Fellowship Of Friends/Fourth Way School/Living Presence Discussion – Page 165 December 16, 2018
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Fellowship of Friends - Living Presence Discussion 
I asked Assaf why he left FF the answer was that he is too busy preparing the future to answer such questions.
I also asked Miles Barth the same question and received a similar answer, interesting…..
I’m taking the liberty of re–posting Cult Survivor’s message on the last page (#109), so that anyone interested can follow the flow of this particular thread more easily:
________________________________________________________
108. Ames Gilbert
Back in 2011 Robert started to prepare the transfer of power to the “triumvirate”: Asaf was going to be in charge of attracting new members, the teaching and the organization of the school, Dorian was going to be responsible for Apollo and Sasha was supposed to be taking care of the arts.
I heard that when Asaf told Robert that he wanted to create a web site to attract new students because the times had changed and people were finding groups in the Internet, Robert said “I’m fine with that but make sure that you don’t use my name or the name of the Fellowship of Friends when attracting new students because they are ‘radioactive’ in the Internet”.
Robert also told Asaf to use the Fourth Way and images of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky to attract students (even if he abandoned the Fourth Way back in 2006 when “the Sequence” was introduced — I remember him saying “only the lower self would read Fourth Way literature now when we have something much higher: the Sequence”) because “it was a better hook”.
Asaf then created a web site (that would be ggurdjieff.com, as I discovered recently) and started collecting email addresses of visitors asking them to submit their information in order to receive a weekly newsletter. The ggurdjieff.com site was not very efficient so after 4 years or so collecting email addresses and writing weekly newsletters Asaf decided to change the approach and created BePeriod.com, a more dynamic site with social media capabilities à la Facebook, and started producing weekly video tutorials on Fourth Way topics.
At this point Asaf started to recruit students for his project since he needed a lot of help with web design, video editing, search engine optimization, translations (each video tutorial needed the translation of the sub-titles into 6 or 7 languages), etc. Asaf used around 60-70 students for that and never compensated any of them for their efforts, even when Robert was distributing “vouchers” for the so called “third line octaves” like serving, landscaping, washing dishes, etc.
I personally know several people that spent countless hours helping Asaf because they thought that he was going to replace Robert as “the Teacher” (as the videos that I posted here show, the meetings lead by Dorian were totally incomprehensible and Sasha was not supposed to lead meetings due to his poor command of the English language and his lack of intellectual brilliance). Imagine how surprised were those people when Asaf was asked to leave the Fellowship…
My personal opinion is that Asaf was trying to rejuvenate the Fellowship in order to attract younger people and not to be the leader of a retirement home, but he committed the big mistake of not being open regarding his project so several hard-lined older students close to Robert were convinced that he was creating a “school inside the school” and that gave Dorian, Rowena Taylor and Steven Dambeck the opportunity to execute a coup d’état and get rid of Asaf.
I mentioned here that Asaf learned a lot from Robert regarding how to attract new students and take money from people, but his expulsion from the Fellowship shows that he is an apprentice regarding politics, an area where Robert excels.
Cult Survivor, I think that anyone who lands here looking for information about Asaf Braverman and his BePeriod organization will be very grateful for all the information you have shared. Thank you very much for making these efforts. Your post from the last page which I reproduced above is really helping to make the history of Asaf’s ‘school’ much clearer, IMO.
I also very recently received copies of e-mails that Asaf sent out to the followers at the time he was creating the BePeriod entity. Here is the first one, dated May 26, 2015:
BENEFITING APOLLO
Wednesday Soirée: “Building a Bridge”
Hosted by Asaf Braverman
6:30pm Wednesday, May 27th
Apollo Festival Hall
No reservations required
Dress Code: Smart Casual (long pants for gentlemen, dresses or skirts for ladies)
(inserted here is an image of workers building the Golden Gate bridge in the 1930s—Ames)
Dear friends,
This week marks a milestone in the construction of a bridge between the shores of life and our school. In the Wednesday Soiree, I would like to share this milestone. In preparation, please watch this introductory video (if you haven’t already). The video has subtitles in several languages: Introducing the “Be” Pyramid
The presentation will be broadcasted and available on Inner Circle Squared.
With love,
Asaf
So, it quite clear that the power brokers in the Fellowship of Friends knew and approved of Asaf’s project, at the time.
Here’s the gist of another e–mail, dated May 28, 2015:
Subject: [Students] Building a Bridge Presentation
(inserted here is a graphic of the Golden Gate bridge—Ames)
Dear friends,
Please find some time in the coming week to view the Wednesday presentation on “Building a Bridge” (available on inner-circle-squared). The presentation shares some of the challenges we have faced in connecting with magnetic centers worldwide, and announces a new experiment that will begin this Saturday and will involve students worldwide.
In the presentation, I used imagery of the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge as a metaphor of bridging or conveying school influence to magnetic centers. Unbeknownst to me, the Golden Gate bridge opening celebrations had started the same day of the presentation, May 27th, 78 years ago (see announcement below). President Roosevelt officially opened the bridge today, May 28th.
In friendship,
Asaf
(inserted here is the announcement of the official opening of the Golden Gate bridge in the 1930s—Ames)
Can there be anything more cynical than Burton and Asaf planning to use the Fourth Way ‘as a hook to draw in more followers?’
These are the actions of depraved beings. I know that Burton claims to be ‘above Judeo–Christian morality’, and obviously Asaf Braverman agrees. It comes with their version of being ‘conscious’, I assume. Certainly the cold decision to hoodwink new recruits shows utter lack of conscience, so if their claims of ‘consciousness’ were in any way true, then they are hasnamusses (that is, conscious without conscience, per the Fourth Way).
Regarding Lark Ascending’s post #1 above, “I asked Assaf why he left FF the answer was that he is too busy preparing the future to answer such questions”, I am reminded that Yogi Berra so presciently said: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Asaf is also too busy to tell his followers about his past.
In a previous post (#107 on the last page), Cult Survivor quotes his friend replying to Ames’ question about Asaf’s lineage, “I never asked him about that, but several students asked that to him and told me that he always avoided to talk about his lineage or his experience in the Fellowship of Friends. One of them told me that when he asked him about his previous school and Robert Burton he replied “if somebody had a happy marriage for 20 years that didn’t end well it’s not good taste to ask that person about that marriage”.
At least he admits to the ‘happy marriage of 20 years’…
Although it may not have ended well, he certainly loved the special attentions of Burton and the glamor and adoration of his fellows for decades.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Cult Survivor, you also said in the post I reproduced above, “but he committed the big mistake of not being open regarding his project”. Can you enlarge on this? As the e–mails I quoted above demonstrate, he was quite open at the beginning. Did he later start taking more initiative and decide to not subject every single decision to Burton’s micromanagement? Was that the unforgiveable sin?
5. Ames Gilbert
Asaf was never open about his projects, in my opinion not because he intended to create his own school but because he is very bad at politics, as I mentioned before. The emails you posted here about the presentations on “the bridge” were Asaf’s attempts to do internal marketing to recruit helpers for BePeriod. As Robert mentioned on the “Hell video” I posted here, when Asaf was expelled from the Fellowship he hadn’t been attending Robert’s meetings for 2 years; he was sharing information about his plans only with his “inner circle” of a handful of people.
I attended one of the presentations that Asaf gave about “the bridge” and it was a fiasco. When somebody asked him the question “How are you planning to integrate the members of BePeriod with the Fellowship when they don’t know that the Fellowship exists?” Asaf became negative and replied, “That question is not well-intentioned – I refuse to answer”. That created a very heavy energy in the room and the presentation ended in a very bad note.
As I said before, I believe that Asaf wanted to bring younger people to the Fellowship (when I left the average age was 58 years old), specially to Apollo (that looks more like a nursing home than a spiritual community), but because he is not good at politics he underestimated the power of Dorian Matei, Rowena Taylor and Steven Dambeck and that cost him the Fellowship (Rowena replaced Asaf as the Dean of the Fellowship and Dorian is now Robert’s official successor).
It takes a very unique combination of personal skills to produce a cult leader like Robert Burton, and people like Dorian Matei and Asaf Braverman are only pathetic copycats. Robert Burton is in the same league of Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Osho, David Koresh and Marshall Applewhite, but in my opinion Robert is the most intelligent of them all – the cult leaders I mentioned didn’t end well while Robert has been deceiving people for almost 50 years and will die from old age surrounded by a world-class art collection and by his young Russian lovers.
Robert Burton is the Babe Ruth or Maradona of the cult leaders — he is in a league of his own.
Cult Survivor, I’m coming to agree with you. Fifty years of successful grifting is indeed a kind of genius. A testament to superior cunning and stamina, if not intellectual intelligence.
Someone should write a book…
My guesstimate of the money Burton has raised in all that time: somewhere between $140 to $200 million (official income and unofficial income combined). Granted, considerable expenses, especially the ill–fated vanity vineyard and winery. But a life of incredible luxury nevertheless. Although never enough, all the sexual gratification he can pack in, every day. Plus, unquestioning obedience from a devoted flock for the entire time. Very gratifying! No constraints, never any consequences, all problems shifted to his supporters. Yes, he gets a perfect ten.
If only it was sufficient! If only he were happy! If only someone had ever loved him for himself…
Regarding Asaf, if he is as politically naïve as you say, then someone more ruthless is probably going to usurp his new empire at some point.
Asaf Braverman is spewing his pseudo Fourth Way/Gurdjieffian nonsense on a Facebook page called “Let’s Talk About The Gurdjieff Work”. A Braverman follower by the name of Cristi Ungureanu is posting advertisements for BePeriod “courses”. The advertisements feature a painting together with a video of Braverman giving his take on the esoteric significance of what is shown in the painting. He tries to bolster his vacuous ideas by sprinkling in quotes from Gurdjieff. I invite any of you to visit the Page, post the information set out in your recent posts and help put a stop to Asaf Braverman.
I visited the Facebook page that Robert P. mentioned and, to be honest, I was shocked: Asaf manages to be pontificating and boring at the same time. Robert Burton pontificates but he was not boring until “the Sequence” was introduced in 2006 and he abandoned the Fourth Way to start a “crazy teaching”, as the notable Nick Spaulding calls it. Now I understand what my friend that left Asaf’s group meant by “Asaf’s meetings were too intellectual and monotonous”. An image is indeed a thousand words.
I terms of knowledge, if Gurdjieff was a bottle of 2010 Chateau Lafite (Chateau Prieuré?) Bordeaux ($1,100), Robert is a bottle of 2015 Robert Mondavi Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($34) and Asaf is a bottle of Carmel King David Red Blend ($6.11, kosher).
Here is Asaf’s new Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/realself/
Here is the video:
Hi Robert P., and thank you for your warning about the BePeriod trolls infesting the Facebook “Let’s Talk about The Gurdjieff Work” group. My sense is that the organizers are well–meaning, but their format attracts those trying to sell their spiritual wares, such as Cristi Ungureanu or Walter Scholte on behalf of BePeriod, or Walther Sell, William Page and David Tuttle for the Fellowship.
Not to mention many adverts on the right of the page that are run by other members of these groups.
The trouble is that there are so many groups, so many constantly changing lures, fourth way or otherwise. The various FoF centers often run their own local groups. For example, followers in the London center run one called, “London Fourth Way Centre Discussion”, with 401 members. Another front for the Fellowship of Friends is the “Gurdjieff Ouspensky Self-observation” group with 2,525 members. And on and on…
This is just the tip of a very large iceberg. Who can keep up with it? So of practical necessity the watchword for ‘seekers’ has to be, ‘caveat emptor’…
Paradoxically, the existence of fake gurus proves that there must be real ones, in the same way that if it were light all the time you wouldn’t know it unless you had experienced darkness at least once.
Q. Explain the importance of the Sun and the Moon.
A. The moon gives light at night when we need it and the sun gives light during the day when we don’t. So the moon is more important than the sun.
Heywood, brilliant parody of reasoned thinking!
Precisely how so many ‘seekers’ get caught in the webs spun by charlatans.
(Just checking… it is a parody, isn’t it?)
______________________________________________
Cult Survivor, I think you have the value ratios correct, but we have to remember these particular wines are all fake. When the counterfeit goods inspectors come calling, they get poured together down the same drain to join the rest of the sewage, and all get recycled together into something hopefully worthwhile!
At the same time—who will inspect the inspectors?!
#11 I can’t tell if Heywood is employing irony or not, but that way of thinking is not without its adherents. It reminded me of the centuries old ontological proof of the existence of God, which goes like this: It is possible to conceive of a being who excels in all the properties that we might find admirable, such as goodness, justice, power (not everyone would agree that is admirable of course) knowledge, wisdom etc. So far so good. Then the thinking goes, one of the properties that this imaginary being should have is the property that it exists, since that would be better than not existing. Therefore God exists. Believe it not not, that is the argument Descartes uses to get out of the cul de sac that his “cogito ergo sum” had backed him into. By relying on the ontological proof he could assert that a good God would not deceive us, so we can trust our senses and our reason.
My position is that the word proof is very overused, it belongs in a court of law or mathematics, otherwise the sensible path is to provisionally accept the picture of the world that is most likely. For me, the most likely thing is that all gurus are mistaken in their certainty, and as supporting evidence I would point to the fact they nearly all claim that they have the one truth and all the others are in error.
12. Ames Gilbert
Good point regarding the fact that they are all fake wines. Apparently you can’t sell fake wine for too long (see text below), but some people are able to sell fake knowledge until the cows come home.
From Wikipedia:
Jorge Ricaurte, Robert’s (in)famous Colombian personal assistant, told me once “the easiest way to steal money from people is to start a church”. Three months later he was expelled from the Fellowship of Friends because he was stealing money through Robert’s credit cards.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brazil-spiritual-healer-arrest-me-too_us_5c1bf90ee4b0407e9078b161
Seeing articles as15.brucelevy, above…I wonder if research (and hopefully leading into articles or publication) is done on the corruption of the POSITIVE energy of SEX by the NEGATIVE trait of POWER…I would suspect the percentage ofd male abusers outweighs female and, yet, I seem to remember Ouspensky saying “Nothing negative should be come near sex”.
We are dealing with a volatile force – the creative, procreative and healing energy of the whole cosmos and universe. So difficult to keep negative tinges and attitudes out…so easy to allow daemons and inner monsters to manifest…and especially in so-called spiritual groups.
If anyone knows of such in para.1 please post it…I, for one, want to widen my sights on this whole area.
John @13
“…all gurus are mistaken in their certainty, and as supporting evidence I would point to the fact they nearly all claim that they have the one truth and all the others are in error.”
I would add that in order to support the charade or scam or con (or whatever one calls it), all ‘gurus’ depend upon ‘chelas’ – i.e. willing and / or gullible followers. It’s a two way game… a followship of fools.
They like their bubble though
as if believing is better than not believing
there is an infinite number of possibilities
and they choose that meaning, that specific delimitation
very narrow by the way
still, reminds all that about “reverse what your grandmother told you” and that other one: “don’t just believe what I say, verify it”
or something like that, right?
Integrity is the capacity to affirm the value of life and the tragic limitations of the human condition, and to accept these realities without despair.
Integrity is the foundation upon which trust in relationships is originally formed, and upon which shattered trust may be restored.
Dr. Judith Herman “Trauma and Recovery”
May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature.
May all beings be free.
May all beautiful, great and noble virtues of—generosity, love, kindness, compassion, patience, fortitude, tolerance, forgiveness, honesty, courage, strength, energy, resolution, determination, resilience, perseverance, consideration, humility, gratitude, contentment, composure, serenity, wisdom, understanding and equanimity—be ours.
21. Ames Gilbert
And then, of course, there is voluntary suffering, purposefully administered by Robert Earl Burton, to bring ‘The Teacher’ the Ultimate Pleasure and Indulgence of All His Appetites…remember that The Great Light is always on the other side of Fearful Darkness.
“People inspire you – or they drain you; choose wisely” H F Hanson
Did you know that burton’s favorite film of all time really isn’t Zorba, The Greek?
…it’s Apocalypse Later.
Happy New Year everyone.
Here’s wishing site members all the very best for the New Year
Let’s hear it for a Canadian psychologist…
The purpose of an individual is to awaken…to his or her possibilities…to his or her role in the wider world…not the MEMBER(!)ship of an insular cult GOING NOWHERE run by a PSYCHOPATH!
Happy new year to all ! Winter for me is a time of going inward and reflection – with that, feelings of nostalgia naturally arise along with realization of the relentless, irrevocable passage of time… “the merciless heropass” as it’s been called. Surfing the net this morning somehow this popped up:
https://robertearlburton.blogspot.com/1980/
Thanks again to Tim for this resource!
26. ton2u
Many thanks for the link you posted. It took me (somewhat cringeingly) back to the days when Burton designated activities for my life – mainly an attempt to twiddle with peripherals in the – many lifetimes away – hope that inner change will come.
Anyone who has “been there” – outskirted by both FOF and society – maybe even family – will know that only ‘being knawed to the bone’ by life’s experiences, paying attention to one’s physical, emotional and intellectual reactions and determining ‘repentance’ – a change of thought to remobilize the other functions – taking all the REAL HELP that is offered, for false help is all too ready to engulf and probably charges more (!), “Will, by God’s grace, play a set, shall strike his father’s crown (?) (Burton) into the hazard” Henry V/Shakespeare”.
The reason I blog here and view frequently is to see if Burton will ‘pop his clogs’ in a clumsy manner and the outcome be piddly little sociopaths who could not ‘fill Burton’s shoes’. What I do in life is to use all I have in my physical, emotional and intellectual powers to pass on my gifts and skills, heal the wounded, dispossessed and disadvantaged and to relieve Death Anxiety in myself by increasing a crescendo of effort to the day I am taken back to my Natal Star. Rodney Collin produced such an effort and I went to college in his town of birth.
There is nothing happy about a New Year. Meaning matters!
To all those who try, and fail. Keep trying!
Question for Cult Survivor (hopefully still following the forum):
First, thank you for all the information you have already provided. I’m curious if you know, preferably having heard something directly from Asaf, why Robert suddenly gave Asaf the ultimatum to shut down BePeriod or leave the Fellowship. It had been going on for a few years, apparently with Robert’s full knowledge and blessing. So what happened around October 2016? One name that keeps coming up is Rowena (Renee). Of course, in her bid for increasing power, she had every reason to get rid of Asaf. That’s common knowledge. But what could she have said to Robert (via Sasha) that was suddenly so threatening that Robert immediately had to take action? Some think she brought up the fact that Asaf was not actually recruiting for Robert and the FF. But you said in an earlier post that it was Robert himself who asked Asaf NOT to mention his (Robert’s) name or the Fellowship’s within the context of BePeriod.
Thanks in advance if you can shed some light on this.
29. Insider
Here is the piece of information that is missing.
When Alexandr “Sasha” Shalapanov went to Italy as a “traveling teacher” in September of 2016, he visited Naples and heard some very negative comments regarding a “pro-Asaf” student from the Rome center named Fabrizio Agozzino (he is the person whose wife died of cancer a few months after Asaf was expelled from the FOF evoking Robert’s to comment that “she was involved in a nasty play so Influence C is punishing her” and to send her a personal message a few days before her death saying “tell her that she could be saved if she rejoins”). The comments Sasha heard in Naples were basically that Fabrizio was charging a membership from people that were joining BePeriod (Asaf’s group) and not sending the funds to Apollo and that he was organizing prospective meetings of BePeriod at the Rome Teaching House where he was living with several FOF students and asking them to leave the house while those meetings were happening (this shows that Fabrizio is as bad in politics as Asaf). When Sasha visited Rome during his Italian journey, he did some detective work and verified what he had heard in Naples; upon his return to Apollo he conveyed that information to Robert and that made Robert send to Asaf the message to choose between the FOF and BePeriod. As I said before here, Rowena Taylor, Steven Dambeck and Dorian Matei were waiting for an opportunity to get rid of Asaf, and Fabrizio made their work much more easier so to speak.
I’m looking forward to see what’s going to happen when Robert “completes his task” – I heard a few months ago from a current FOF member that Greg Holman, the president of the FOF, contacted Asaf to see if he would come back to the FOF to be the leader after Robert joins the 80 angels (this shows that Greg is pro-Asaf and not pro-Dorian, and I’m sure he has some allies). This person also told me that Greg is planning to lock the Galleria (Robert’s residence that hosts art pieces worth millions of dollars) the moment Robert kicks the bucket and protect it with armed guards. It will be an interesting show to watch, to say the least.
30. Cult Survivor
“…Greg is planning to lock the Galleria (Robert’s residence that hosts art pieces worth millions of dollars) the moment Robert kicks the bucket and protect it with armed guards.”
That’s what we might call “closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.” Robert Burton has always been the biggest raider of the Fellowship’s treasury.
26. ton2u
Thanks, ton. I too like to reminisce at this time.
30. Cult Survivor
If the cult continues after RB kicks it that’s one thing. If it eventually closes down, even through attrition, everything goes to the State of Calif. They better not fuck with any of the assets and properties. This isn’t like their past immigration bull shit. They’ll end up in jail.
32 brucelevy
Would it make any difference if Robert has a trust marking all assets, and by default, all liabilities, to go to the FoF upon his death?
33. Golden Veil
No idea. But my understanding is, as a non-profit church,it all reverts to the state. Property, assets, etc. It’s not a grab bag for the greedy assholes.
I saw this as the first movie in California…honor and principles…
26 ton2u
The link to the REB blog post – and the link there to the Harold Wirk spreadsheet with its analysis (and projections) of the 1980 FoF membership on the Internet Archive is very interesting. Would love to see a breakdown of the current membership, if anyone has one they could post or link to.
34 brucelevy
I don’t see why the FoF wouldn’t then just continue the sham of teaching the Fourth Way perpetually… and the assertion that Asaf has been marked as a preferable figurehead makes sense. An entire revamping of the organization could be achieved once it is rid of Dorian Gray and perhaps it could then become a more benign spiritual organization. Maybe the stiff playacting members would continue in their roles but with a lot less sexual perversion / assaults (if some of the inner circle don’t continue with their little reputed threesome, etc. sex parties.
30. Cult Survivor
Got more than I expected. Thanks!
Regarding Greg H, Asaf, etc., it sounds like the Board (of which Greg is a member) is finally doing, or planning on doing, what it should have been doing all along: being in charge of running the Fellowship (as does the Board of Directors of any church). For now, there are too many Burton stooges (E. Harris, W. Mott, A. Schwartzberg, etc.) on the Board to take control away from Burton, even though that’s exactly what needs to be done, and they all know it. But post-Burton, the Board is ready to completely assert its legal powers and duties. I would hate to be someone named Dorian M, Steven D, or Sasha S, and watch my bloated salary disappear overnight.
In that context, and with the aim of wanting to continue the church of the Fellowship of Friends, and not have the state of Calif step in and take over, exploring the possibility of Asaf being appointed as “Head Minister” makes a lot of sense.
Cult Survivor, thanks for filling in more of the sordid details…
Really, someone should write a book. But the plot is getting so convoluted, it would take a genius to clearly spell out the timelines, the factions, the politics, the undercurrents, in a way the average reader could understand.
You said, “I heard a few months ago from a current FOF member that Greg Holman, the president of the FOF, contacted Asaf to see if he would come back to the FOF to be the leader after Robert joins the 80 angels”.
Well, well, well!
If I were Asaf, I would just laugh lightly and carry on with the BePeriod gig. Why would he want to take responsibility for a bunch of ageing yet infantile dependents? When instead he could control a flock of healthy dependents at the peak of their earning power?
So, after Burton shuffles off this mortal coil, Greg Holman would lead a coup against Dorian and Sasha, and try to install another someone—also trained for many years in the style of Burton—to be the spiritual leader of the cult? Somone also previously proclaimed “a future conscious being” on the say–so of Burton. Absent that annointment, Asaf might have risen on his own merits to the local prominence of, say, a Hugh J. or an Ethan H. or a Linda T., intellectually clever enough—but who the fuck would have thought of Hugh J. or Ethan H. or Linda T. as the future Maximum Leader, without them first having been elevated by Burton’s authority as someone extra–special within the hierarchy?
In other words, Greg would be relying on a claim—since withdrawn in high dudgeon—that Asaf was at some point going to become “conscious” (this qualification supposedly necessary to instruct and guide “students” in a “school”)!
How would Greg persuade first himself, and then others, that there was a higher spiritual end to such shenanigans rather than a plain grab for power? Or would he sell it as a neat way to revert to the orderly and comfortable status quo ante?
Hey, that might work with these particular sheep, that would neatly avoid the danger of having to think for themselves!
I would think that Burton’s final blessing and benediction and transfer of authority to Dorian would carry great weight amongst the sheep. Especially if there was some ¡dramatic! farewell instructions to those gathered around his death bed, and/or explicit instructions in his will.
Yet, if Greg could persuade the majority of the Board of Directors to go along with his scheme, then he might indeed prevail, at least legally.
However, the Board has always been comprised of carefully selected ‘yes’ men and women who have rarely tried to govern Burton’s proclivities, who have pretty much always acceded to his whims. To counter any resistance, maybe Holman could use the argument that everything up to the moment Braverman was handed his marching orders was legitimate and established, and everything after that was a result of Burton’s dementia, and thus his authority was no longer valid from that point.
Much better, when Burton dies, would be if Greg Holman could persuade the Board to shut the whole damn thing down, and turn the assets over to the state, as Bruce mentions above. If he did that, he could star as a redeemed character in the last chapter of the book.
I wonder if Burton deep down inside really thinks he is immortal? He may not. On the other hand he may believe it all. If so he surely is planning how to retain control from beyond the grave. Maybe Sasha has as yet undisclosed mediumship qualities, and he would start channelling Burton in fabulously expensive special seances, that members could attend. It wouldn’t be hard to fake that high pitched raspy old voice he has.
“Hello dear. I am in paradise, sitting next to Leonardo as he sketches some lustrously beautiful Florentine youth for our mutual and eternal pleasure. How can I help you dear?”
John Harmer, you have a deliciously twisted mind. I think you have found the answer. Of course, Burton has always claimed to channel 44, then 45 and now 81angels, so the precedent is set. Now we can look forward first to a battle to establish who is actually chanelling #RealRobertEarlBurton, which should be rather amusing.
Then we can observe with interest as the eventual victor emerges to reign triumphant over the remaining flock—the God–Emperor of Oregon House is dead, long live the God–Emperor!
Will it be Emperor Dorian, or Emperor Stephen, or Empress Rowena? Maybe a Triumvirate to avoid bloodshed? Or will a darker horse be in the running? Will it be Kevin or Linda who comes in from behind to snatch the crown and the bank account?
What fucking drugs are you people on? Do you actually think the minor fof homunculi, like fucking Linda, are going to hold together this nest of fucking misfits and sociopaths? It’s going to be like “What ever Happened To Baby Jane”…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jv0uUV2YaI
The Cult of Gentlemen, a video exposé on Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends
43. Golden Veil
“with Burton bed-ridden and about to die”…
I like that phrase…fireworks party!
since around 2016, Rowena has been planning after Roberts’ death. Not remembering quietly though. I think she was planning to create regional councils, not just one council. She won’t leave that power without fight. By the way we used to call her “the redcheek”. Between friends.
By the way, when we received we have to immediately cut all the links with Asaf, I checked Ansley( his wife) and her family’s status on their memberships. It took a while, I think they removed the father last, not sure.
Also Robert T told a new student who asked if she could watch beperiod videos: if you watch those then you have no place in this school, you can leave”.
There is one bastard I would like to mention. And I saw that mostly Russians in that center are bastards, but anyway. There is Sergey Yastremsky; complete asshole( by all means). He stayed in the same room with Robert T. at that time.
And also Aleksey Kudriashov; most probably both Rowena and Robert had him in the beddy. So probably she has a lot of support from Russians. I would like to see Asaf vs Rowena battle; since Steven Dambeck and Dorian are just puppets under her.
There is also that b.tch, Hisami Kimura who was a strong Rowena supporter. The last time I saw her she was organizing new students( fresh boys) for Rowena. She arranges things from Amsterdam.
That woman said an interesting thing once, was confused me a lot. She said if a student leaves, C influence also leaves her. But if a student leaves and comes back, than that means higher forces have been working with her, so therefore for Robert it was very important that a student dies while a member.
Wow. So if you leave, gods leave you. If you keep not being a member; no C influence for you. Then if you rejoin; Bingo, suddenly it turns out you are the chosen one.
The main paradox in Fof for me was this;, and when I asked this to people, none could answer. If you do something, that something they dont approve, it is your lower self. If they did anything, it was C Influence. Pure bullshit. And they were not even Robert, it was for everyone who have been higher up than you in the cult hierachy. At that times i thought this was a real thing.
I needed to share thats all.
And I am almost certain somebody would have checked Asaf, because they definitely check you if they think you are a useful tool.
My understanding is that assets of a nonprofit that goes defunct don’t escheat to the state. Under something called the Cy Pres doctrine, the court looks at the defunct nonprofit or charitable trust’s purpose, and the court modifies the purpose to permit the assets to be transferred to an organization which most closely resembles the defunct nonprofit’s purpose. I doubt some asset-coveting wannabe-cult leader could rush around and engineer a new nonprofit in Yuba County to receive FOF’s assets if FOF disintegrates. Such activity looks far more like religious or political schism than legitimate nonprofit conduct.
45. Jomo Pinata
Thanks. Sounds good.
“…the assets to be transferred to an organization which most closely resembles the defunct nonprofit’s purpose.”
the defunct purpose… hmm… the aggrandizement of a malignant narcissist…. so transferred to another organization something like this:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/holy-hell-cult-documentary_us_5744c96ae4b055bb11708e51
My hope is that this Church will die with Robert Burton.
48. rich
Well, something will die with Burton’s death, retirement and/or overthrow (hi, there, Board of Directors!). Although a few may try, for their own selfish, power-driven, greedy aims, no one will be able to keep the Bobby-bubble inflated for very long. Soon to be obsolete (in no particular order):
–Paradise (“You’re all going there, and I’ll be waiting for you.”)
–Influence C (“And they’re here in the room, right now.”)
–The Sequence (“The greatest secret of all time.”)
–The Play (conceived, written, produced & directed by the oldest angel, right down to the last excruciating detail)
–Burton’s Divinity (“A goddess in a man’s body.”)
–Visitations by The Absolute (“Sasha, hand me your handkerchief. I don’t want to dirty mine. Okay, I’m going on my knees now to look like I’m kissing The Absolute’s feet. Is the camera ready?”)
–Divine Essence Presence (“I don’t give a damn what’s going on in your stupid head. Just try to look like you’re not totally spaced out once in a while. And try to smile. And for Christ’s sake, stop talking with food in your mouth. Even better, stop talking at all.”)
–Being Special, Unique & Blessed (“In the entire universe, the only places where consciousness is to be found is in Paradise and here at Apollo.”)
–Wretched, Pathetic Life People (Paraphrasing Burton’s comments at a meeting following the fire in Paradise, CA: “Dying by being burnt alive, those people deserved to die like that, because they called their town Paradise, and they have no idea what beauty is.”)
Again, the man…
Just like always, Teacher heaping evil on tragedy…(the Paradise fire)
51. rich
Please explain to which post you are pertaining (and the role of “Teacher”)…
To make it quite clear to those landing here for the first time, seeking more information about the “Cult of Gentlemen” featured in the video above, the Fellowship of Friends does condescend to include ladies.
However!
Robert Earl Burton has decreed that no women may become “conscious” in this lifetime, and also that there is only one woman in the entire pantheon of 81 ‘angels’ (the spirits of ‘conscious beings’ who have undertaken to supervise the members as they form the nucleus of the next civilization). That would be, Queen Elizabeth I of England. How does he know? He is ‘conscious’, so you’ll have to just take his word for it.
So, why do women join the Fellowship? Asking around, I found the majority of ladies regarded such pronouncements as ‘just a theory’, and set out to prove Burton wrong. In other words, another challenge amongst so many.
At the time I joined, study of the Fourth Way was claimed not only to be foundational, but also at least a cursory study was demanded, such as the then–required reading of “Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution” by P.D. Ouspensky before the first of three ‘introductory meetings’. And nowhere in the 4th Way literature was there such injunction about women being ‘lower cosmoses’ and incapable of becoming ‘conscious’, that I can recall.
Gurdieff and Ouspensky were both products of the Western patriarchy, and the more modern take on the ideas of feminism were still relatively new in 1978, and so females joining the Fellowship had to contend with being second–class citizens within society in general as well as in the FoF. Not that there has been that much progress since then (being allowed to compete with men exclusively on the terms of the prevailing male power structures does not count for much, IMHO), but definitely none whatsoever within the Fellowship of Friends.
I think Burton would have ideally preferred to have a men–only flock that he could organize as a rotating harem, but that would have been a step too far. Instead, he uses women in several ways that advance his agenda.
In no particular order:
First, as bait, to attract or accompany more prospective males to feast upon.
Second, to normalize the organization (see, both sexes are represented here!).
Third—grudgingly—to provide temporary sexual outlets for the heterosexual males, before, during, and after he has had sex with them. And, to reassure deeply shamed males that at least there is someone lower on the totem pole than them.
Fourth, to degrade women for the effrontery of being female; a confirmed misogynist, Burton needs convenient targets to humiliate and punish for being female and diverting sperm and attention from him.
And fifthly, women are genuinely useful to him if they are rich, or good organizers, or good at raising funds, and he is smart enough to flatter and encourage those.
And thanks to whoever put together the video, that took considerable effort. But you could have left out the talking head with the mustache, who resembles nothing so much as a week–old codfish thrown out in the bin behind the fishmonger, and which even the neighborhood alley cats disdain.
This is maybe an all too seeming easy question to answer for some, but I am sure baffles many…it is the fact – “That why has Burton and why have the factions of the FOF not actually been brought up into court to face undeniable charges of horrendous illegalities?”…are the cases against the organization too weak or meet with strong defense?…or, as I would myself surmise, the funds to buy off prosecution/lawyers easily available?…I would actually like to hear that Burton had ‘ended his role’ in jail.
Jess, I’m referring to RB comment that those who
burned in the fire got what they deserved for
having the name of “paridise” for their town,
and the victims having no clue about “paridise”.
rich
1.2. The Teaching and The Founding Minister or Teacher
The Fellowship additionally teaches that the source of the Teaching is Higher Mind, and that the Founding Minister, called the Teacher, is the authoritative Teacher of the system of ideas, the disciplines, and the counsels taught and practiced in the Fellowship, all of which constitute the Teaching and which are reflected also in the consensus of the Ministry of the Church and of the inner circle of the Fellowship. The Fellowship recognizes both the spiritual prinacy of the Teacher and his mediatorship by virtue of which Higher Forces reveal their will regarding the Fellowship principally through him. He is the leader in realizing the practical aspects of the spiritual work and mission of the Fellowship. The Teacher’s role is unique. The Teacher may name his deputy or his successor, or indicate the means by which his successor may be chosen. In the event that, before his passing, the Teacher shall not have named a successor or indicated the means by which a successor may be chosen, the College of Ministers shall elect his successor.
THE CANONS OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS
January 1, 1986
Regarding the video at post #43. I don’t know where they got info that Burton was confined to Oregon House or in the hospital. I bumped into him with his harem at the Huntington Museum in L.A. 2 months ago and he looked fine and healthy.
57. moderator
Digging around a bit, I found that the video was made around July 2017. At that time, Burton was recovering from his heart attack and was not leaving the Galleria much, if at all.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-neuroscience-of-creativity-a-q-a-with-anna-abraham/?utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=SciAm_&sf205442775=1
Another article, prompted by the fantastic work of Girard Haven, using words to produce endless drivel about (in this case, a driving force of nature – in the case of Haven, the driving force of Burton’s silk underpants) which is only worth reading to draw astonishment at how some people can think, write, publish and get paid for CRAP!
This article from…Medium Daily Digest…was lying second to bottom of my email ‘stack’ and only read today…I think you will find it…
BLOWS BURTON AND HIS TRANSFORMATIVE (?) SKILL (?)…
OUT OF THE WATER!!!!!
View at Medium.com
Tim, do you have handy those two great letters sent and printed to the Territorial a few years back, the one you wrote and the other one from Lew? Let ‘s check them out please…
Listen to Parcast Episodes 68 and 69, a two-part report on Robert Earl Burton and The Fellowship of Friends, released January 15th and January 22nd as part of their “Cults” podcast series.
Back to basics, in no particular order…
http://eterritorialdispatch.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-time-for-healing.html
http://eterritorialdispatch.blogspot.com/2014/05/view-from-former-fellowship-member.html
http://eterritorialdispatch.blogspot.com/2014/05/fellowship-part-of-community.html
63. crossroads
link #3, letter from Greg Holman. An excerpt follows:
“Finally, the Fellowship is troubled by its inclusion in the political process as we are a non-political religious organization. The Fellowship does not get involved in any political campaign nor do we endorse any candidate for any office. As a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization we are prohibited from getting involved in any political campaign and take this obligation very seriously. However, equally important, we believe it is the right of each Fellowship member to have the freedom to support whichever candidate he or she thinks best without our involvement. It should be made clear to all members and the general community that the Fellowship does not take a position on, endorse, or campaign against any candidate. In fact, this letter in no way should be read as endorsing or rejecting any candidate for any race.”
Questions for Greg Holman, President of the Fellowship of Friends, or anyone else who can speak in an official capacity for the Fellowship:
1. Was a Fellowship meeting, led by Robert Burton, held on Friday, October 31, 2014 at a building now (and maybe then) known as the Festival Hall?
2. Was this date, October 31, 2014, just a few days before “Election Day” when Randy Fletcher would be on the ballot for Supervisor, 5th District, Yuba County?
3. Did Robert Burton have displayed on a large monitor at the front on the room, on the left side of the room from the point of view of the audience, a picture of one of Fletcher’s campaign billboards?
4. Did Burton comment how interesting it was that the color scheme of Fletcher’s billboard was similar to the colors of the banners that lined certain roads within Apollo?
5. Did Burton also say that Greg Holman recommends that people in the Fellowship vote for Fletcher?
6. Following the comment in #5 above, was there an outburst of laughter from the audience?
Thanks, posters 62, 63 and 64,
I feel the material here, if reaching the ears of both those in the FOF and those working for exposing ‘the grand scam’, will stir incidents that all will/must answer to both ‘twist the knife’ in the wound of the cult and work for the betterment of ‘truth seekers’ (like most here) whose desire it is to ‘bring justice unto truth’ (Isaiah 42).
Re: What happens to a 501(c)3 when somebody dies.
I have been on the board of a California 501(c)3 educational organization – one completely devoted to A influence, with not the slightest whiff of religion, nor the esoteric. I am not an attorney.
In the view of the law and the State, the important parts of a corporation are the Board of Directors, and the members or shareholders. Educational/charitable/social non-profit organizations have members without an ownership interest; for-profit business corporations have shareholders, who are owners. The FOF is organized as a 501(c)3 religious organization (church) in the State of California.
It is supposed to be the Board of Directors who set corporate policy, and hire/fire staff, such as the chief executive officer, secretary, treasurer, ministers, or others. When an important staff member dies, or is fired, the board conducts a search, then hires whomever they think best. Members of the Board are legally responsible for the actions of the corporation, and of the staff they hire. Most boards get directors and officers insurance to cover lawsuits, though this generally does not cover fraud, nor illegal activity.
The corporation’s founding documents set out how members of the Board of Directors are supposed to be selected. For most 501(c)3 charitable organizations, that is by vote of the membership. I have not looked at the FOF documents, so I don’t know how they are supposed to be selecting Board members, nor whether the membership gets a say.
The key point is the Board can continue indefinitely, filling openings as they occur. Under the normal course of business, a corporation can theoretically live forever. Any Board member or any of the staff can be replaced with another person.
For a 501(C)3 church, when the charismatic leader dies, the board simply selects another minister, and life goes on. That means when Conscious Bob collapses into a virus-ridden pile of goo, the FOF board will vote to select the next minister.
A 501(c)3 will generally terminate in only four ways: the board votes to terminate it; the board votes to merge the corporation into another 501(c)3; none of the board positions can be filled; or, it goes bankrupt.
If merged into another organization, that organization gets everything, including intellectual property. In bankruptcy, creditors will get any assets remaining, including intellectual property. Under the other two means of dissolution, all assets pass to the general fund of the State.
I left something out. The numbers 501(c)3 refer to that numbered portion of the United States legal code regarding non-for-profit corporations. People commonly refer to them as “501(c)3s.” They are organized for some beneficial purpose. Most museums, churches, hobbyist societies, professional organizations, and charities are organized this way.
#67 & 68 are from a new contributor, welcome! Also, #45 just went through moderation. It had been in a spam folder and I was never notified.
“165/67. invictus maneo – January 25, 2019
Re: What happens to a 501(c)3 when somebody dies.”
Thank you for the informative posting.
Did you happen to read my posting?:
“165/57. associated press – January 14, 2019
1.2. The Teaching and The Founding Minister or Teacher”
from:
“THE CANONS OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS
January 1, 1986”
It sets out the process of succession, provided it has not been modified or amended since that date. However, that does not mean that the people involved will do these ‘standard operating procedures.’ The Fellowship of Friends and Robert Earl Burton, et al, have a long history of outright violation of law and their own stated plans – they are ABOVE THE LAW and will only bow to outside authority (or Influence C) when they are forced to do so.
Re: “Most boards get directors and officers insurance to cover lawsuits, though this generally does not cover fraud, nor illegal activity.”
This is a very accurate statement, however:.
The last I knew, which is somewhat dated, due to the various bad behaviours of the ‘Founding Minister,’ and others, of said corporation, that have lead to significant financial judgments that insurance companies may have had to bear, insurance premiums have become very extreme, if not outright unaffordable. That does not prevent any individual person from pursuing their own protections if they want to serve in some capacity and are concerned about their vulnerability.
This organisation, and various members, do not have a good history in legal matters due to the ABOVE THE LAW attitude. (I wonder how that legal action and/or settlement regarding the Chinese Furniture sale has gone? Did any benefit return to the organisation?)
From the point of view of the law, all that matters is the articles of incorporation, the board of directors and sometimes the members. Canons of religion, and policies and procedures, may be changed by a vote of the Board at any time. The membership may be able to bring changes to a vote of the members if the corporation was set up this way, but this is uncommon, specifically to keep members from setting policy. No hired staff are able to bind the Board to any course of action after said staff are no longer employed, whether through death or discharge. Once a minister, even a 900 million year old goddess-minister, abandons his/her mortal ark and ascends to heaven, the Board is free to hire whomever they wish, and need not yield to the desires of the pink goddess.
I am fairly certain at least some of the Board understand all this. If they have their wits about them, the next Holy Pope will be on a very short leash, especially since the current members of the Board are not likely to worship such a person as they might have in the past. It would be immensely entertaining to watch everything involved in the selection of the next chief minister of the FOF. One might even call it a play for the gods.
Corporate governance in the FOF has not proceeded in the past the way it is supposed to function. The executives and ministers of a church are supposed to do what the Board tells them to do, not the other way around. This was the main reason I resigned from one of the arts boards when I was in the FOF.
As a footnote, I am not a new contributor, but it has been several years since I posted.
A little about personal work when you find a mess…
I am a current FoF member here to tell you that regardless of the Teacher’s private life, the system as laid out by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky which is and always has been the backbone of the teaching, works. There are now several men and women in the school that have awakened to the level of 5 or 6. Each of us keeps a low profile, serving life and the school as assigned.
A key understanding for anyone wishing to take the spiritual path is to always remember; the Teacher is never the Teaching.
73. Solartype
Hahaha. Pull the thumb out of your ass. Or Robert’s, as the case may be.
74. Solartype.
Nice try, but had you remembered a certain basic principle, you might have worded your post a little differently, and not revealed your true motive.
So, for the next time, remember this: The more a person “awakens,” or becomes more “spiritually advanced,” or however you want to describe whatever, the less they have any need or wish to label themselves as “level 5 or 6,” “conscious being,” “teacher,” “awakened,” etc. etc. Labels are for people who are pretending to be something they are not.
By the use of these labels, you have revealed the true level of yourself, your (awakened) friends in the Fellowship, and your “teacher.”
Hope this helps.
Sorry, meant to say “73. Solartype.”
#73 Solartype – so does that mean you could graduate and leave the school?
#73 Solartype
And start your own cult, to “serve life”, and inspire other sociopaths and sexual predators?
75. Insider.
Don’t be silly.
77. John Harmer
Yes, but why?
74/78 Bruce Levy
Go here ASAP
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships-communication/anger-management
79. Solartype
Get fucked ASAP.
For those of you who were here when this blog started years ago, we had many assholes who dropped by who were exactly like Solartype. Maybe even one of the same, but they are pretty much interchangeable losers. Waving around their limp C Influence dicks for all to see. It was pathetic then, and it’s even more pathetic now.
Matthew 7:15-20 King James Version (KJV)
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
73. Solartroll – January 27, 2019
“I am a current FoF member here to tell you that regardless of the Teacher’s private life, the system as laid out by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky which is and always has been the backbone of the teaching, works.”
~ During the early 2000s all students were not only directed to discard all Fourth Way books but also to never speak of the Fourth Way ideas of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Rodney Collin, Maurice Nicoll, et al.
“There are now several men and women in the school that have awakened to the level of 5 or 6.”
~ Robert Burton said that no female students would become conscious in their current lifetime.
“Each of us keeps a low profile, serving life and the school as assigned.”
~ Robert Burton teaches students not to “serve life” but to use lies and “intentional insincerity” to take advantage of “life people”. Also, you write “each of us” ~ implying that you are one of the “awakened to the level of 5 or 6”; I’m not going for that one either.
.
“A key understanding for anyone wishing to take the spiritual path is to always remember; the Teacher is never the Teaching.”
“the spiritual path” ? In the Fellowship of Friends “the Teaching” is a religion invented by “the Teacher”, Robert Burton, who long ago abandoned the one of the most basic tenets of the Fourth Way, to verify everything for oneself. In his high control cult, Robert Burton requires unquestioning allegiance under the threat of expulsion.
#79
77. John Harmer
Yes, but why?
Well I am so glad you asked. The thing is, Burton’s idea of fun is to force heterosexual males to have sex with him, using his authority as a conscious being to get them to overcome any natural distaste they might feel for the way he wants to use their bodies for his satisfaction. So once you are yourself a conscious being, you would have the option to leave that group who support Burton in his proclivities, and make a positive contribution to life here on earth.
Of course there is a payment that would be required of you to do that. You would lose the friendship of those with whom you have spent many happy years, photographing, having dinners and dressing up for events.
But then doing the right thing is not always easy.
“There are now several men and women in the school that have awakened to the level of 5 or 6. Each of us keeps a low profile, serving life and the school as assigned.
A key understanding for anyone wishing to take the spiritual path is to always remember; the Teacher is never the Teaching.”
It seems to me that Solartype has included himself or herself in the group who believes they have “awakened” to the “level” of 5 or 6 but for some strange reason, they can’t tell anyone about their “crystallization”. So they keep their head down and do what they are told, while secretly entertaining their delusion of grandeur.
We’ve all been there. Who wouldn’t want to be a superhero if they possessed the superhuman strength to defeat powerful evil villains?
But of course, like you, Solartype, the real superhero keeps his or her true identity a secret to hold their ego in check…except for the cult leader, that is.
burton gets to publicly kiss the feet of the Absolute, while you slave away doing his dirty dishes in the dark!
That’s the nature of delusions, and why burton has little or no public life, because, as evidenced here on this blog, if a person reveals delusions to others, more often than not, they are confronted and ridiculed.
The double bind is: either way it strengthens their delusion, which is why Solartype, IMO, you are posting here. Our reactions here enable a person in your predicament to temporarily diminish your self doubt, otherwise why subject yourself to such scrutiny and vulgarity?
Do you really believe someone arriving here will read your one and only post, ignore the rest of us here, and think, yes, I think I’ll join this group so I can awaken like you claim you have but not tell anyone?
Now as far as separating the teacher from the teaching, that’s exactly the gap of being that sociopathic behavior exploits, “do what I say, not what I do”. That’s what having “being” is really about, being able to live up to your ideals…be the words…instead of parroting the words like burton.
What good is the teaching then, if it enables the teacher (and his inner circle) to harm others without consequences?
You can secretly pretend you have awakened, which I suspect most of us have done at some point in our cult careers, but the moment you tell anyone, challenging the inflated status and authority of the cult leader and his or her long term followers, trust me, you will be booted out. Most of us here have witnessed this over and over again. Braverman is just the latest example in a long line of others who came before him and either left or were kicked out.
But by all means, Solartype, don’t believe me, go verify this for yourself. Tell burton or announce at a meeting that you believe you are a number 6, that your awakening by definition is no longer dependent upon the context of the cult, and let us know the outcome.
I believe the more mature and responsible viewpoint is to consider and treat others as equals, despite our differences in appearance, gender, ethnicity, education, vocation, or economic status. That way a person can transcend the duality of “us and them”.
Thank you for posting.
BTW Solartype, are you a six or a five?
Curious minds want to know
Solartype – do you acknowledge the leader of the FOF, REB, is a sexual predator?
Solartype…did your ‘folk’ get a gold laquered certificate on awakening?
I just seem to get “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”.
Read your Shakespeare to try to get some ‘mass’ in your BOING! (I mean being – up Burton’s ass, metaphorically if not literally!). I would guess if some of you flashy fellows in the FOF challenged some of us ‘long-outers’ to a ‘culture match’, the floor would be wiped with posh suits and Gucci ties as ‘muscles of life’s survivors’ tore your twee regime apart…
…actually, these last few posts are not doing badly in that direction!!!
…and yet you found it necessary (#73, above) to post a bunch of meaningless assertions here on this website, mixed with lies that are easily disprovable, such as that “the system as laid out by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky which is and always has been the backbone of the teaching”.
When your actions match the values you claim, try again. But first, you have to find some worthwhile values.
In your intense study of the ‘Fourth Way’, you have no doubt come across the term ‘conscience’. In your mind, you probably think of this as rather a nuisance, especially compared to the ‘powers’ that are supposed to come with ‘consciousness’, such as the claim to be immortal ‘within the lifetime of the solar system’, and other such tidbits sprinkled here and there in Ouspensky’s works.
I know, I know, you have a new–and–improved ‘Fourth Way’, and your ‘teacher’ has disposed of pesky conscience…
If anyone reading this who has had no connection to the Fellowship of Friends, but who is interested in that organization, I’m writing just for you. And of course, the following is merely my opinion.
The creature ‘Solartype’ above is a proud product of this organization. Study his/her claims and the answers so far, which have only touched the surface of his insanity. IF his claims that he achieved ‘consciousness’ were true, in Fourth Way terms that would make him a ‘hasnamuss’, since his teacher is a hasnamuss. That is, he and his fellows got to their lofty station under the guidance of someone who not only demonstrably has no conscience, but decries it in the words I quote below. I’m pretty sure that Solartype is either taking the piss or is just a fool wallowing in his delusions, but IF his/her claims are true, then take pity on them, because, according to the ‘Fourth Way’ that they are so expert in, they have crystallized without operating consciences. That is, they and their weaknesses are permanently fixed, and there is no way forward. The very definition of ‘hasnamuss’.
And to answer Solartype’s flippant question (‘Yes, but why? #79 above), if he or any of them had acquired an operating conscience, they would have left immediately upon realizing the truth of their situation, and would be actively working to undo the harm that they caused by supporting him during their sojourn.
If you want to join a group of people who mostly (but certainly not all!) started off as sincere, nice, well–meaning folks, but whose entire ‘spiritual’ center of gravity is based on faith, know that in advance—and accept the consequences. Look through earlier pages of this blog for posts by folks like ‘Daily Cardiac’, or in later pages by ‘I in the sky’ for excellent representations of the typical follower’s point of view. Know that many of us (I dare say, probably most) who have ‘been through the mill’ have concluded that the leader, Robert Burton, is a sexual predator, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and that having sex with large numbers of the heterosexual young men who depend on him for spiritual guidance is his chief occupation—and has been for nearly fifty years. Know that if you are a young, even moderately good–looking young heterosexual male who enters his orbit, you will most probably end up having sex with him. Know that your fellow followers will approve of this, encourage this, and the less than good–looking ones will envy you (though these are few, Burton’s tastes are very catholic). In other words, in their world–view, this is completely normal and expected. Know that he has no control in this matter, and has never demonstrated will or restraint; he is a complete slave to his lust. Know that his followers excuse and even justify this ‘supersex’ (as he terms it) because he is a ‘conscious being’.
Know also that Burton is a life–long misogynist. He has no use for women, unless they have money or influence or can persuade their partners to stay still for Burton’s abuse. Moreover, he states that they cannot ‘awaken’ as women in this lifetime. This means that if you are a woman, you will (according to Burton) definitely have to wait for a ‘role in a future lifetime as a man’ (with the sole exception of Elizabeth I, Queen of England, for some reason) to be able to ‘awaken’, whatever that is.
If you happen to be here because you are interested in the Fourth Way, know that, apart from words freely borrowed from books about the Fourth Way, this cult has no connection with the Fourth Way whatsoever.
The Fourth Way terms are bait, pure and simple. There has been no transmission of knowledge or energy from Alex Horn to Robert Burton. Nor was there a transmission from J.G. Bennett to Horn (whose entire experience of the Fourth Way in the direct line was as a three–week drop–in at the end of one of J.G. Bennett’s three–month courses in England). Horn had no contact with Rodney Collin, whatever Burton claims or insinuates. The rest came from books or odd meetings with others interested in the Fourth Way. Whatever the level of Horn, Burton failed miserably to fulfill the task given to him, which was to cease his sexual pursuit of male fellow ‘students’. And, Burton himself is openly proud of the fact that he has never read any work of Gurdjieff. His quotes of Gurdjieff’s words come from his brief encounters with Ouspensky’s books and what he has picked up from his more organized or intellectual followers. He has yet to explain the vast gap between his being a self–proclaimed Man number 7.9, or whatever, and the next and only ‘conscious product’ of his organization, the infamous Girard Haven, official hagiographer, Man number 5 point something. Remember the Fourth Way idea that one has to help put someone in one’s place before one can ‘move on’?
As a particular example, the meaning of the word ‘verification’ has been turned on its head. As you inevitably reorient yourself to the Fellowship groupthink (your new friends are so nice, so helpful, so knowledgeable, and you are so eager to learn, to please, to fit in…), you will be persuaded that ‘testing’ hypotheses according to reason and the scientific method is faulty thinking, emanating from your ‘lower self’, the Devil. Instead the major part of your ‘work’ is to first accept given/revealed articles of faith as true and then strive to find evidence for them. Failing that, you are to ‘observe and record’ and put any doubting thoughts ‘on the back burner’, or, as you become more advanced, dispense with them altogether because they are generated by your ‘lower self’. When the back burner is full, you will be kept so busy you won’t notice the older thoughts ‘to be worked with later’ permanently falling into oblivion. Know that the many general ‘exercises’ given out by Burton are a miraculous one–size fits all. Any individual attention that each follower may need is farmed out to one or other of the 81 angels, the discorporate remains of (mostly) white, male Europeans who have left a historical record. More than strange, huh? Almost all the personal exercises given by Dear Teacher are of the “C–Influence wishes you to externally consider me, give up your body for my pleasure” type. Though, for variety, there are the never–ending requests for more money, gifts, favors of all kinds, or “Marry this person or that”.
Know that Burton is probably the most superstitious person you will ever hear of or meet. This ‘conscious being’, having lost his own internal way, relies on external signs of every type, from chance license plate numbers to a grotesque numerology and symbology, whose significance is supported and ‘researched’ by the members themselves, and as stated above, always seeking ‘proof’ to support the pre–conceptions. One example among literally thousands: Burton interprets the number of rhino poops in prehistoric cave drawings as messages the artists intentionally left for him across hundreds of centuries! Based on this rare sensitivity, Burton continually makes prophecies, whose record of complete failure (including—just highlights—the drowning of California in 1996, nuclear Armageddon in 2006, the end of history in 2012, the fall of California again in 2018, the production of seven ‘conscious beings’, and so on) he petulantly explains in terms such as, “C–Influence has humiliated me” (C-Influence being his term for the ‘81 angels’). At the same time, mirabile dictu, Burton claims that every jot and title of existence is preordained, a ‘play written by the angels’.
The final cherry on this cake of foolishness is that the Absolute has personally visited Burton and bestowed his blessing and approval several times in the last few years. Yes, the Creator took time off from creating galaxies and such to burnish Burton’s credentials! How do we know? Once again, we have Burton’s word for it…
In his universe, he supplies the ‘crazy’ while his followers labor mightily to infer the ‘wisdom’, so all in the narcissistic dance are happy.
Oh, and you’ll be glad he has made improvements to the Fourth Way apart from inventing 81 angels whose sole welfare is those who write checks to Burton, and who supposedly will ‘someday soon’ get around to organizing and attending the complete destruction of the rest of humanity. For example, unlike Gurdjieff, Ouspensky or Bennett in whose teachings conscience is as important as, and inseparable from, consciousness, Burton has little use for the former. In fact he claims:
One less thing to worry about, huh? And as strong an indicator as any that he doesn’t have conscience—and hence, consciousness—himself. You will also be interested to know that he and his followers discarded the Fourth Way for a few years, until declining membership and funds made it necessary to bring out that particular bait again.
If you indeed value the Fourth Way, then before you consider joining the Fellowship of Friends, or any of several offshoots, such as Asaf Braverman’s BePeriod.org, you owe it to yourself to find out everything you can about them. There is much more in these pages and elsewhere. I know, it is quite an effort to go through them. But the time you invest doing this is miniscule compared to the time you will waste and the harm that may befall you if you join the cult. I’m not claiming you will learn nothing if you join, just that you can achieve better results in far less time elsewhere, without paying the ludicrous price the greedy and literally insatiable Burton demands.
So much for the Fourth Way. How about if you are interested in the Second Way?
If you take a masochistic satisfaction in being told what to do in all areas of your life, have blind trust in authoritarian structures, have faith in revealed truths, and desperately need to cultivate obedience, you’ll certainly be interested in some form of the Second Way. But why not just join the Carthusians or some other group with a good record? For a start, they are much quicker and more efficient. You have the possibility of reaching salvation during or at the end of this lifetime. Not so in Burton’s religion. He claims you will need many lifetimes of unremitting toil and devotion to counter your built–in weaknesses and achieve ‘immortality’. Meanwhile, Mr. “Do as I say, not as I do” trusts NOT to the future, but lives the life of a spoiled potentate right now. He will use your money to live luxuriously. If you are a young male, he will likely use your body for his sexual pleasure. He will travel widely at your expense. He will dress in the finest and most expensive clothing, silken underwear, drink wine worth hundreds of dollars at every meal, drive the best cars, travel first class everywhere, and give rich gifts to his lovers—while he favors them—all from your earnings. His followers exist to hang on every word, gratify every whim, and worship him as, in his own words, “the brightest light in 2,000 years”, the self–claimed successor to Christ, and now far, far more. Not so incidentally, he is ‘beyond Judeo–Christian morality’ (though he has yet to formulate a successor, we do know there will be no minimum age of consent).
Why would you want to dive into the fantasy world of this twisted, lying madman, who seems to exist solely for the titillation of the nerve endings in his penis and anus—and for shopping? Rather, go join an order of nuns or monks. If you are interested in experiencing the state popularly known as consciousness, study Zen or become a Buddhist.
Otherwise, please stick around back here with the rest of us and try to do the best you can for yourself and your fellow humans with love and integrity, living and enjoying life in all its juicy mess, ups and downs, accepting the need for risks, facing the unknown and unknowable with all the courage you can muster.
As he is self titled ‘solartype” my guess, if he is typical of the pretty boys, Robert has already invited him in to the inner circle (anal sphincter) of the school. Perhaps RB is now whispering to his harem that they are conscious beings (5’s and 6’s) in order to keep them lubed and available and dissuade them from waking the fuck up and leaving, and at the same time told to keep it “secret” from the others. Although, at the same time, solartype does not appear to be “too bright” as we say about dim bulbs. Stroke his ego while stroking the rest.
89. Ames Gilbert
A brilliant essay on the Fellowship of Friends cult (and on cults in general IMO). I was labeled a “Jovial-Lunar body type” during the time I was a member of the FOF, so I feel compelled to make a couple of small corrections to your dissertation: Burton’s original predicted year for the fall of California was 1998, not 1996 (there were other 2 predictions, one in 2000 and the other in 2002), and Asaf Braverman’s web site is beperiod.com, not beperiod.org.
Regarding Solartype’s postings… Well, somebody has to be a “Solar type” (which has a chief feature of “naiveté” according to Robert Burton’s “teaching”) to believe that “the system as laid out by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky is and always has been the backbone of the teaching”, “there are now several men and women in the school that have awakened to the level of 5 or 6” and “the Teacher is never the Teaching (sic)”. On this last sentence, note the use of capital letters, a common practice in religions.
I like the fact that once in a while “current members” of the FOF post here – it adds a lot of credibility to the posts of the “former members”.
Thanks, Cult Survivor, and I’ll make a note of your corrections. Though I had already left, I was still living in Oregon House at the time of the 1998 prediction, so I should have caught that!
Maybe, when you have time, you could fill us in on Burton’s other (presumably failed) predictions you mentioned?
I agree, the more current members that post, the better.
So, Solartype, by all means, please continue. And encourage your fellow more–or–less–immortals to add their voices, too. These petty criticisms will naturally mean less than nothing to you and your fellow Men number five and six. And who knows, if you continue plugging away with such sincerity and conviction and compelling intellectual rigor, maybe one of these fine days you will get to rejoice as you see the stray sheep, such as Bruce and myself, groveling at the front gate and begging for readmission. Should that occur, I can only hope you and your fellows will be magnanimous and forgiving of our waywardness.
92. Ames Gilbert
Haha
Ames,
if you could keep it short…
but, whatever, we love you.
Then,
to Solar-ty-pee:
we all know Bruce,
we love him too.
Ok, so,
I notice the tendency here
to take things for granted,
and then we come across as silly – yea right.
I was going to ask, the blog here,
not to scare Solartype away… yea right.
maybe R.T herself or he-very-own-slave now- solar type:
Mother by now – repeating the same story
Miss-or-mrs whatever- or whatever her fucking last name is by now…
This is much more sinister than you can imagine.
Be careful opening Pandora’s Box
Be careful with what you ask because it may be given
and be careful
unleashing demons
there are many a kind of them…
even in each of us
yes, o know there is a fee
for the cursing and the exposure!
voilà
ps: there’s more than a “one checking account” thing…
I thought Robert Burton recently declared ALL (dues-paying) Fellowship of Friends members “conscious” now. So what does it matter if you’re a man number 5 or 6 or 8.9? You’re ALL immortal! So just dispense with the silly numbering system. (Or does Heaven have a hierarchy like we mortals love to create?)
Solartype, you didn’t answer. Do you acknowledge RB, the leader of the FOF, is a sexual predator?
BTW I’m a solar body type, too. So you can trust me.
83. Golden veil
Out of date
84. John Harmer
Presence is nondual
85. Whale rider
Your writing is full of contradictions
86. John Harmer
In the big picture we are all zeros, hopefully you’ll get to realize that for yourself
87. Invictus maneo
Is that a trick question?
88. Jess
Incoherent
89. Ames Gilbert
Yikes… Get a grip. That lunatic feature is not aging well..
Btw your information is about 20 years out of date.
90. Bruce Levy
Did you at least click on the link and take a peek?
91. Cult Survivor
Given the proclivities of this blog, anal is probably the wrong adjective for your post. But yes, you are correct
92. Ames Gilbert
If you can let go of all of your garbage, time will dispose of it for you
93. Bruce Levy
You too. See you at the Galleria
94. Crossroads
You lost me at R.T
95. Tim Campion
The numbers are exponential, knowing this helps you to stay humble
96. Invictus maneo
Definitely a trick question
Seriously though, if anyone is willing to have a honest, open, respectful discourse, there is a lot I can tell you about FOF and it’s current and future trajectory. For instance; not including the Teacher there are now 11 conscious beings in the school. 7 of them are women
92. Ames Gilbert
Both Robert Burton’s 2000 and the 2002 predictions were about the fall of California. There were huge preparations for the 1998 prediction (most students in California bought food and gasoline, many purchased a generator, several rented cars, and everybody followed the 30-day “avoid the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento” task), there were moderate preparations for the 2000 prediction (a few students bought food and generators and followed the one-week “avoid the SF Bay Area and Sacramento” task) but when the 2002 prediction was announced nobody gave a shit and rumors that Robert was showing the first signs of dementia started to circulate. After that there was the “2009 California drought prediction” (proclaimed in 2008, when the drought was already happening ) the “2012 Armageddon prediction” (no preparations needed, go figure), and I heard that there was a “2018 fall of California prediction” as some people reported here (I was already out, so I missed that one).
On a more humorous note – even if I find the whole predictions topic quite humorous in a surreal way – here is the story behind “the first visit of the Absolute”. There was an Italian student that used to have a restaurant in Grass Valley. Because he had a crush on Latin women, he started to visit dating sites for “Latinas” and met a Colombian woman (living in Colombia) 30 years younger than him. He invited her to visit him and stay at the restaurant and she gladly accepted (that’s the whole point of being on an international Latin dating site, for young Latin American women to meet older men that are US citizens and hopefully marry them, get a “Green Card” and escape poverty). I heard that after a few weeks this Italian student and his Colombian sweetheart got married but he soon discovered that she had a fierce temper – something that’s called in Robert’s teaching “a queen of hearts with a power feature” – and was bossing everybody at the restaurant, from dishwashers to waiters, even asking patrons “not to speak so loudly”. I saw her two or three times at Apollo at the Sunday’s lunches, always with this Italian student, and she looked like a mix of Audrey Hepburn and Shakira – big hats, short dresses and high heels – always asking her husband to take pictures of herself in front of the statues and fountains, probably to show her not so lucky friends in Colombia what is the American dream about. She never had a clue regarding what was happening at Apollo or what was the FOF about, but she seemed very happy to be around wealthy Americans like her husband. Alright, here comes the funny part… Her husband had the brilliant idea to give her a “Saturday dinner with Robert” as a birthday gift ($150 when I left the FOF) but she had to go alone because he had to stay in Grass Valley taking care of the restaurant. Now imagine this young Colombian woman with a voluptuous body and a dress that left nothing to imagination showing at the Galleria for a dinner with Robert… When Robert saw her, he said “we are being visited by the Absolute in female form”, asked her to sit next to him at the dinner and mentioned her name (that he couldn’t pronounce) at several meetings I attended during the following weeks. That was what became known as “the first visit of the Absolute”. I swear I’m not making this up. And now the punch line: A few days later I met the Italian student at a Sunday’s lunch and asked him, “What do you think about what Robert said that your wife is the feminine form of the Absolute?” He rolled his eyes and replied, “That explains a lot of things”.
The psychology of narcissism 5:09:
oh ok now,
the 7 + 4 = 11 Rhetoric
Sounds like a good plan
Please give the names of such 11
97 Solartype
Ignore this idiot enough by not feeding him (asking him questions that result in assinine answers) and he/she/it will wilt into the mire of his own miraculous make up (narcissism is a PERSONALITY disorder, note, not a quailty of True/Real Self!!!) (Quote by Solartype – “Oh but Robert thought it was a good idea…I now get 3 extra blow jobs a day!”).
97 – “You lost me at RT”
please, make some efforts
I was not trying to trick anybody. People contemplating joining the FOF might come here to read for more information,and they might find the answers to these questions useful for their decisions. Maybe I can break it down to make it simpler:
Does REB, the leader of the FOF, have sex with male members of the FOF / students?
Does he enter into sexual relationships lasting more than a few days with male students?
Does he have sex with other male members of the FOF while he is in a relationship with an individual male student?
Does he promise students they will receive spiritual advancement if they agree to have sex with him?
Does he arrange for male students who refuse to have sex with him to have unpleasant consequences in their lives?
97. Solartype,
You don’t seem to be paying attention to your Teacher. There are approximately 1,500 conscious beings in the Fellowship of Friends today. Regarding the Fellowship’s current and future trajectory, if we extrapolate from its past trajectory, it leads directly to the moon (that is, if you believe in The Fourth Way.)
Wheh! all this activity since leaving FOF in ’80
I just called my FOF informant and was able to obtain the list of the 11 conscious beings, listed below in alphabetical order:
Alexander S.
Corinne M.
Cristina K.
Diana K.
Dorian M.
Girard H.
Guinevere M.
Hao I H.
Jan A.
Linda K.
Wayne M.
Sing and rejoice!
RE: 97 SolarType
Regarding your retort to John Harmer that ‘presence is nondual’. Agreed, presence is nondual. However, the understanding that comes with presence and the state of pure awareness, unity, of no-thing and everything, has clearly not penetrated your dualistic mind in the least or the extremely dualistic teaching of Robert Burton and Co.
Who is seeking to awaken, to become conscious? Who is there to become awakened, when you are already ‘That’? Let all this dualistic claptrap go into a trash bin and live in the reality of the all and everything, free of the yes/no, in/out, man number 1-8, etc. No mind, no ego, no person awakens, and it they claim they are this and that you are not, RUN, run as fast as you can, as this is a ‘dead end’ path!
Thanks, Cult Survivor, that is truly hilarious!
My wife and I visited the restaurant a few times, then we found out who owned it and kept away, on principle. So we may have met the incarnated ‘Absolute in Female Form’ ourselves, who knows?
And thanks, Insider, for the list. It looks like the majority reside at Apollo, so the atmosphere must be electric.
660 or so ‘conscious beings’ (what are they, Men number four–and–three–quarters?) leavened with at least eight out of the eleven Men number 5 and 6, all crammed into little old Oregon House, California 95962? That must be a heady mixture, however humbly the awakened ones deport themselves.
And to think that Solartype is one of those on the list, and has deigned to communicate with the doomed beings outside the compound. We are extraordinarily blessed. Yet, being the lowly worm I am, I can’t help wondering, why?
So, that’s my first question, Solartype, asked with all the respect I can muster: why are you posting on this blog?
Whoops, my old brain is not keeping up. Thanks, Cult Survivor, for the list of Conscious Beings as well as the great story.
107. Ames.
Actually, we have Cult Survivor to thank for the list. And, in fact, all 11 of them reside at Apollo.
The only question I have is why Rowena/Roanna/Renee Taylor/Lamb is not on the list. I would think that 3 days in the Fourth State (as she widely reported to everyone recently) would count for something, even if it was drug-induced.
110. Insider
May be Rowena T. and Steven D. were left out for political reasons — with Robert approaching the sunset of the patriarch I’m sure it’s a dog-eat-dog situation there. I wonder what are Greg H. and Asaf B. plotting… Stay tuned.
Solar type:
Thank you for your response.
That is the nature of a double bind, the choices seem contradictory to each other.
On the one hand, the longer you keep your delusions secret, the stronger your delusions become as your awareness is skewed only to perceive what validates your delusional beliefs…but your grandiosity goes unrecognized.
On the other hand, if you share your delusions with others in an effort to be recognized and they present you with evidence to the contrary, chances are you will not believe them, and thus use their reaction to reinforce your delusion. You will tend to isolate or seek out others with similar delusions who will not challenge you.
This is why delusions are often very difficult to dispel, and why we see the FOF as a mental trap.
I guess this would be more understandable if you secretly considered yourself an advanced being of higher consciousness, which I take it you don’t.
By “us” you meant those in the group, not “us conscious beings working in secret”, of which apparently 11 exist currently and are known to others, presumably including burton as well.
Now, is it your belief that if a person does attain an advanced level of consciousness, that person still remains dependent upon the group or could they walk away and still maintain their advanced level?
Maybe that seems like a contradiction to you. Why would they leave?
Historically, they leave as a matter of conscience.
I think that reasoning with a brainwashed cult member must be as effectual as reasoning with someone who’s really drunk.
112. WhaleRider – January 29, 2019
“Historically, they leave as a matter of conscience.”
Aren’t you presuming the actions of someone with a wholly presumed, unverifiable state here?
Essentially, the Fellowship of Friends is just an expensive, decades long ongoing dress-up theatrical play, directed by a narcissistic sexual pervert.
Whalerider,
Solartype used these words, “There are now several men and women in the school that have awakened to the level of 5 or 6. Each of us keeps a low profile, serving life and the school as assigned.”
Why do you assume that he/she is not including him/herself amongst The Eleven? How would Solartype know about or recognize the others and their various degrees of consciousness unless he/she were at the same level or above? Or do you think that Solartype is just passing on the common gossip currently circulating amongst the 660 or so Men number four–and–three–quarters (or whatever) in Oregon House who are merely conscious by virtue of writing monthly checks to Burton?
Solartype, I invite you to clarify things for us directly.
Imagine the horrible, precarious states of these 11.The slightest wrong move, or irritation caused to the toothy pink goddess, and one might be shamed in front of everybody by being demoted to “life person.:”
114. Ames
You have to wonder why a “Level 6” would be trolling this blog, whether defending Robert Burton and the Fellowship, or just having a bit of Playful fun. Has not a “Level 6” more important work to do, like waking up “Level 5s,” rather than indulging their vanity by displaying how witty they can be? Or did he just walk out of a Shakespeare play, and is unable to separate from his role? Solars do like a good Play, I am told. I, for one, am looking forward to the next scene. Cue the musicians.
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