to communicate, please do, but not behind a front of vitriolic spew…..Nigel
“Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.”
– Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road –
“Allons! yet take warning!
He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance,
None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health,
Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself,
Only those may come who come in sweet and determin’d bodies,
No diseas’d person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.
(I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes,
We convince by our presence.)”
– Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road –
Dear Paul Gregory…..just in case you think that those ‘of my and our persuasion’ are given superior help ‘in our madness’, as my path has been, I cut-and-paste a review from a ‘client’ of our local Mental Health Authority – the same authority that shows its workers grouped together, displaying their ‘BETTER MENTAL HEALTH AWARDS’ (?)
peter king gave Devon Partnership NHS Trust a rating of 1 stars
total farce…
I intially was sent to the depression and anxiety team at the cedars who were brilliant at helping me cope with my autism and aspergers issues. Since they have become moribund it is a total farce. Wonford house first contact is a lady who couldnt butter a slice toast. My mental health care worker has failed to turen up 3 times and then blamed me. I am homeless and had to sleep rough. I was told that without a phone I couldnt make appointments (because getting a phone is a bit hard when you have zero money.
The outreach team at st petrocks told me to go to open door in exmouth. Exmouth told me to go to st petrocks. The CAB told me they only advise and had ‘no solution to my dilema’. My doctor can only presribe mediciene and thinks I am a nut job.
EDDC has me as unverified homeless, officialkly missing but possibly alive. Devon county has listed me as ‘missing suspected dead’. Exeter city council has me as ‘low priority because has survived on the streets before.
Gabrial house is a cess pit run by bullies. The housing is a joke and all the churches do is feed them, cloth them and enable them to carry on in their destructivce behaviour. I get nothing because I have used up my two weekly allowance (basically, get lost and let someone else deal with you). As a male with no dependants we have to wait 17.1 years for a council house, what a joke! The whole shambles is a joke.
peter king
Visited in July 2013. Posted on 23 October 2014
And, Paul, although I am housed, I still go two or three days without food – let alone cornflakes!
I mean you no ill will and have a lot of respect for you. Sorry to hear your without food, I’ve worked with lots of people in this condition and I think it is appalling. I know what it means myself, it can be humiliating and degrading to deal with others defining you as a number, a symptom, or a series of necessary tasks to achieve a recordable outcome. The system is broken and in a most corrupt way. Psychiatry as I perceive it is a kind of cult, but it’s a hard one to challenge. I’ve taken great inspiration from ‘outsider artists’ like Emma Hauck.
I don’t believe in trying to be understood all the time. A line of text that makes no sense is as useful as one that says, black, white, here, there, to me. I draw no inspiration from old poets, but in new work. I’m not much a reader these days. My writing up there is mad nonsense, and is designed to be, but to my crazy way of thinking, still makes perfect and total sense to me. It made me laugh, and I didn’t want Leonardo’s butt-plug in my mind for any sustained length of time.
best wishes, p
Hello Nigel,
I’m very sorry to hear of your latest struggle. Here in the U.S. we also have many people dealing with mental illness and neither one of our countries has been able to create acceptable long term solutions. But I know from your previous posts that there are many good people trying to help you.
And never forget your ability to help yourself.
Speaking of that, whatever happened to your silver jewelry business? As I recall you were having success as both a teacher and a maker, and expressed much satisfaction. Frankly, with my own artistic skills limited to stick figures and happy faces, I was impressed! I mention this because it’s important to honor successes in our lives and not remain stuck in our suffering.
Besides, a man who can make beautiful jewelry can make himself a new life, too.
As I’ve said several times before, I think your participation in this blog has been admirable. You speak the truth about your experience so others can be warned about Robert Burton and hopefully stay away. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how important your testimony is in this regard.
That said, there are many here carrying the same message, and there are times in life when we must be selfish and see to our own welfare. Since I don’t know you personally I don’t want to give unwanted or unhelpful advice, but perhaps it’s time to focus your best creative energies on finding a new way forward for yourself.
And I’ve got a feeling you will do just that, and do it successfully.
Good luck and Happy New Year!
Dear paul gregory and Tempus Fugit
From 13 December 2012 to 30 September 2014, I endured 8 ‘sections’ locally. I am 3 1/2 months out and intend to stay that way. Please see below, a letter to my local Member of Parliament…..
Dear Mr Bradshaw
Thank you for your recent letter. Although it is comforting to know that someone in authority is behind you, I have to admit that I am at my wit’s end with the thought that I might need hospitalization in Delderfield again and have, over the last six months or so been entertaining plans of moving to South Wales, for two reasons…..
1. Should I need hospitalization again, it would not be caused by bad choices of medication (what I have now is high dose, but steadying) but by exasperation with the state that Exeter Council Housing has let our street fall into. Thornberry Avenue might as well be called be called – drugs, thugs and police cars avenue. A breath of fresh air and a new start at my precious metal business in South Wales amongst the heritage of my countrymen would be healing enough.
2. There are, in place, organizations that I would fit ‘like a glove’….
http://www.disabilityartscymru.co.uk
http://www.head4arts.org.uk
makers guild in wales/craft in the bay
http://www.crafts-alive.co.uk
These are but four in the network that spreads vigorously across the land of Wales.
I feel I have given much of my time and art – both fabricating and teaching – but there is no more to give to an area that in the jewellery/silverwork is rapidly becoming ‘Londonized’ and more chic stores springing up, selling mid- and far-Eastern goods, made by near-slave labour, keeping the price down, beating homemade opponents. There is so much rich Celtic heritage in our trade that needs must see it be given back to the people of those lands.
My dream is to establish…..
Welsh Academy of Precious Metal Arts
with all the high aims and aspirations its mother organization had here, but to aim it, hopefully, at the 16-23 year old disadvantaged and disabled.
With all the thanks for your extensive help, I am
Nigel Harris Price BA Hons Cert Ed MIfL
Hi Everyone I have followed this blog for quite awhile. My name is Bryan Reynolds. I joined the fellowship just after my 21st birthday 1975 and stayed in for only a year and a half. Joining the school was going to fix all of my problems except that it did’nt. I wanted to do something with my life that had meaning. I am not sure what I expected it to be like I had read the Fourth Way and In Search of the Miraculous. I lived in several teaching houses in Oakland and San Francisco. I worked hard to try to understand the teaching and I met many people who were very sincere and commited to the FOF. I washed dishes, gathered rocks in what were to become vineyards. I was working in very low paying jobs in restaurants. I can only recall speaking with the teacher on several occasions. I tried to get to the farm when ever I could. Things started to change. At the time within the FOF there was this bizarre sub-culture of 5 cent cigarettes, eating disorders, alcoholism, clandestine marijuana use, sexual liaisons, late night runs to get students who went into town to get totally trashed. The stress and disillusionment and expense drove me to leave. Several things helped to make the transition away from the school which was for me like PTSD. Being damned for eternity and that the world was going end in 2006 were not comforting thoughts. I read everything I could find about cults and several were very helpful. Idres Shah famous Sufi makes several statements about Gurdjieff-Ouspensky groups and student/teacher relationships which helped a lot. To paraphrase he says that the teaching of Gurdjieff was a teaching for people at a certain place and time and place and was not designed to be replicated 30 years later in the hills of California. He also explains that a teacher would evaluate students and accept and reject people based on their capacity to learn not based on whether they could pay. What stands out years later is the inner conflict that I still experience trying to reconcile things which I learned, some great people I met, the energy that was there, and the inner states the I experienced which contradict all of the negative experiences. Another source of helpful information is several lectures on how to distinguish a cult from a real spiritual organization by Arthur Diekman on you-tube.
As we, I mean all of us who have in, say, the last 15 posts, ‘risen above the clouds’ and view the Sun, the Eternal Entity Symbol in our Inner Solar System…..Truth carried forward to a group like are bringing themselves to this blog, can cause the ferment needed for, what I have discovered with my ‘Rethink’ Counsellor,…..
TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY…nourish on this…..n.
Bryan Reynolds
This may interest you:
Greater Fellowship
‘This network came to life through the desire to exchange experiences and connect current and former members of the Fellowship of Friends and related 4th way schools.’
http://greaterfellowship.ning.com/main/authorization/signUp
Perhaps you may find people you knew, or have some discussions.
Thank you
I have no qualms in, now and again, quoting Whitman, in his Prologue to Leaves of Grass…..
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
“We don’t need no education; we don’t need no thought control”…..
Echoes of the 1920’s movie – “Metropolis” ?…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U
Here is something I found in the Foreword to a book I’d picked up. Some people here may find it on point: “…the question of authority, assumed in another or claimed for oneself, is an inherently treacherous one, bound up with abuses of the human will. When so abused, it leads to the dangers of an enclosed cult, which can be severe indeed, be it the blind leading the blind, or the presumptuous hoodwinking the credulous….” I liked that last phrase, “the presumptuous hoodwinking the credulous” especially well.
Just when you thought it could be James Brown and outright, in your face, definitely not Four Seasons ft. Nigel Kennedy…..how irreverent of me, but WOW!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcVOX5frsSU
What happened to the commentary here? Looks as if Mr. Price’s postings left everyone with nothing to say. I must say their meaning is seriously obtuse and while an occasional Gregorian Rant clears the air, I can’t understand enough to generate a comment.
Sorry for your plight; past, present and future, all of you! Do you see it as having any meaning? Did you just waste too much time in the FoF and “following your bliss” and forget about food, shelter and clothing?
Bob Stolzle
I’d say “opaque.” “Seriously obtuse” is a bit harsh. This is not meant as an attack on anyone.
I have a friend who thought to seek some fourth way groups for a path, way or discipline. He told me ‘he met some interesting people, heard some interesting things, and had some interesting experiences,’ but he realized he couldn’t work with them because they all ‘thought in blocks’.
The Fellowship conditions a certain kind of aesthetic that is hilarious to me, because I believe all ‘evil’ to be ultimately betrayed by the banality of it, and in banality is a desecration of beauty. At the centre of the ‘school’ is evil that is difficult to describe in any terms, except obliquely.
The fixation with a certain notion of beauty, right work of centres, or hydrogens, or worlds, or bizarre decorum, I find despicable and absurd in the strongest terms, and I associate that with the fof, which is a mistake.
215. Robert Stolzle – January 24, 2015
Was your post self-defeating? There are hundreds of pages of stuff on this blog? This isn’t my mission in life? Sorry for being a bit of a horror? I am a bad person? Thanks for the update?
I promise to try harder.
Sorry for the pixels. I lack your restraint? I don’t respect the unknown unknown you represent? I got you excited?
Mr. Gregory & Mr. Yorick–
No worries, mates! There certainly are plenty of posts here to persuade anyone to run away from the FoF and although I have waded through some of the old history, I am predisposed to laziness and would normally just look to see what the most current posting say. I assume most everyone that might be considering joining the FoF would behave similarly—-might well be wrong, though.
In a similar turn, I would like to hear from anyone who has recently departed the FoF to learn about the current abuse and goings on.
Anyone??
With regard to voice and style of writing here, there is no standard and what speaks to me probably will put the next reader to sleep; a lively conversation requires all views and writing styles and we all had different experiences in the cult and thereafter. So it goes.
Re. the “seriously obtuse: term in #215, that was just an attempt at a double reference to the old “angles of thought”…..obtuse angle—-no? OK, then.
Bob Stolzle
You bring up some good points, Bob. Ye Olde Sheik’s Blog bogs down every once in a while. After all it’s been on the air for over 7 years and many of the outrageous allegations have been made over and over again. Maybe it’s in an “interval”; maybe we’re in the final chapters or death throes. Lack of varied participation is a main factor and those who can be persuaded to leave have left. Those remaining and joining have their reasons. Obviously REB’s feelings can’t be hurt so I think it is sufficient to cast grave doubt upon his claims of high & noble stature.
As to Nigel, he speaks mostly about himself and does not take suggestions or criticism well, which is not conducive to any sort of discussion. May God bless him because he is difficult.
In the meantime: How ’bout them Seahawks?
Bob S.: Maybe a 1,080 degree angle then.
219 Mick…..I have always had this ‘self defensive/self referential’ tone from the blog years back, first defending my manic states of some sort of godhood, backed up by references to my heritage (I am not necessarily over-proud of my Celtic roots, wherein W B Yeats stated of the World Tree, “Though the leaves be many, The root is one…..”, but am quite sure that the American Nation is on a cultural cliff-edge, with cults being only one evil, probably closely followed by politicians then other religious fanatics, then maybe racist/bigots. There is so much evidence in writing and on screen – Youtube for instance, that it cannot be refuted – I am glad not to be American – or to have married one) then the experience of the last 26 years with the psychiatric arm of the National Health Service and all its forebodings (you may like to know that the NHS Devon Partnership Trust is in debt by over £50m – and still it fucks up!). I have little praise for psychiatrists and almost as little for the nurses.
Actually, I think there is little point anymore for analyzing the “Way of the Orifices”, as being still in play by Bobby B. Should this post bring hostility, then let that ferment the juices of rancor to what we experienced in the Fellowship of Friends…..Nigel.
#220 1,080 degrees 🙂
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot
218. Robert Stolzle – January 26, 2015
Thats OK, Mr S, I’m glad we could finally have a heart-to-heart. Feel free to speak up in future, though, because I can’t always hear you. Sometimes the dust from my wig coagulates in my ears, but I’m faxing you my qualifications ASAP. Please be advised to withdraw the current curriculum until present notice, on direct orders from Lord Shostakovich.
“It’s only a gameshow.’
Big Brother, season One
‘And Relax.’
Harry Hill
Thanks, Parson and shard! I love emoticons!
All ‘Ja Aw-
I took my leave in ’76 after 4 years and missed all the “fun”; but I was also, somewhat intentionally, beyond the orbit of Pluto in the FoF and apparently not RB’s preferred type. I was invited to dine on the Meissen only once. Having come from a “country” upbringing, the Farm looked like a joke to me and I probably wasn’t there over a half dozen times; but I spent many a long night at Sambos in Carmel with Stella holding forth. Christian religious writing was the required reading for some time then (remember the Philokalia?), and RB was in his “silence task” for a good part of my tenure, but he could be seen writing his ‘angles’ at the Skyline Church in Oakland every Tuesday? night and identifying your body type. If you were stocky, you were instinctive centered, thin and athletic–moving centered, geeky=intellectual, gay people and the obese were emotionally centered and you might get the ultimate appellation of solar if you were especially neat and pretty. There were no teaching centers farther east than S. Lake Tahoe and it was pretty much a white, middle class, pretentious American group. It is surprising to me how, under the leadership of a perverted sociopath, what might have really been a good and useful organization went to hell. I am not sure that the Fourth Way stuff was all tainted. I mean the “feeding the moon” and a lot of other ideas are pretty goofy (no argument that Gurdjieff was a sociopath, too), but so are most of the ideas of Scientology and most religions and at least the 4th Way does say to “verify everything”. No one knows the mind of God. The vapor trail of the FoF is sort of a microcosm of our generation’s idealism and belief that we could remake the world into a better place. We were beyond naive, but I think that was better than the rampant cynicism that governs today’s discourse in the west. “People are just no damned good.” Amen.
I’d still like to hear from anyone who departed the FoF since 2010 or so, to learn of the current belief system and goings on.
And, Mick, I’ll take Wilson’s “victory from the jaws of defeat” over Brady’s “deflategate” and give you 3. It is good that the FoF is no more important than American football to us anymore.
Bob Stolzle
I thought I would offer one for any ladies here – they may be few – and because my Reiki master is a woman (Julie)…..
The book to read is…..
Kuan Yin, accessing the Power of the Divine Feminine,
by Daniela Schenker
The book tells the story, meaning and influence of this divine being/bodhisattva and why many throughout the world call on her for help and health. Kuan Yin said…..
“All beings, without number, I vow to liberate.
Endless passions I vow to uproot.
Dharma gates beyond measure I vow to penetrate.
The way of the Buddha I vow to attain.”
Makes Buggerton look sick and complicated, eh ?
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