Fellowship Of Friends/Fourth Way School/Living Presence Discussion – Page 189 November 1, 2020
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Fellowship of Friends - Living Presence Discussion 
Animated portrait: Robert Earl Burton of The Fellowship of Friends and a new young male student
1. Golden Veil
Perfect and 100% correct.
It seems a good time to recall a posting by “knoti” on Sept 29, 2018:
Down Time with Robert
Travel with Robert was purely a moving instinctive experience. We would often be in a rush but spent many an hour resting in various Starbucks. We would eat in sports bars and Denny’s. Very often there was a TV blaring at dinner. There was never any elevated or emotional discussion. Robert would often ask Sasha about how much we owed each student and how little we could get away with paying them back. “Try to pay them back with an art object.” How much could we borrow? Robert would talk about his health problems but not allow me to comment on them. For example he had severe shoulder pain and he would move his arm from the elbow to try to alleviate the pain. I tried to explain that he must raise his elbow to use his shoulder muscles but he could not understand even this and he shut me down.
He often spoke about changing the meeting time at the last minute in the most off hand and cavalier way as if he enjoyed the fact that he was so important and powerful that compared to his whims the inconvenience to 150 people meant nothing.
There was no teaching but he did speak of the lower self when he wanted to control someone. He demanded that we massage his shoulder for so long and so hard that it was quite unpleasant. Still it did seem like an honor to be with him in this special way. He gave us cookies and frozen yogurt and showed tremendous valuation for these things. Once I felt quite humiliated when he fed me a spoonful of yogurt like a baby in a coffee shop.
Conversation was often about where to find the best weather or the cost of various hotels along the way. Nobody could ever introduce a topic that was not a direct repetition of something Robert had previously talked about. We often stopped at a store where Robert could spend hours shopping for a $200 shirt or tennis shoes. There were also many long hours spent shopping for “art” and antiques. His home is filled with art objects to the point that there is not room for another object. He is clearly hording art as opposed to appreciating art. I find that he has no taste in art. These objects are merely symbols of his assumed elevated status.
We spent long hours in coffee shops and made short visits to museums. There was often a visit to one good hotel but we would often arrive late and leave early. In a rush. To his credit he spends a lot of time at a truly nice garden coffee shop in Palm Springs, but it might be about rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous.
Robert spends much of his free time watching Americas Funniest Videos, which is primarily about people getting hurt or looking foolish, or watching football. There is never any kind of elevated or emotion talk. Intimate contact with Robert does not include the right to speak without being spoken to. More than once I was put in my place with a reference to the lower self when I tried to address Robert. Once I tried to address him and he told me that he was too excited by the dinner he had just come from to be able to listen to me. Eventually it appeared to me that he was not able to understand even simple concepts and he did not want to seem out of control or stupid even among his servants.
I remember well the shock I experienced at different moments of disillusionment. The first time was when someone told me that Robert eats breakfast at Denny’. At the time I thought that the he must be doing it to deliver some message. Another disillusionment that I remember was Robert choosing an extremely noisy sports bar for a dinner before a ballet. I was sure that it was not his nature that made him choose it but something else. Eventually after many very consistent repetitions of this experience I came to see that this was his nature and preference. There is a King of Hearts playing card in the top drawer of his bathroom dresser. I saw it once and he quickly hid it from my view. It seemed that it was there to remind him of how he is supposed act.
In my opinion Robert is instinctively centered and not Gold alchemy.
As requested one account of being with Robert when his guard is down
Cult Claims Copper Is The New Gold
Full Metal Jacket House, CA~Cult Leader Robert E Burton has made a stunning new announcement, overturning millennia of alchemical understanding, and causing many of his followers, especially aspiring young male sycophants, scrambling to ditch their tan V-necked sweaters and trade in their gold cufflinks.
“Higher forces have recently indicated to me that it’s fine to have a copper alchemy. As the Little Prince says, “What is essential is invisible to the eye,”” Burton muttered at dinner without any further explanation and much to the amazement of his captive dinner guests, who have for decades been programmed to wear only gold jewelry and disdain anything remotely copper, like copper cookware or even copper pipes.
In a vain effort to get noticed, several pathologically accommodating followers have already made dental appointments to have their gold teeth replaced.
Then the following day and without any probable cause, Burton fired his entire gold alchemy staff of male concubines and later proclaimed that henceforth and from this day forward, all his “boys” close to him must hereby have only copper alchemies and then set to task his cabal of enablers to recruit and populate his harem with as many unsuspecting, unemployed young male followers who fit the description that they could surreptitiously traffic from abroad to his gated compound, hidden in the Sierra foothills.
No longer will Burton’s recruiters be searching for naive, well-dressed, young men with clean hands and brushed teeth for Burton to rape, but have been instructed to look for naive, scruffy-looking, young men who have dirt under their fingernails from doing manual labor, who wear tacky plaid shirts or dress in colors that clash like purple and yellow, and who still possess at least most of their teeth.
As expected, by now there are no followers left with enough temerity or the nuggets to ask Burton directly why he got rid of his fine collection of nesting Russian dolls who undoubtedly will eventually leave the nest anyway when they grow up as literally thousands of others have before them; a few hopeless followers had their own theories, but many terminal followers were not shocked awake by the news, after having spent so much time in the insular cult bubble and after having become experts in making up excuses for Burton’s criminal behavior.
“I think he tires of being so divinely present to doing the same guys over and over again that he needs constant stimulation like a child does,” said one timid female follower who refused to be named for fear of being asked to leave for expressing her opinion.
Another fearful anonymous follower put forth their own theory, “I think it’s because the pace of his obsessive sexual appetite is accelerating and the Russian boys can’t keep it up.”
When informed about this puzzling new development in the cult’s new “reverse alchemy”, one ex-follower with intimate knowledge of Burton made this simple assessment:
“What’s the mystery? Anyone who listens to Burton knows he’s obviously a few fries short of a Happy Meal. He probably just found out the corona virus cannot survive on copper.”
I met an old FoF guy the other day. He’s still there. He said that recent gatherings look like political debates and RB constantly gets down on D.Trump calling him The Antichrist. I guess that’s one thing incommon.
I am a bit curious about this beautiful 17th Century Dutch painting of a man, woman and horse in a stable that was once in the Fellowship of Friends art collection. I’ve always thought that looking at this painting was almost like experiencing time travel. Though a small work and depicting a humble subject, in a quiet and unpretentious way Borch has realized a specific moment of life, vibrantly.
http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/799/gerard-ter-borch-horse-stable-dutch-about-1654/
The provenance on the above Getty website places the sale of the painting to the J.Paul Getty Museum in 1985, brokered by a Marco Grassi, probably this Marco Grassi (his biography here).
http://www.iiculture.org/details.asp?idOfEvent=531
Does anyone know what the Fellowship paid for the painting – or sold it for? I bet both deals were orchestrated by Marco Grassi! He appears to be a veritable Bernard Berenson type.
I was told that REB may have sold the beautiful Horse Stable because of the “low alchemy” presence of the horse “road apples” in the painting. You can see them behind the horse, on the stable floor, under the tall wooden tripod holding the tack. But how foolhardy to sell this beautiful painting, not only because of its artistic excellence, but also its lasting great monetary value. It’s actually one of the best works of art that was ever part of the Fellowship of Friends art collection. And I can’t help but think how appropriate the presence of the horse shit is.
I suppose, though, that the truly significant thing is the timing of the transfer of ownership. Scroll down to see the 1985 sale from the Fellowship of Friends listed in the painting’s provenance (see the link to the JPGM catalogue page above). It may have been a necessary sale, in order to generate funds to settle a particular lawsuit…
Whoops, I meant to write that the sale of the painting was in 1986!
If Burton only knew that a mere 20 years later, The Absolute would be sending messages via numbers of rino poops in other paintings. Someone better to go the Getty when they reopen to carefully count the number of road apples in this painting in case there’s a hidden message 20 years too late.
More on understanding “The Princess”
Twelve years ago – former Fellowship of Friends student “ludoteka” wrote here on May 7, 2008 about Peter Bishop, a loyal thirty year Fellowship of Friends student and the first of Robert Earl Burton’s inner circle to die:
“…Robert started to displace the inner circle of that time around Peter’s death. The older students started getting cut off and replaced by the younger generation of Asafs, Dorians, etc. This was a perfect move from an imperfect master. He replaced students with tremendous personal deficiencies but still a scent of integrity in important roles by newly committed young, ambitious and finely corrupt followers who did not only not question his sexuality, were ready to supply him with an unconditional amount of it. This is what they had already learnt and assimilated from the previous inner circle so it was a much better deal for Robert. With this, he filled the Fellowship of Friends with young blood and credibility for potential new students, rid himself of older and old people which he only tolerates if they can cover themselves with huge amounts of money and took away any possibility of serious questioning by the inner circle who had served him for thirty years.”
The Fellowship of Friends: the corrupted, corrupt and the corrupt to be…
A conversation between Robert Burton and Asaf Braverman, October 9, 2002, as reported by Asaf:
Asaf raised the subject of Peter’s shock, and quoted the following angle that Robert has been giving recently at teaching events: “Peter’s shock contains in it the germ of the beginning of the end of the School.” Asaf continued, “There have been repeated requests by students for clarification of this angle. Some students seem to have
misunderstood it, or have perhaps taken it on the wrong scale. Do you think we should address it in any way?”
Robert replied, “Peter has worked in the School for thirty years, and is in the heart of the inner circle. Additionally, he is a long-time personal friend of mine. The School has reached the age (with myself working with the Gods for thirty years) where students are beginning to experience their whole life-cycle, with myself as their Teacher. Peter was a young man of twenty-five when I first met him, and is turning fifty-five this month. For myself, as I live to be an older teacher, I will bury many of my students—some in their forties, some in their fifties, and some in their sixties. I will continue, and may live to be one hundred. However, Peter is the first student who I met in his youth, and who I now see complete his task. It is something I knew I would experience if I lived to be an old Teacher. We may see many students
reach Peter’s age and complete their tasks, having worked with the Gods for thirty years. We must not be disturbed by this—it is the profound nature of evolution.
“All Schools reach their conclusion, after which they become life. So long as I live, our School will remain in its golden age. During my lifetime we will see a considerable flow of souls who will study with me and pass on. The completion of Peter’s role contains the seed of the beginning of the end of the School, not of the civilization. The School will eventually transcend itself into a civilization.
“From another angle, the completion of Peter’s role is the beginning of the end of the inner circle. But the inner circle will continue to exist after my role is complete, although it, too, will eventually become life. Schools can have a short ministry, or a long ministry, but all eventually crescendo into a civilization. Christ’s ministry, for example, lasted only three years, yet developed into a civilization that lasted for two thousand years. People may have difficulty understanding this idea because they do not see the larger picture, which is on the scale of the whole School and is larger than one’s personal play. Our School will have an enormous influence on the next civilization.
“Furthermore, whereas Christ’s ministry lasted three years, we are already into our fourth decade. Many students will complete their roles after having studied with me for thirty years, and they will have received what they needed. My old, familiar inner circle will have completed its task, and I will be working with a regenerated inner circle. That is the nature of becoming an old teacher.”
Peter was a sweetheart. I lived with him in the Boy Cottage. He was one of the only true believers that I liked. When he was dying RB was in the same room and kept telling his boy toys to convey whatever came to his perverse mind even though he was a few feet away. Peter said. “I’m right here, I can here what you’re saying”. I guess RB thought that if he spoke directly to Peter he might get his deadly cooties. RB is a societal disease.
11. Insider – November 14, 2020
It’s amazing, isn’t it, the mythology that Robert Burton created.
12. brucelevy – November 14, 2020
That is so strange and sad. This may sound nutty, but it makes me think of The Manchurian Candidate, this level of brainwashing, for the students present to accept such weirdness – and the inevitable PTSD this kind of atmosphere around the death of one of their own must have instigated. I hope that Peter had healthcare, a morphine drip.
Jeez, 50 years of non–stop bullshitting (#11, above)! Burton is remains the undisputed master of pouring from the empty into the void. I wonder if Peter Bishop had any last–minute revisions of opinion about this blowhard bloviating endlessly before he died? This blowhard, who had to be forced by severe disapproval from almost the entire laity at the time to even condescend to visit Peter on his deathbed? A favor that he granted to few others, if any, of all those who have died embroiled in his fantasy, despite his early promises to personally accompany everyone who made the transition? Burton is actually, IMHO, extremely afraid of death, and will show himself to be a gibbering coward in the face of it, if he is given the time to see it coming.
_______________________________
BTW, if anyone who is doing due diligence concerning Asaf Braverman and his BePeriod psuedo–Fourth Way scam has arrived on this page, and is wondering what the hell the connection is, wonder no more. Despite Braverman having now cleansed his biography and his various websites of any inconvenient connections (gross lies of omission), the fact is, Asaf Braverman was formerly the most devoted of students of Robert Earl Burton, lifetime dictator of the Fellowship of Friends. Yes indeed, he was a member for two decades, and was appointed by Burton to be a “future conscious being” and also groomed to take over Burton’s place in the hierarchy, in due course.
Dig back through these pages, it will be worth your time if it helps you avoid falling for his version of the same scam. And keep asking yourself, what kind of an (admittedly well–spoken) idiot would stick around for so long and absorb this kind of shit like this night and day?
Braverman, if you ask him, may prevaricate (lie) and earnestly tell you that it was an “unhappy marriage”, and further make the thought–terminating claim that “one doesn’t talk about unhappy marriages”. Don’t accept being cut off like that. The fact is, until shortly between the relatively recent and acrimonious parting of the ways, it was a very happy marriage. Asaf actually had a lot of fun for most of the time. He led meetings and fundraisers for years, his considerable vanity was being stroked day and night, he enjoyed a generous salary plus expenses, had sex with a succession of star–struck women (not to mention Burton himself), travelled the world, and received the adoration and worship due the anointed heir apparent to the God–Emperor of Oregon House—for year after year after year! He is clearly addicted to controlling people and groups, and to selling his ‘insights’ to gullible recruits—for your own mental and financial health, don’t be one of them!
I can’t think of a better way to manipulate a person to feel depersonalized than to speak about the person while they are in the room as though they were not.
I’m glad to hear Peter stood up for himself at the end.
Cult Leader Claims He Won Election
Burn Down the House, CA-Last night in one of his insane monologues during dinner, Cultist Robert E Burton made the unfounded claim that there is widespread fraud everywhere else on the planet other than in his esoterrorist cult and that he won the presidential election by a landslide.
“I AM THE WINNER, SEND MORE MONEY”, Burton tweeted to his ardent and delusional followers, who believe everything he says, including that he once licked the toes of the Absolute.
Despite the thousands of people who over the past decades have awaken to the fact that their great leader is a pathological liar and have quit the group in order to reassert control of their own lives, Burton still insists that he “has an IQ 10 times higher than Donald Trump”, has “bigger hands and feet”, and is “twice as good looking”.
Apparently the vote was held exclusively among his flock and was unanimous, because it is a widely held belief by the group that only their lives matter.
17. WhalerRider
Yes, I’m recalling a few other unfounded claims Burton has made over the years and decades:
Shortly after beginning the Fellowship of Friends, claiming he was a “Man Number Five”
On March 19, 1976, claiming he “crystallized” and was now a new-born “Man Number Six”
Somewhere between 1976 and 1989, claiming he was a “Man Number Seven”
Upon landing in San Francisco during the Loma Prieta earthquake on October 17, 1989, claiming he was a “Man Number 8”
Numerous claims about being visited by old angels, including the oldest one in the universe
On June 25, 2014, claiming that The Absolute visited him (in male form) and “did an act of humility” for him
On Sept 2, 2016, claiming that The Absolute visited him again (in female form)
Claiming a constant companionship with an angel called “Leonardo da Vinci”
A recent claim that he and The Absolute “crystallized” at the same time
The claim that “conscious beings” exist in only 2 places in the universe: in “Paradise,” and at Apollo
Finally, a very recent claim that he will live to be 108 years old
#18 a great list, Insider. Burton clearly focused in on the numbers, a great attraction of them was that only he could validate which level he and others were on. Simple concepts suit simple minds. It reminded me of a passage in C.S. Nott’s book Teachings of Gurdjieff where Orage relates meeting Aleister Crowley. Looks like Crowley might have read Ouspensky, but Orage hadn’t at that stage. Here is the extract from page 122:
Orage said about this: ‘Alas, poor Crowley, I knew him well. We used to meet at the Society for Psychical Research when I was acting secretary. Once, when we were talking, he asked: “By the way, what number are you?” Not knowing in the least what he meant, I said on the spur of the moment, “Twelve”. “Good God, are you really?” he replied, “I’m only seven”.’
At some point, this unsigned letter was sent to The Gurdjieff Club by one of Horn’s victims:
Dear Mr. Rovner,
I found your website, Gurdjieff Club, quite interesting.
I noted with interest your comments about the People of Gurdjieff’s Influence where you talk about Robert Earl Burton who founded the fellowship of friends. You also say that Burton “spent eighteen months in a Gurdjieff group of the Fourth Way led by the spiritual teacher Alexander Francis Horn.”
I feel like you are doing a great disservice to anyone who reads your website without stating the whole truth of these matters.
Robert Earl Burton’s Fellowship of Friends was and is a cult that has harmed many people.
Personally, I was a victim of Alexander Francis Horn who was NOT a spiritual teacher and who had no connection to Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
Alex Horn was a psychopath, a narcissist, a manipulator, a rapist and a black magician. Yes, he taught Burton and in that way further perpetrated his evil.
Please, if you are interested in the truth, tell the whole story about these people.
Not all of Gurdjieff’s followers were unscrupulous but some of them were and people should know about this.
Thank you for considering the above.
Best wishes
Cult Leader Warns Followers Coronavirus Pandemic Not The Apocalypse
House of Horrors, CA-Yesterday Robert E Burton, the aging founder of the Fellowship of Friends who claims to be the second coming of Christ, was heard muttering to himself and to those remaining followers who continue to hang onto to him and every word that dribbles out of his mouth, along with an unspecified liquid, that the ongoing pandemic raging across the planet and has to date killed nearly 1.5 million people worldwide is not the apocalypse he and his followers have been anticipating for decades.
The reason: not enough “life people” are dying.
“It will be much worse than this,” Burton was reported to have said when asked if this was finally the real deal.
Despite Burton’s continuous failure at predicting other calamities such as a stock market crash, a massive earthquake in which half of California tumbles into the Pacific Ocean, and “hydrogen warfare” that would conveniently wipe out all his skeptics, he still refuses to be humbled and maintains to his dimwitted followers that he is “the brightest light in 2000 years” and that his is the “school of love.”
But the question remains…love of whom?
Has anybody has any info about Heike sell ? She was the widow of the missed person in Richard John Malten in 2011.
I might have seen here in Germany in 2020 but Iam not sure o need to know in which way she was involved in the cult!
BREAKING NEWS: Cult Leader Makes Startling New Prediction for Day of Great Conjunction
Empty House, CA~ This December 21, 2020 will mark not only the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, but also the “once in nine lifetimes” conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, which hasn’t happened in nearly four centuries, since 1623, the same year the concept of “erotomania” first appeared in psychiatric literature.
When Robert E Burton, aging leader of The Fellowship of Friends cult of glittery things was asked if there was any special significance to the event, he informed his starry-eyed followers, many of whom have been sucking it up for years, that he was making this shocking prediction: to “be prepared for nothing to happen,” and that he was “definitely going to be right this time…all the signs point to nothing.”
“Gee, I was hoping the world was going to end so I could finally stop making efforts,” said one delusional follower sounding frustrated after years of being chased by his own shadow, “I’m getting tired of being so present all the time. I need a rest.”
“My credit card payment is due that day,” grumbled another disillusioned follower, “I was hoping for at least a massive tornado or something. The teacher never mentions those, but it could happen.”
Meanwhile, an anonymous source within Burton’s exclusive inner circle has revealed that for unknown reasons they have secretly been instructed to recruit at least four or five corpulent men to attend each of Burton’s all-night, licentious wine cellar symposiums to be held in the coming week.
WhaleRider – October 18, 2016
Studies show psychopaths really do make some people feel queasy. Why? The researchers suspect it might be an evolutionary response to an “intraspecies predator”.
This is another one [method] all the sources agreed on. Don’t listen to the excuses, rationalizations or outright lies. Don’t listen to what they say they will do. Pay attention to what they do.
bakadesuyo.com/2016/10/how-to-deal-with-psychopaths
Re 22 Emelia Karlosn
I remember Heike Sell around years ~1990-2010, living sometimes, sometimes coming and going from Oregon House. But I did not know her particularly well. Like many students at Oregon House at that time, we sometimes made intense impressions on each other without knowing any of the details of each others lives. I suggest you try greater fellowship page if you have access to that. Also some of the German students/ex students would have a much better idea.
Page 188, 105, Golden Veil:
“It is strange, to live such a lie. These aging “students” bought into a lifelong fantasy. Each moment, they close their eyes and ears and with intention, ignore great ugliness and criminality. What regret and shame they must feel for their squandered lives…”
I think many of the old ones are pragmatically clearheaded about the Followshit of Fiends. I think persist because they hope to take over and get rich when Conscious Bob dies, rots and his putridity becomes undeniable. The Fourth Way may not produce many conscious beings, but it produces one hell of a pack of predators. Let they who have ears to hear, listen.
Moderator: I can never remember which E-mail address I use posting here, since I do it so seldom. If you contact me I can identify myself. Maybe I need a cute young assistant.
At 25 Nevesayneva.
Thanks for your reply. You are my only lead in this thing. Can you maybe tell me what the greater fellowship page is? And where do I find German students ?
How was she like? Was she an active member of the cult ? Or more distance? Was she living in the mansion ?
Iam sorry for my interrogation style but this is personally very important over here in Germany. Your more then welcome to write me privately Emilia.karlson@tutanota.com
How “mind control” or “brain washing” happens in the 21 century:
“If you bombard people (with lies or disinformation) in the present few have time to dwell on the past.”
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/12/20/fareed-zakaria-take-trump-disinformation-russia-gps-vpx.cnn
re 27 Emelia Karlson
greaterfellowship.ning.com
no idea if it is still really active, but I think one of its functions is to put people in touch with people they used to know. The moderator has an email greaterfellowship44@gmail.com, so you might try emailing them and asking if they will post an inquiry on that site for you.
Re your other questions, I don’t really know, and am even wondering if I am thinking of the same person as you, but there was a German Student working on salary on and off about 20 years ago whose name was Heike. I did not know her well at all, we might have been at the same lunch table several time, there were receptions at least once a week on Fridays I think summer and winter, kind of like cocktail parties, so I am sure I met her and a host of other young naive starry eyes people several times a month. I was one of them myself. Re German students, not sure where you would find them now- greater fof site? but obviously there were several.
Goodness when I think back, what on earth was I doing there?
But that is neither here nor there. Not sure what you mean by the mansion. Accommodations of students on salary back in those days was largely off the property and were humble. Good luck in your search.
Hello Emilia,
It seems I’m in charge of the Greater Fellowship Ning website nowadays. I have looked at the membership list, and there is no Heike Sell on it. I did not know her, indeed, AFAIK, I never even met her, but I did hear her name mentioned, and those of a couple of relations who were also members at the time. If finding her is that important to you, I’d suggest searching in other social media. You probably know enough about her to sort her from all the other Heike Sells that might come up—though you might have to pay for the information, it depends on the source. One clue would be an address in Oregon House CA 95962 at some point, another would be her age; I would suppose that she would be in her early sixties now…
Rolling Stone article
Children of Scientology: Life After Growing Up in an Alleged Cult
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/children-of-scientology-life-after-growing-up-in-an-alleged-cult?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Bryan Reynolds, thanks for that.
What cursed bad luck for the children to be trapped in the Scientology fantasy bubble!
As far as similarities to Fellowship of Friends children, I think they fell into (at least) three categories or maybe generations. The first generation were often severely neglected, and some have told their particular stories here. That stage included those that Burton demanded that parents give up entirely, and those that were just abandoned, often for days at a time, in the mobile homes across from the entrance to the property. And, in a deeply sad way, those that were aborted at the direction of Burton and his enforcers. This was when couples were ordered to not conceive because Burton felt that they would be, for some unfathomable reason, the wrong age to ‘enter the Ark’.
Another later stage was where some of those kids (born before their parents joined the Fellowship) returned to a more normal place and were accepted as long as they never reminded Burton of their existence.
Then, after about five years after he put that ‘exercise’ in place, he rescinded it. Most children who arrived after that were wanted and cherished, our daughter included. This still involved keeping them out of Burton’s way, but as they grew, they needed more resources. A kind follower donated a house with grounds well away from the property, which became a kindergarten called, “The Lewis Carroll School”, and which then grew with the kids. I myself installed a playing field with irrigation, a large climbing/play structure, a huge sandbox, fruit trees, and so on. Later, Burton did start taking an interest, and a few years after a group of we parents arranged to send the older kids to Pliocene Ridge school in next door Sierra county, he decided to put some energy and money into some prefabricated buildings right there on the property, about a quarter of a mile from his main residence, and the kids moved back. My wife worked there as the science teacher. Sometime after we left, Burton ordered the buildings to be taken away so he could start the Theatron project. The parents found a location several miles away, went through tempestuous times financially, changed hands, and is now a charter school open to all, and supported by the county.
All this is to say, that I think the kids from the ‘first generation’ were abused, mostly by neglect, and many didn’t do well afterwards. When I arranged the last reunion at Lake Francis, about eight years ago, about twenty of them arranged their own parallel reunion a few miles away. The only one of them who came to both told me that, on average, they hated the Fellowship and all those followers who had refrained from helping the children—the majority. Although I personally arrived well after this stage, I was also included in the disdain and bitter feelings.
It is true that some of the parents of the later generation were so caught up in “third line work” and service to Burton that they also neglected their kids, but the other parents generally covered for their neglect. We certainly had some ‘regulars’ who came over to play, have dinner (and plainly hadn’t eaten, or bathed, for some time), and sleep over. Someone usually stepped up and took care of their needs. Of those children, some turned out o.k., some not so well (including suicide and attempted suicide). The ones who were nurtured seemed mostly to have survived and thrived. The fact is, there were lots of great group activities, including putting on plays and dances, arts and crafts, and a high standard of Montessori– and Waldorf–based curricula, taught by dedicated and qualified teachers. And, very importantly, I and my wife and those I knew well never tried to indoctrinate or convert our children. I guess (a minority, I hope) of other parents did, to varying degrees, though. It was a huge shock to me when I found out that Richard B. had taught his son Troy that Burton was a god, and should be obeyed and worshipped as such. My daughter’s greatest grievance was being torn away from her friends so suddenly—the shunning of parents who left extended also to their children. So, she still steams about that.
Trying to be as fair and as realistic as I can, I’d say that Scientology as a cult is rather more dangerous than the Fellowship of Friends as a cult. And that, from what I hear, on average, the kids caught up in Scientology fared worse than the kids caught up in the FoF. And I know that it will surprise some of those readers who have followed my posts, but I think that, underneath the grossly mentally ill persona of Robert Earl Burton, the God–Emperor of Oregon House, the narcissist, the lifetime sex and shopping addict, the abject slave of his desires, there was and probably is, buried deep, deep, deep, but there nevertheless, an essentially kind man. That is, he was born a kind person. Whether it was his mother who screwed him up, or later circumstances did, or whether he never had a conscience at all, or it got buried later on, I think he started off as a kind person. I think that is the saving grace—contrary to Ron Hubbard, who seems to me to have been essentially a rather mean and cruel and vicious, even evil person who later or concurrently also became severely mentally ill. Likewise, of course, Alex Horn.
#32 Ames mentions that buried deep, deep, deep inside Burton may be essentially a kind man. That certainly made me think. It hasn’t been how I have thought of him. He doesn’t seem to have been kind to those he entangled in his web for purposes of sex. Not kind to the man who told me what it was like to have been chosen as his lover in the seventies, when his predilections were a closely guarded secret kept from most other students at the time, and of how he would look at them and know there was no one he could reach out to for help or comfort, as they would have rejected his story as exaggerated and false.
However thinking it over I guess he probably does imagine himself to be kind. Kind is probably not grandiose enough for him, he probably thinks of himself as carrying his students as a sacred burden, an expression of his love and willingness to give of his energy selflessly and gladly, as an expression of his gratitude for his immense good fortune in being selected by higher forces for his role.
There is a trope often repeated of the master having to be hard on his students in order to allow them to realise their full potential. I recall a Hollywood movie where the young man intent on becoming a martial arts adept has to wash hundreds of cars and suffer indignities to temper his spirit. Many films depict the maestro musician teaching a pupil by shouting, “wrong! wrong! do it again!”
Maybe in his heart he thinks he is kind, and living up to that softens some of his actions. But at heart I believe he is selfish and vindictive, and hardly notices the existence of others, considering them lesser beings, machines that he can use as he wishes for his own purposes.
Wishing all a beautiful day and health and happiness in the new year!
This just in:
“So Many Great, Educated, Functional People were Brainwashed” Can Trump’s Cult of Followers be Deprogrammed?
Steve Hassan chimes in.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/can-trumps-cult-of-followers-be-deprogrammed
I heard this on a panel comedy show on PBS,
something about some of the Capitol rioters
looked like they reused last year’s Burning Man
customs, particularly the guy with the horns and
the chair. HA ha
“What is Consciousness? Scientist Around the World Compete to Find Out”
“The method is called adversarial collaboration. In science as in life, people usually have lots of theories about stuff. Logically, those can’t all be true at the same time. And yet many theories live on indefinitely in the safety of their intellectual silos. So the solution is to invite proponents of conflicting narratives to identify some point of contradiction that can be tested. That would let us falsify the wrong theories, which is a good definition of progress…
It takes a lot of courage and integrity to enter such a competition. Nobody enjoys finding out that their research {or cult} career has been in vain. The only thing worse, however, is to stay wrong even longer. Adversarial collaboration is therefore a great way of focusing the mind.
It’s also — how else to put it — beautiful. Melloni described to me how inspiring it was to see both teams trying to fully understand the opposing theory to identify points of overlap. “You have to be totally honest about what the other says,” she told me. “You can’t just stay in your own bubble. You must listen really carefully.” And you have to want, and eventually submit to, the truth. Seems like an exercise worth doing in any sphere of life — even in politics.“
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2021-01-23/what-is-consciousness-scientists-around-the-world-compete-to-find-out
So…what makes burton a cult leader is the fact that there is no way in heck burton would ever consider submitting to any such rational, scientific experiment to prove or disprove his theory that he is somehow more “conscious” than everyone else on the planet. He operates solely in his own delusional bubble.
What makes a cult follower is someone who doesn’t want to know the truth if it contradicts what their cult leader has been telling them and what they have verifabricated for themselves through confirmation bias.
Sadly, FOF followers submit to burton and his delusional system rather than the truth…at the expense of their own integrity. How demeaning!
Here’s one thought experiment:
Let’s suppose a MRI brain scan reveals burton’s brain is normal, which undoubtedly is the case (or maybe once was if he’s currently suffering from dementia). What then would be the “higher consciousness” he theoretically possesses? If it isn’t a highly specialized and “rare” brain activity as he claims, is “higher consciousness” something more akin to “enlightenment” that might not show up on an MRI?
And if that were the case, wouldn’t us earthlings be able to discern whether or not a person was indeed “enlightened”, not by noticing ourselves failing at an elusive brain activity called “self-remembering” which the person claims he or she is theoretically doing all the time, but by that other person’s words and actions?
Have people also be contacted by authorities? I live in Europe and some anti-sectarian bureau contacted me there are looking for former members for investigation. Might have something to do with the fraud of Burton.
Does anybody has made similar experiences?
38. Ulrich.
Are you free to provide a little more information?
Were they looking for specific people?
Did they actually mention Burton and/or the Fellowship?
Do you know the nationality of the people they were looking for?
How do you suppose they found you?
Thanks very much.
Politics isn’t about the worship of one weird dude.”
~Republican Congressman Ben Sasse of Nebraska taking a stand publicly against the insanity and abject denial in the cult of Trump.
I can relate.
On Commitment: More usually people tend to see ‘commitment’ as something very personal, emanating from within. Psychological research would show that it can actually be engendered and maneuvered from without. Hans Toch, in The Social Psychology of Social Movements.
Yes, Trump is a cult leader.
Interview
Congresswoman and Jonestown survivor Jackie Speier: ‘Trump is a political cult leader’ by Ed Pilkington, February 11, 2021, The Guardian
After the congresswoman survived an ambush by Jim Jones’s cult members in 1978 she became determined to devote herself to public service and to strengthen safeguards against cults.
On 6 January, Jackie Speier was one of scores of members of Congress threatened by the mob of violent Trump supporters and white supremacists who stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the results of the presidential election. Along with her peers, she was told to wear a gas mask and ordered to lie prostrate on the marble floor as the baying crowd pounded on the chamber door and the sound of gunfire rent the air. The terror of that day induced in her a flashback, to the events that brought her into politics in the first place when she lay bleeding from five gunshot wounds in the Guyana jungle, not knowing whether she would live or die.
It was 18 November 1978, and she had travelled to Guyana as part of a congressional investigation into the Jonestown settlement and its cult leader, Jim Jones. The fact-finding group of 24 were ambushed by cult members on a jungle airstrip; the congressman for whom Speier then worked, Leo Ryan, and four others were murdered. Speier, shot five times and left for dead, had to wait 22 hours for help to arrive. She told herself as she lay on the tarmac that if she survived the ordeal she would devote herself to public service.
That devotion, born of her bullet wounds, can be traced in a direct line from the Jonestown massacre, through the insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January, to her renewed efforts today to protect the United States from the threat of violent extremism. She is determined to strengthen safeguards against cults – whether of the Jonestown or Donald Trump variety and the white supremacist sedition he unleashed. “Jim Jones was a religious cult leader, Donald Trump is a political cult leader,” Speier told the Guardian. “As a victim of violence and of a cult leader, I am sensitive to conduct that smacks of that. We have got to be wary of anyone who can have such control over people that they lose their ability to think independently.”
Speier stood for her first election soon after the Jonestown massacre. Since 2008 the Democratic congresswoman has represented most of the district in California that her gunned-down mentor, Ryan, served before his death. The formative experience that gave rise to her political career gives Speier an unusually sharp perspective on the danger posed by the Capitol insurrection. She thinks of it as “groupthink”, saying that “when the groupthink is about overthrowing the government, then we’ve got a serious problem.”
Since 6 January, Speier has used her political muscle as a member of the House armed services and intelligence committees to press for urgent reforms designed to shore up protections against white supremacist and extremist violence. Last month she wrote to Joe Biden and his newly confirmed defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, calling for a “new sense of urgency” following the “appalling events at the Capitol”. In her letter, Speier told the president and defense secretary that she had become “increasingly alarmed” about the connections between violent extremist groups and military personnel. She warned them that current efforts to contain the problem were “insufficient to the threat from these extremist movements”.
In her Guardian interview, Speier said that the current crisis of white supremacy and the military has been brewing for many years. “I thought it was urgent a year ago when I held a hearing on violent extremism in the military and was astonished at the number of service members who are recruited in part because of their training to these extremist groups.” She added: “It’s not as though we haven’t been given a heads-up.”
A recent analysis by CNN of the first 150 people to be arrested for participating in the Capitol insurrection found that at least 21 had military experience. Some were still serving, and eight were former marines with elite training in the art of warfare. Speier said that such training spelled trouble for the nation. “With military training you become skilled at the use of lethal weapons and to ambush and gain control. The training is important to fight our enemies, but now it is being used as a recruitment tool for organizations engaged in violent extremism.”
The congresswoman pointed to the case of retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Brock who has been charged with unlawful entry and disorderly conduct at the Capitol. She said: “An Air Force Academy graduate was identified in his early life as an excellent military leader who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and here he is on the Senate floor holding zip-tie handcuffs.” Prosecutors said Brock’s handcuffs were intended to take hostages.
Following the 2020 hearing that Speier convened as chair of the military personnel subcommittee, she proposed the creation of a standalone offense of violent extremism under the uniform code of military justice. The Pentagon supported the idea, but it was squashed at the insistence of Trump and with resistance from Republicans in the US Senate.
Now she plans to reintroduce the proposal into this year’s National Defense Authorization Act. “Sometimes people have to be hit over the head before they recognize that there’s an issue, and certainly January 6 has been that two-by-four on the head,” she said.
Under the existing military code, service members have to be “active” participants in an extremist group to be disciplined. Speier’s panel heard of an air force officer who was engaged with Identity Evropa, a white supremacist group that recruits on US college campuses. Even after a formal investigation, the officer was allowed to continue military service. “So you’ve got a problem with lackadaisical enforcement of a law that allows you to be a participant in a white supremacist group, you just can’t be an ‘active’ participant.”
A Military Times poll last year found that a third of all serving troops, rising to more than half of black and other minority service members, said they had witnessed white nationalism within the ranks. Dozens of active-duty and veteran military service members have been arrested in recent years in connection with terrorist plots and murders. Last July an air force sergeant linked to the anti-government boogaloo movement was charged with murdering a federal security officer in Oakland, California.
Speier is urging Biden to use his executive powers to identify white supremacy and extremism as a specific threat within the military. She also wants him to sign an executive order that would ensure that all military recruits and those seeking top security clearances are screened for signs of violent extremist activity on their social media accounts. “It’s astonishing to me that we have to be pulled kicking and screaming into the 21st century as it relates to how social media has become a tool for these violent fringe organizations.”
Speier said that all these measures were needed urgently even before 6 January. Trump’s open dialogue with extremist organizations had supercharged the need for action, she said. “Donald Trump had a code for talking to these groups. ‘There’s good people on both sides,’ ‘We love you,’ ‘You’re special.’ He recognized that they were valuable to him, and they recognized that he could amplify their recruiting. It was a toxic brew of personal gain, and it put at risk the entire democracy of this country.”
On the subject of workbooks:
I threw away my copy of “Self remembering” today not a particularly symbolic or momentous occasion, I was cleaning out storage and threw away boxes of stuff including various classical CDs- who keeps them anymore? Also threw several books by G. Haven. Hesitated about throwing “Theory of Celestial Influence” by Rodney Collin but off it went, did retain a copy of “The Fourth Way” and “Commentaries on the teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky” by M. Nicholl for the bookshelf. They are both kind of nerdy and technical in a sort of endearing way. I threw away a whole large box full of Daily cards……Spring cleaning is upon us…
Hello everyone,
I hope you don’t mind some questions from an outsider. I’m interested in what you’re all going through and want to participate in the conversation none-the-less.
1. Does anyone know if Renaissance Wines is truly financialy disentangled from FoF? It seems like FoF must own whatever is left of the stock currently (and since 2015) being sold.
2. Has anyone heard of and can direct me to resources on FoF’s attempted or successful colonization of Intel or other Bay Area tech companies?
Would appreciate details if they are available and thanks.
re -Ames Gilbert back in March 2020
“Yes, Burton really did interpret ‘Covid-19’ to mean that the ‘C’ referred to C-Influence, and that ‘ovid’ referred to the poet Ovid, and that this plague was Ovid’s revenge.”
He’s riffing on themes of revenge in Ovid’s metamorphoses.
This is a repurposed, though familiar Burton Trope. In the past his higher centers revealed that 6 million Jews were exterminated in WWII by “C influence” as revenge for the Jews having murdered Christ.
Bob’s higher emotional center is located approximately half-way up his sphincter, bless him. So we shouldn’t be too surprised that his “teaching” is pure unadulterated shit.
The “China Virus” will inspire him to sell Meissen.
45. diego…(love your pants)
Reminds me of Burton’s “understanding” of the Camp Fire that wiped out Paradise, CA in 2018. He said that the 85 people who were killed, and the thousands who were displaced, deserved what happened to them, because they dared to call their city “Paradise,” and only Apollo was entitled to use that name (outside of Burton’s imagined “Paradise” with its 30,000 angels).
46. Insider…(glad you like ’em)
Let it be clear that Burton has always been a scumbag. There was never a time when he was a nicer, kinder version of himself.
Back in the late 70’s, he visited London and got the hots for a male student, who rejected his overtures for sexual contact.
Early the following morning, Burton tippy-toe’d into the guy’s bedroom, in the dark while he slept, and ever so carefully, slowly and silently got under the covers at the foot of the bed and began fondling the guy’s genitals. The student woke in shock and disgust to find his, “teacher” halfway under the blankets, holding his dick.
Perennial Predator, Molester, and Scumbag.
47. diegoriverassquaretrouserleg – March 16, 2021
Why, oh why – did it take so long? No, why did instances like this not come out decades ago – in a way that could warn off new Fellowship of Friends members – that Burton was preying on his male students?
Is it for the same reason that victims of incest and child molestation by family, friends, teachers, clergy do not speak? Are the perpetrators of sexual abuse not named because of victim shame and self blame and family (cult) loyalty?
Also, do you think that Burton could sometimes sense that someone (not you, Someone) had been victimized as a child and thus would be less challenging, easier prey?
Who is, R. E. B., really, but a charlatan who has excelled in his Fourth Way school con, who with his embrace of the body types theory is a master of the Barnum effect, a sort of hypnotist excelling in perpetuating fantasies in an “esoteric” group, an aged sexual predator and…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect
The centre directors enabled it with their emphasis on obedience to the teacher, Ouspensky’s “Psychology,” and drumming “Yes Robert” into new students, no matter what Robert (whom many of us had never met at that point) might request. Fortunately for me, I was but a poor student in addition to being a decade or so older than Robert’s typical “fancy” although I appeared younger. I still wonder what so impressed Robert’s early students (the ones who were centre directors by 1978-79) and what inspired their long-lasting allegiance to him/her/whatever. Also, there was the “gossip exercise,” in effect at that time; nothing like discouraging the exchange of information between students about what was going on beneath the alluring veneer of art, music and literature. Karen?
Golden Veil 48 “….No, why did instances like this not come out decades ago – in a way that could warn off new Fellowship of Friends members”
There was no internet back then, no global hub where a person could hang a warning sign or discover that they were merely one in a line of dozens with eerily similar stories, spanning the years.
If you heard about this stuff back then, it was likely in snippets and in a clandestine way, especially if you were part of an outlying centre.
Gossip was a no-no, negative emotions must not be expressed and contact with former students to be avoided at all costs. All in all, a very effective means of control. Only a few people knew the full extent of Bob’s debauchery and they were likely cozy or compromised enablers or both.
Where would you go if you’d been abused? Tell the center director perhaps? Unawares that he’d likely been getting his dick sucked for years or if a She, unawares that she’d possibly been actively funneling naive males towards Burton, in full knowledge of their likely fate, including yours for years. All in exchange for some illusion of relevancy, prestige, power or proximity to the Earl of Oregon House. Not all of course, some are just cheap labor and useful idiots.
Could you go to the Fellowship council perhaps or write to the Board? Give me a break. Same thing applies or worse. There’s no ethics committee in the FOF, no avenue for whistle blowers, no means whereby the second coming of Christs can be removed to protect people. Power rests ultimately and exclusively in the hands of Burton
or a few equally psychotic drones. LIke it or lump it and if you choose lump it, that means you’ll be booted, ostracised, shunned and labelled a trouble maker who, “lost his or her work”.
Keep in mind though, that since the appearance of this blog, there’s been an avalanche of disclosure about Burton’s disgusting predilections and the suffering he’s caused so many, in serial, sadistic repetition . There are still 1400 members or so it’s claimed, most must have read, heard or experienced first hand what is disclosed and they obviously don’t give a flying fuck.
I saw on FB a post that said that Bruce Levy passed away. Is it true? Although I never met him in person, and he left before I joined, I always enjoyed seeing his no-bullshit posts on here. RIP, Bruce.
Yes, it’s true, Bruce died earlier this month.
Apart from being a friend in the truest sense of the word, I’m very grateful for his contributions to this blog over the years. One thing you could be sure of, he always spoke his mind, which is not always a good thing per se, but invaluable in the context that he never shied away from the truth.
I first met him while working with him on “King of Spades” projects in the White Barn, 1978, never realizing that he was under consideration and then later siege by Burton. He has written about this on previous pages, how he felt so completely alone, his despair and disgust, and how he broke the spell.
I remember coming across a group of about twenty people outside the lodge, he at the center, telling everyone what was going on with the young men who lived with Burton, in exact detail, including sexual. In answer to the question as to whether Burton had actually penetrated him, he said, yes, Burton used him ‘like a woman’. There was stunned silence, then the group broke up shortly thereafter.
Very few of us have been that brave, that open, that truthful.
There were lots of conversations about those revelations, most beginning or ending with, “Bruce is so negative”, or, “he’s a negative type”, as if that judgement about the messenger had anything to do with the message, or anything at all.
That was the beginning of the road to disillusionment for me, and I hope for many others who were there or heard about it, though I know that most, including me, chose to stay on for longer, in my case more than another decade. It wasn’t that I disbelieved him, I had the attitude that any ‘troubles’ were between him and Burton, and that they were responsible adults who should work things out for themselves.
I was so immature that I had no concept of, let alone appreciation of, the vastly unequal power between Burton and any young man that he wanted to have sex with, or in fact with anyone else in his flock who he wanted to bend to his will.
I was so immature that I didn’t realize that, by standing by and doing nothing, I was in fact actively aiding and abetting Burton the arch–predator, actively contributing to the pain of others, actively supporting Burton’s corruption and that of his enablers; that I was one of the enablers, however meek and passive and obedient I was.
Later on, I wrote Bruce a heartfelt thank–you letter, telling him how grateful I was for his courage and openness at that time and other times since, even if the majority met his revelations with disbelief or opprobrium. And that vital seeds were planted…
Thank you again, Bruce, thanks, and peace, and love to you.
RIP Bruce.
Sorry to hear about Bruce – it’s a bit of a ‘shock’ when a person one knew in youth dies…. I hadn’t seen him for years but he was a friend – he will be missed.
On several occasions I heard Robert Burton say that you would get the one thing you wish if you truly want it. If the one thing you wish is to make contact with higher forces, or God, or whatever you may call it, and you join the Fellowship of Friends, you will not get what you wish. What clearer proof is there that the Fellowship is a fraud?
Happy Easter.
Aging FOFers may want to reconsider depriving themselves of sleep or “first state” in a vain effort to appear more “conscious”…unless cultivating dementia among their ranks is the manner in which FOFers absolve themselves of responsibility for the trail of suffering burton and his enablers have caused in their decades long career of fraud.
“People who sleep for less than 6 hours a night in their 50s and 60s appear to be more likely to develop dementia than their peers who get at least 7 hours of sleep each night, according to a new study.“
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/949767
56. WhaleRider
Thank you very much, WhaleRider, for bringing this to our attention. Very interesting – and a bit scary! Here’s another little article about it. No need to sign in to read this one. I am one of the “little sleep” culprits, by the way…
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lack-sleep-middle-age-may-increase-dementia-risk
I find myself wondering about the prevalent reticence that is current here on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion. You would think that with more stay-at-home time there would be more discussion… is it finally winding down?
Personally I am more busy it seems than ever, my usual work is still going on, plus some new craft projects, etc.
I really appreciate your sharing this bit about the importance of sleep. Missing the cantankerous one. I am sorry that I never met Bruce Levy.
Cult Members Can Suffer ‘Range Anxiety’ Too
Watt House?, CA~Owners of Electric Vehicles (EVs) often report anxiety relative to the range their vehicles can travel on a single battery charge, adding to the stress of driving afar while at the same time inhibiting others from evolving to cleaner, sustainable energy sources and away from fuels derived from fossils.
According to followers of one Northern California cult, they too experience “range anxiety” when they travel too far from the so-called “hydrogen” fuel derived from proximity of their 2000 year old fossil and dirty cult leader, Robert E Burton.
As one long time follower puts it, “I need to plug into Apollo {the group’s main compound and Burton’s residence} at least once a week to recharge my main accumulator with nonsense and drain my bank account, otherwise, the longer I’m away, the more I start to wonder why I’m still here.”
Another follower added, “Robert is my higher power source. It’s like a jolt of nervous energy to be near him. When I’m unplugged from him too long, I feel like I’m nothing, just a sleeping, self-affirming machine like everyone else. He makes me feel so special.”
Critics of the cult point out that in fact, without his followers making him feel special by giving away their power to him, including the young males literally feeding him with their precious juices, Burton’s flickering light would undoubtedly go out like a candle in the wind.
#58 Thanks for another brilliant bulletin from Whalerider.
I have always felt the image that best captures the relationship of Burton to his followers is that of a termite queen.
Re: “watt(s) John Harmer, you should get a charge out of this –
#60 Ton2U – Watts seems to characterise science in a particularly negative way, and his gist seems to be “believe whatever will make you feel good”, which I disagree with. But in reply I offer a recent song – I remember you like music a lot – that is about abuse of power, which Burton is a master of.
thanks John,.. the latest pop princess? Not really up on the latest trends so thanks for that… is she the girl with the green hair? Old Testament came to mind… you know Eve and the serpent in the garden…. anyway, re: Watts some context for the previous link might be ‘useful’ – he traces the historical origins of current world views influencing western culture… I don’t think he’s strictly “anti science” he does attempt to put the scientific perspective into context… for what it’s worth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpHqYnFELLE
Cult Creates Bizarre New Non-Digital Currency Exclusively for Followers
Poor House, CA-Seasoned investors are scratching their heads and private parts over the recent announcement that an obscure Northern California Group of Camel Enthusiasts and shiny object collectors have launched their own version of ethereal money called, “Paradisium”, but with a a couple of hitches…only current followers can possess it, there is no digital blockchain or paper trail to record transactions, and followers can never have enough because of its questionable, non-material existence and fluctuating value.
Since “Paradisium” is theoretically valid beyond the grave when used by followers to purchase entry into heaven, it is the cult’s unique spin on the term “cryptocurrency”.
Followers are expected to use their hard cash or credit cards to purchase “Paradisium” through involuntary and escalating membership donations, or earn it by performing sexual favors and other menial tasks for their feckless leader, Robert E Burton, like cleaning his socks or his soiled sheets after a night of abject debauchery, since all the narcissistic relationships Burton has cultivated over the years are basically transactional in nature.
Given the group operates under the false assumption that “the lower cannot see the higher”, Burton retains complete and exclusive control over each follower’s astral wallet account, invisible to the owner, and can withdraw untold amounts of “Paradisium” at moment’s notice for such tiny infractions as questioning his behavior or not meeting victim recruitment goals, or even foreclose on the follower’s entire account for non-compliance of his sexual demands. This intentionally renders his sheepish followers powerless and totally subservient to his willfulness and subject to his insatiable sexual appetite for semen.
Even more concerning is the claim that if one has the presence of mind to leave the group for ethical reasons, all the “Paradisium” a follower has accumulated in their imaginary astral wallet instantly evaporates, as though it never existed in the first place.
It just goes to prove what the French Psychologist Émile Coué once said, “when reason and imagination are at war, imagination seizes the day.”
Endless efforts to ___________ .
https://bepresentfirst.com/about/
“And without a foothold in reality, there can be no talk about illumination.”
Priceless. Apparently that is not the case with Mr Page. He appears to me to have both feet presently stuck in the grave of his future instead.
Thanks for the link Golden Veil.
It is certainly illuminating to me to read on the one hand Mr Page speaks of idealistic “selflessness”, yet on the other hand has dedicated himself to “creating” his own personal “consciousness that can exist outside the physical body” based upon his own traumatic experience of facing oblivion at the young tender age of 19.
Isn’t “self awareness” what differentiates us from animals?
Is not the quixotic pursuit of “life after death” therefore the epitome of selfishness?
Indeed, regardless of where Mr Page’s feet are mired, it is an example of one hand unaware of what “the other” is doing…recruiting followers in an effort to assuage his own fears.
Make no mistake, “selfless”, fearful followers are exactly who a narcissistic cult leader needs to bolster his or her overinflated ego!
If enough people can be made to believe in a delusion, they think it must be true, despite all evidence to the contrary…like the Big Lie the 2020 election was stolen from the Cheeto Jesus.
Foothill Psychic Makes Shocking Claims Without Any Proof
Hillbilly House, CA-Robert E Burton, a spiritual medium originally from Arkansas, has made the grandiose claim that the “Absolute”, the “All and Everything”, has made contact with him (along with other disembodied luminaries such as Leonardo DiVinci) without offering a shred of evidence to his ardent followers other than a solo photo of himself kneeling and kissing the ground with his posterior strategically facing the camera and his oft repeated phrase, usually after a few glasses of expensive wine, that “angels are hovering over the dinner table.”
Traditionally, spiritual mediums hold dimly lit seances to speak with the dearly departed in which tapping is heard, personal details are revealed, ectoplasm is produced, tables levitate, or ghostly apparitions appear (and can sometimes even be photographed), all in a sham “effort” to convince eager and naive participants that there is life after death and that those whom have made the journey to the “other side” are thinking about us as much as we are thinking about them.
But to Burton’s dim witted followers, no such dubious “evidence” is needed to keep them enthralled by his “advanced mental status” and pony up their hard earned cash; they believe him at his word without him living a finger.
In fact, Burton has made a career of it, amassing a huge collection of antique cuckoo clocks, camels, shiny objects, and gaudy lawn sculptures, all paid for by his followers and situated on a wilting vineyard in Northern California, built with what qualifies to many as slave labor.
Instead Burton relies on “ideas of reference” as the medium for his ethereal communications…a habitual practice of endowing personal meaning in the random appearances of certain numbers, images and/or words in license plates, paintings, restaurant receipts, street signs, and cereal boxes, often seen by medical professionals as a symptom of mental illness.
And what do these “messages” supposedly convey? They are interpreted as so-called, “shocks”, meticulously designed by a group of long dead “conscious beings” who pgo to great lengths to exclusively prompt his followers to “be present” to the shared delusion that if followers “awaken” from the “sleep” of their “imagination” then followers will magically be awarded with immortality and follow on his heels from this barren land of “intentional suffering” into a heavenly gilded paradise in the great beyond.
Critics have pointed out that a series of apocalyptic predictions that Burton has made over the years as a result of his unearthly communications have failed to materialize, yet his followers continue to perform sexual favors and pay high fees in the form of “voluntary donations” in order to secure their seat aboard the fellow ship of fools.
#66 spot on as always. After so many predictions that failed to materialise, and about which the members are so very forgiving, I wonder how Burton explains to his flock how C-influence omitted to warn him about the pandemic?
FOF members beware: The Zombie Apocalypse is coming soon to a bunker near you!
May is official Zombie Awareness Month, it’s already May 27, and time is running out!
This is not a drill, and if you’re not inoculated with the truth, you’re screwed! Literally!
“…membership in the Zombie Research Society is open to anyone and everyone fully committed to our three foundational principles:
1. A zombie is defined as a relentlessly aggressive human predator, or reanimated human corpse, driven by a biological infection.
2. Enthusiastic debate regarding the historic, scientific, and cultural study of zombies is essential to the survival of the human race.
3. The zombie pandemic is inevitable, and survival of the human race is at stake. It’s simply a matter of when; so be prepared.”
They are coming to get you!
Get informed, get prepared and be very, very afraid of people not like you.
Join NOW before it’s too late.
https://zombieresearchsociety.com/
Remember:what you don’t know can eat your brains! All three of them!
quick heads up – my antivax software warns the zombie research society site is a source of malware, probably best not to visit it.
MEET COLD RUSSIAN MEN READY TO MARRY
Oregone House, CA-Want to have a sham marriage and have several children with a seemingly nice, aloof Russian man who dresses well, stays out late at night drinking doing god knows what with an elderly homosexual cult leader?
Tired of emo American men with low sperm counts, who are afraid to commit felonies?
Into getting beaten by your drunken husband and then abandoned when he’s eventually deported or jailed?
If you can say “I do” to all that, then you’ve come to the right place!
We have several cold, calculating, controlling Russian men in desperate need of Green Cards who never use condoms but will say and do anything to avoid going back to their ugly first wives and starving children in Russia. You’ll be doing them a big favor!
Come to dusty, crusty Oregone House, join the cult, and you’ll be matched with the man of your dreams…who will soon become your endless nightmare!
You’ll be sorry you did, but at least you’ll have three or more bratty kids to support on a single income, if you are lucky. Imagine that!!
Hurry, act now while supplies last of Russian men willing to be trafficked to the US in order to feed the cult leader’s insatiable sexual desires.
“Marx famously called religion the opiate of the people and when Lenin founded the Soviet Union he agreed saying, ‘it was used for the…stupefaction of the working class’. But neither man had been to the United States to see that for Americans, it was as much or more of a stimulant and a hallucinogen than a stupefying opiate.”
~Kurt Andersen,”Fantasyland-How America Went Haywire-A 500 Year History”, Random House, 2017.
Sticking my neck out here. After two years of silence I have decided to resurrect my blog, which will serialise the book I am about to publish on my 27 years in the Fellowship.
72. 44thWay
Sounds great. I’m looking forward to it.
What years were you a member?
@Insider: 1991-2018.
I have uploaded an About page and section 1 at https://44thway.blogspot.com/p/about.html or click on my name. The book is complete other than the cover design. Section 2 will follow next Thursday.
Does anyone have a copy of ‘Bread upon the Water’ by Guinevere Ruth-Muller? My own copy is buried in a pile somewhere. I need to verify something for a footnote.
Lucas Calpouzos, a 40+ year member of FOF recently passed away at 92. Any memories of him would be appreciated by his family, none of whom are involved in FOF.
75. Thank you, Paul. I’m sure most people know that this is Lucas Cambridge. He was a Fellowship member for 45 years. Robert Burton declined to attend the funeral service.
I did not know him well but once stayed at his house when visiting Apollo. He was a sweet and unassuming man.
Thank you for your remembrances of Lucas Calpouzos , my father in law, whom was known at the Fellowship as Lucas Cambridge. Robert did not attend the funeral as expected which was no skin off my back . My son was bothered and it only reinforced his opinion of Robert. Lucas was a kind man and a good father in law but his inability or refusal to see Robert’s true character remains a mystery for such an educated man. He remained steadfast in his belief in Robert as a positive influence in his life until his passing. I was appreciative of the large attendance and the appearance of several people wearing Panama hats to honor Lucas. The eulogy from Arthur was heartfelt and apropos. I hope that you who read and contribute to this blog find peace and fulfillment. Keep up the fight. It has been very helpful for me
Dear Paul, thanks for your post regarding your father in law whom I knew as Lucas Cambridge. Didn’t know him well, though met him many times. He was a lovely intelligent man, always buoyant and positive in my experience. I also knew his wife Gloria a sweet and kind person whom I knew similarly, fairly well though more as an acquaintance than a close friend,
It’s hard to understand how sincere, balanced, intelligent people such as they were, could be used, abused and discarded by Burton. They felt a sincere connection to themselves with a capital “S” and an obligation and duty towards self-realisation. This is what drives people on regardless and what Burton manipulates, and like so many trusting people, they were hoodwinked into believing that this ultimate achievement as they saw it, could be realized within the FOF with the help of a debauched and delusional predator as a guide.
Having accepted and been deceived and duped by Burton’s self serving, self aggrandizing babble and tissue of lies, the cognitive dissonance evoked by any doubt and common sense which might arise is very hard for anyone to assimilate and act upon. The peer pressure is extreme, the proximity of the promised land is weighed as worth enduring the abuse.
This is what drives people in the FOF and simultaneously blinds them to the deeply, severely disturbed animal, Burton. It’s a truly, deeply sad thing.
If it’s of any interest I have a copy of the book in which a number of long-term FoF members say what they have gained from being in the Fellowship, together with some good photographs of them, including Lucas. I imagine such a thing would be bittersweet to his relatives, however, Paul, if you want it I shall post it.
Yesterday, Smallville actress Allison Mack was sentenced to three years in jail for her role in NXIVM sex cult.
“American TV actress Allison Mack has been handed a three-year prison sentence for her involvement in the NXIVM sex cult after she pleaded guilty to charges relating to her role in recruiting women to the secret group.
In 2019, a year after her arrest, the 38-year-old ‘Smallville’ actress pleaded guilty to sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and forced labor conspiracy.
Mack’s sentence, which also includes a $20,000 fine and 1,000 hours of community service, was announced by the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York on Wednesday.
The actress was at one point deputy leader of the New York state-based NXIVM, which, under the guise of being a self-help program enlisted women as sex slaves for the group’s founder, Keith Raniere.
The women were subjected to bizarre forms of abuse, including being forced to brand themselves near their genitals with Raniere’s initials.
Prosecutors had sought between 14 to 17 years for Mack, but her legal team argued for a reduced sentence given her cooperation with the case, including handing over audio evidence against Raniere.
The cult leader received a 120-year jail term in October after being convicted on a number of counts, including sex trafficking and racketeering.
Mack has been forced to live at home with her parents since her 2018 arrest. Ahead of sentencing she apologized to those she had recruited to the abusive group, saying, “From the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry.”
______________________________________
Isn’t it amazing that Burton the Predator and his prime enablers are still free? And after half a century, the abuse still continues? I would have thought that any ambitious prosecutor wanting to make his or her name would jump at the chance to nail them and burnish their resumé.
‘Self–help program’ as a cover for sex slavery—check. ‘Sex trafficking’—check. ‘Forced labor conspiracy’—check. And much, much, much more.
81. amesgilbert.
Indeed, half a century. In fact, as many will remember, July 4 is supposedly the 50th anniversary of the purchase of The Ranch/Renaissance/Isis/Mount Carmel/Apollo/Via del Sol/The Farm, although Burton does have a certain habit of adjusting dates (and times) to suit his narrative.
This weekend’s mass hypnotic, trance-inducing, activities include an “Opera Gala” at the “Theatron,” featuring any number of 70+-year-old members, some of whom can barely walk onto the stage, and need to sit down while performing.
I fully expect his/her Endlessness, the Omnipotent One, i.e. The Absolute him/her-self to make yet another appearance over the weekend (possibly and understandably foregoing the Opera Gala), witnessed, as usual, only by Burton. Funny, that after half a century of trying, Fellow-sheepers still can’t get the hang of squinting just right while looking into a bright light, or interpreting the chatter in the brain just so, and thus “seeing,” “verifying,” “conversing with” angels, gods, “conscious beings,” even The Absolute him/her-self. Only Burton has the celestial secret, and he’s not sharing it with anyone.
From the Sad but True column of the Oregon House Daily Irony
The entirely dependent flock of the Fellowsheep of Friends will gather on Independence day this year, to celebrate half a century of extremely expensive, uninterrupted abuse, lies and predation at the hands of their deluded, demented leader Robert Earl Burton.
Elderly ladies with unaddressed and unresolved Daddy issues who for decades have faithfully and conveniently turned a blind eye and made regular, sizeable down payments on a comfy afterlife, will once again leap at the opportunity to dress up and play conscious. They will gobble up hydrogens like feasting harpies, they will act to impress, like someone who has a clue about culture whilst stifling their socially unacceptable emotions in the stifling heat.
Elderly men in tuxedos will separate from and numb their cognitive dissonance with copious amounts of wine, as they gaze sentimentally on the crumbling foundations of a new civilization. A foundation they laid in days of yore in good faith, with sweat, blood and bare hands and on which a band of trusted guiding angels has inexplicably yet unarguably, gagged, held their noses and flown away, having given an emphatic and unanimous thumbs down and celestial middle finger.
They will gaze knowingly at the handsome young bucks from abroad, and recall the days when they used to still get a hard on and an increasingly infrequent call from Bob’s lackey and will remember how they felt confusedly honored to be pressured into allowing their dear conscious leader to suck the money and life out of them.
For this is the Fellowship of Friends, where lies are truths and abuse is nourishment for the soul. A 50 year old Neverland where Bob the sex addict is never questioned, never stopped, never arrested and never punished.
Here fate deals a crushingly cruel and indifferent blow to the trusting, loyal, sly, naive, vain and gullible dumb asses who think they have a good thing going while they enable others to suffer and the clock runs out on their absurd, spiritually vacuous, empty, imaginary lives.
Happy Fourth of July Suckers
Dorian wiseacres about life and all in a clip you can find over at Robert Earl Burton Blogspot. It’s back from the time that Asaf Braverman left. I always felt Asaf was an insufferable dick with an absurd bow tie personally, but at least he made it out . Dorian tries to make the flock feel good and lucky and special and uses the Fellowship’s tried and trusted tactic of devaluing the goods. Monday you’re a man number five guided by Lincoln, Tuesday after you’ve left you’re a shithead removed by C influence and no longer allowed to participate in the FOF miracle. A miracle of corruption it should be stated, but hey, let’s not mention that inconvenient truth. Here Dorian is the Fellowship’s Goebels, the chief propagandist, the anointed one. He has a lot to say about people who leave the FOF, all self-serving bollocks. Nobody usually has the opportunity for rebuttal in the ordinary course of events, so I thought I’d transcribe his magical, fantastical ramblings and respond to his guff. Dorian is in quotation marks,
“In this body of the school there are always many processes happening and it is part of a real school too that process of crime needs to happen periodically. I think there are quite a few students in the school that have seen this three or four times by now, I have seen it at least once more before and I can say with confidence that what I have verified already is that this type of payment if it is performed purely, it pushes the school forward even more eagerly and more lightly.”
O.k. this is a reference to 6 processes as propounded by Rodney Collin in The Theory of Celestial influence. The concept is that a “school” is a cosmos and as such all 6 processes including crime are an inherent possibility within one.
In the process of crime, form reduces life to matter.
Here the numbskull needs to be corrected. The periodic mass exodus of students from the FOF is not an example of crime perpetated by the leavers, it is a response to the daily criminal functioning of the FOF.
The form of the Fellowship sucks the life out of students and those with a healthy psychological immune system leave while they still can, before their potential to evolve is destroyed by Burton and his enablers, e.g. You Dorian. In any case, the FOF is not a real “school” it’s a cult and as such not a cosmos, a cult involves the processes of Growth, Crime and Disease, that’s all and that’s what is abundantly obvious looking at the FOF in it’s current state. Your propaganda pep talk here is a further example of crime, it’s a predictable and familiar attempt to calm the consciences of the remaining weaker and more vulnerable flock. it’s a glib and calculated attempt to destroy their possibility to leave the cult and restore themselves to psychological health. Your babble is form reducing life to matter.
“It’s almost like a form of purification that occurs”
It’s digestion actually. people finally digest the babble and run, there’s nothing pure about what remains, what remains is faeces after the nutrients are removed
“and these cycles are dictated by influence C”
and how the fuck would you know, dickhead?
“there’s nothing that any of us can influence in a way or decide for, it’s even absurd to think that the teacher would be responsible for these cycles, “
Why absurd? The “teacher” is almost entirely responsible for these cycles, he’s an addict, addicted to predation, his fantasies of consciousness are progressively more and more absurd and his abuse of the vulnerable becomes more and more extreme, people respond to being slowly poisoned and if they are lucky they find the strength to leave.
“but basically every seven to ten years you see this and it’s because a certain new substance is accumulated in the school and uh then the old is shed.”
“A certain new substance” What the crap are you talking about Dorian. What is the new substance which accumulates? KY Jelly perhaps? No wait, I got it, the new substance is Bullshit, the accumulation of bullshit finally becomes too much for people to swallow, they finally become nauseated by Burton, the pretentious lying act and the stench of corruption and at that moment an opening for them appears.
“It’s very simple, no names no nothing, just ah, um, pressing onward. I have mentioned that the nature of payment is nameless and I’ve also mentioned that the nature of effort is nameless also.”
Thank you oh wise one, and is the nature of sexual abuse nameless too, or is it just the victims that you hope remain nameless?
“I like to say that to date the school has about 15,000 members and of those members 15,000 members, it’s only about 1500 that are still allowed to perform on the stage and we are among those incredibly lucky one thousand five hundred today.”
You really are full of it, there are 13,600 who became nauseated by Burton and enablers like you. They made it out, they left and want no part of it and are enormously grateful to have escaped. There are 1400 or less who remain, many of them see through the bullshit and pretend to support it, many are elderly and incapable of making it out and are trapped and scared as the insanity and crime expands. Many are from poor countries who see the chance of living in the U.S. and somehow getting a green card and an escape from poverty and they’ll obviously tolerate all kinds of hideous behavior and treatment much of which you organize, to get one, Many are just idiots who believe the lies and like the cappuccinos and dressing up, they are conscienceless morons. Then there are the manipulating class of which you seem to be the head, these are the people who will keep the big lie going no matter what. They will lead meetings and pretend to know what they are talking about, using oblique, innacurate references to 6 processes and mysterious substances. They are compromised and invested and rotten to the core. They will spread pathetic theories about C influence as if they know what they’re talking about and lie through their teeth about who is and who is not allowed to participate in Bob’s sick play of crime. They will tell the flock that they are incredibibly lucky to be used abused and lied to. These are the ones who are as conscious as bacteria and who should be avoided like the plague.
“And the fact that the vast majority actually the 90 per cent are not here and they are not allowed to continue, we don’t determine that, we don’t choose that, we are touched by their efforts, their efforts are here, (points to the floor) they propel us forward, we benefit from them, right now we are rooted in all these efforts that have been made here uh”
They are not allowed to continue?!!!! They left Dorian, they left for good reason, they escaped you and your buddy Bob and your infected influence. Bob’s absurd fantasy finally became more than they could stomach, they finally came to their senses, saw the big picture and calculated that as hard and painful as it would be to run and make a fresh start, that that would be supremely better than to stay and slowly wither and die. They don’t want to be “allowed” into your vile circus, they are entirely done with it and in many cases after prolonged struggle are thriving again and are not looking back with any nostalgia.
“and somehow the players have not you know, they just, at some point they end up in such a relationship with influence C, they cannot advance any more, change is not an option any more and it’s really not for us to know why and how and when. it’s for us to really be grateful for the payment that was made and the effort that was made which was very valid effort, very intelligent, beautiful effort. And the fact that it’s not allowed to continue any more, just to feel compassion and that’s all.”
Sorry to disappoint you again Dorian, the Fellowship is a closed system a system where spontaneity, creativity and freedom is micro managed and chanelled into the latrine. What is sanctioned and mutually reinforced is a set of tired, erroneous ideas about consciousness that Bob has propagated and peddled for decades. Bob’s model of the universe is a model which reflects his psychosis, it’s a projection of his mental sickness onto the world and others. To be a “good” student in the Fellowship like you, the psychosis has to be shared, you have to become as sick in the head and heart as Burton, that’s the option for change in the FOF that’s how to advance.
Outside the Fellowship, purity, growth, understanding, compassion, consciousness, healing, sanity, truth and all sorts of other good stuff exist and proliferate in abundance. You can find beings who really are liberated, they are givers not takers, they want nothing from you but your welfare. they actually exist.
“And I’ve also understood recently, anyone who joins the school at any point, even for a day, even for an hour changes the whole school. See these things are not,- it’s not about signing a piece of paper or making a payment, a monetary payment. Touching a school in a real sense is a cosmic event and it’s a timeless event. It does not matter if it’s ten years or ten days or any interval, it’s because it’s whatever influence C deems necessary as an influence to penetrate this conscious uh stream.”
You’re not in a school Dorian you’re in a cult and you’re one of the cult leaders, you’ve not touched a “school” in any sense and you’re full of bullshit about C influence like every mover and shaker over there in the fast lane of the spiritual bypass, you’ve acquired a sanctimonious act from Burton as you’ve absorbed his psychosis and it’s as transparent as cling film.
So knock it off Dorian, you’re not conscious and never will be, not as long as you remain captive to the conceptual prison and mis-direction of the FOF . You’ve learnt the king of hearts shuffle, but you’re no dancer. You’re a faithful enabler in a suit and you’ll lie and lie and lie sincerely on demand, whenever it’s in your interest to that’s all. That’s the level you’ve risen to, and don’t kid yourself.
https://robertearlburton.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-lineage-of-profound-deception.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR3Fv1syOEDWOAbZXqLxyH3tyM01jz6fBQU1WdkKDtlIPeSTjeVXlpaPtZI
Cult Leader Points Finger at Victims
House of Mirrors, CA-In a recently unearthed transcript, the Delta Variant known as Dorian borrows from the time-honored sociopath’s playbook the defensive maneuver of blaming the victim for his leader’s crimes in a stunning yet predictable display of lazy intellectual jujitsu.
Despite the fact that his leader, Robert E Burton, has since the cult’s inception been “reducing form to matter” by treating his “dear” nameless followers as disposable narcissistic objects he uses to feed his megalomania and sex addiction, Delta Dorian claims it is those lucky woke individuals who manage to leave the cult who are actually involved in the process of crime…and that crime is a necessary form of “payment” in a “real school”…one that apparently also teaches its followers to believe that any form of dissent is a crime.
Really?
Critics point out that imprisoned, cult long haulers sadly appear incapable of overcoming the cognitive dissonance of being involved in a group that bills itself as “above humanity” while simultaneously perpetuating the very environment for crimes like sex trafficking, second degree rape, and financial fraud to flourish, apparently oblivious to the reality that sociopathy and cult indoctrination are both learned behaviors, proving that once ingrained through peer pressure these behaviors and beliefs are extremely difficult to eradicate, like a mutating virus.
It’s like the Pope claiming the Catholic Church is the One and Only True, Bonafide Church of Christ as evidenced by all the predatory pedophiles the Church attracts in its ranks of clergy, because by Delta Dorian’s logic, the greater the “school”, the greater the crime.
My first post.
I want to thank the contributors to the robertearlburton blogspot and this discussion. The blogspot has the best description of the history of the FoF I could find on the internet.
I look at the FoF description of itself as a narrative, and I look at the blogspot and discussion as a counter-narrative. It is only by looking at the FoF history, the narrative, and the counter-narrative as a whole that I have a chance of understanding what I was involved in. Without the blog and discussion I wouldn’t have access to the history and the personal experiences of all kinds of people. Thanks again to all that made a wholistic understanding of the FoF possible.
It isn’t hard to see that the fellowship is religious in nature. A basic overview of primitive religion from the perspective of anthropology shows that the FoF is a religious organization. But I was explicitly looking for a fourth way school and had been reading fourth way material for a few years before joining the FoF. I liked the way the fourth way emphasized verification and warned against blind belief.
When I now look at both narrative and counter-narrative, it seems like the FoF was a strange source of permanent vacation funding and sex for one person, wrapped in the outward appearance of a religion which can be called “Burtonism”. All this was wrapped in the outward appearance of a fourth way school.
That is quite a burrito!
Now it appears the FoF has come out of the closet when it shed its outer fourth way skin altogether and revealed itself openly as a type of religion. To me it seems to have become something that I would be embarrassed to admit I ever joined. It really looks like some kind of joke.
So when I look back at my experiences in the FoF I ask myself how I ended up in what is essentially a religious cult?
When I recall my earliest experiences in the FoF (joined in Chicago) the group presented itself as a fourth way school. It was just me and many “older students”. The Muellers and the Goldmans and the Rudders and the Thiels and Sarah and John Trezevant, Joseph and Genevieve Granados were there. These people were very friendly and helpful. They let me stay in their homes for the weekend. The perspective student meetings presented the FoF as consisting of fourth way principles. It appeared like a very serious group. From there I went to Renaissance.
What strikes me looking back is how nobody there presented the FoF in religious terms. Nobody warned me or mentioned anything about what I might be facing at Renaissance.
It seems I ended up joining a cult because it had a strong fourth way veneer and presented itself completely as a fourth way school. They even target fourth way books using bookmarks. I answered an advertisement in a newspaper that said “fourth way school now accepting students”. There can be no doubt that the FoF used the public attraction to fourth way ideas as its key magnet.
If many other people were drawn for similar reasons, it means that the early FoF “piggybacks” on fourth way literature. That is how it drew the original organization together. That is how it attracted me. And the story of the FoF is how a religious anti-intellectualism and a total breakdown of healthy skepticism can emerge surrounded and protected by a fourth way shell.
When looking at the early history of the FoF I can see how a “c-influence” religious cult emerged directly from FoF application of fourth way ideas. It appears Stella Wirk recognized this very early.
The FoF from the mid 1980s when I joined seemed to be actively trying to hide the religious-vacation-sexual nature of “Burtonism” behind a strong fourth way mask.
Welcome outsidelookingin. Thanks for your post.
Your narrative reminded me of the first meeting at Renaissance after some kind of IRS audit was in play…that I was dimly aware was going on behind the scenes…when the seating arrangement at the Town Hall was abruptly changed sometime around 1984-5, I believe.
Instead of solid rows of chairs in the audience as was the seating arrangement since forever, we followers arrived on that particular night to find there were two columns of chairs in rows with a wide aisle down the middle of the room, and from then on, that’s the way it was going to be.
Looking back, the change might have been due to a fire code violation which would have been fine by me, however, I remember specifically being told at the time that the new seating arrangement was to make the meetings appear to look more like a church service (rather than a town hall community meeting) in order to secure the non-profit status of the FOF as a religion.
At that moment a red flag went off in my head. That too, was not what I had signed up for in joining a so-called “fourth way school”. I certainly was not there to worship anything or anyone, and no way was I going to volunteer to pretend to do so for tax purposes. I remember having the thought (in cultspeak), “Is this the point when the school becomes B-influence as a tax write-off?”
I left shortly after that, but for many other reasons.
@86 outsidelookingin: Your experience matches my own pretty well, I, too, joined in Chicago, around the same time as Abe Goldman. We were even room-mates, briefly, in Chicago. Rudder was there; (I believe he is now deceased.) He always reminded me of Rasputin, the mad monk! Springman was there too: he was a high end car salesman but I doubt that “Springman” was his real name. He burned Baker on a used Mercedes, pretty badly. She wasn’t happy. Baker, Lipson and Maddox were centre directors when I was there I moved to northern California within about a year. It appears that I left the FoF well before you joined. I had wrestled with the cult aspect of “the school” for quite a while before I finally pulled the plug. I didn’t know for certain about R’s “predations,” but I really should have known by that time; I think I suspected it but I continued giving him “the benefit of the doubt,” until I began seeing reports of lawsuits brought by former students in the NORCAL newspapers. Goldman’s defense of R, that it “was all consensual” was enough of an admission of guilt to finally satisfy me. But how naive I had been! I should have listened to my instincts! (While visiting Renaissance, I had seen and heard a couple of things that “didn’t look right,” but convinced myself to ignore them.) Ironically, the last 80 page section of Robert Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” was a big factor in my actual decision to leave. That’s the section on “religious melancholy.” I wonder how many other FoFers have ever read that?! I joined a couple of “real” Gurdjieff groups in the following years. I ran into a few other former “students” in those groups. In the FoF I liked the music, the wine, the dinners, some attractive women who appeared untouchable (as well as some who appeared otherwise) — but at what a price! (As an aside, I made no progress with “self-remembering.”) Looking back, I think/hope the main damage was to my bank account. But that was repaired quickly enough after I got out.
P.#189/post#83. diegoriverassquaretrouserleg – July 2, 2021
“Elderly ladies with unaddressed and unresolved Daddy issues who for decades have faithfully and conveniently turned a blind eye and made regular, sizeable down payments on a comfy afterlife, will once again leap at the opportunity to dress up and play conscious. They will gobble up hydrogens like feasting harpies. . .”
See:
Aeneas and his Companions Fighting the Harpies
by François Perrier (1594–1649)
“The Harpies were MYTHICAL MONSTERS in GREEK MYTHOLOGY that had the form of a bird with a human female face; often agents of punishment they abducted people and tortured them on their way to HADES’ domain, employed by the God as instruments for the punishment of the guilty. They stole food from their victims and would carry evildoers to Erinnyes of the Furies (female goddesses of vengeance and retribution). Their name means snatchers and is thus very appropriate for the acts they carried out. Known as the hounds of ZEUS, they were dispatched by the God to snatch away people and things from the earth; sudden and mysterious disappearances were often attributed to them.”
Rough equivalent of the Flying Monkeys in Wizard of OZ.
Read more:
https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/myths/harpies/
See more:
@88 I’ll talk about Abe in a future post. My guess is he was living a contradiction. I try to explain the nature of that contradiction a bit farther down in this post.
Trying to figure out why the hell I joined what basically became a religious cult led me to this general list of questions about the FoF:
What is it that originally attracts people to the FoF?
About what percentage of those joining are aware of the religious nature of the FoF?
What happens as a person becomes aware there is a religion embedded within the FoF which is distinct from fourth way concepts?
How do fourth way ideas based on personal verification and critique devolve into “c influence wants you to come in my mouth”?
(and quite frankly, that is a rather tacky pick-up line)
How can such a one-way power-sex relationship which manipulates religious beliefs to induce submission from many people who are heterosexual be understood as being based on “mutual consent”?
These questions suggest that there are two fundamental contradictions at the heart of the Fellowship of Friends. They are:
1) FoF conceptual architecture was based on a fourth way shell hiding a religious interior.
2) The illusion of “mutual consent”
Concerning the first, people were not allowed to openly question the religious interior of the FoF in active discussion. They were not allowed to openly, publicly distinguish fourth way concepts from a strange, fuzzy religion forming in the interior of the FoF.
This will obviously lead to the collapse of critical thinking (as witnessed). This kills the capacity to think and talk openly about a wide range of issues, including the true nature of the FoF itself and the true relationship of the FoF with the rest of the world.
The illusion of “mutual consent” allowed for a strange type of exploitation to happen almost in plain sight.
I agree with Abraham Goldman that a person has the right to privacy concerning their sex life. But the situation around the Academy in the FoF seemed to artistically walk a tightrope of what could sometimes barely pass for mutual consent in any legal or ethical sense. The stories on the blog demonstrate this beyond doubt. People were actively pursued that did not wish to willingly participate – and it was that “religious glue”, to not “perturb” influence “c”, to “please” the guiding spirits, that contributed to the judgement to submit.
That is not mutual consent. It has nothing to do with any fourth way concept. Many of these cases seem to be classic examples of religious manipulation feeding on the weakness of another. It is the effect of that strange, fuzzy religion at the heart of the FoF.
To keep this in historical perspective, Robert isn’t doing much more than what the Catholic Church has been perfecting for more than 1,500 years. In fact, he probably uses some of their pick-up lines and moves for young men and boys. Even the Boy Scouts have developed their own system.
I think Burton took ruthless advantage of the central Fourth Way principle, “Give up your will to the Teacher”. Ouspensky stressed this necessity. The student must temporarily place him/herself under the power of the person who has already escaped and knows the way forward. Sounds good in principle, but he neglected to define ‘temporarily’ and state any limitations or precautions. I’m one of those who don’t think Ouspensky really broke through into some other realm of consciousness, just was given some temporary insights like we all are. But he sure could talk up a storm…
Without those limitations, Burton can have free reign to do whatever he wants with anyone who has ‘given up his will’. Giving up one’s will obviously includes dispensing with plain old common sense. And when you add his dismissal of the role of conscience (“Conscience is just a collection of I’s”), then that leaves the hapless follower with no defenses at all.
Since Burton has never graduated anyone from his organization in five decades, the giving up of will becomes permanent. Any protests withstanding emanate from the ‘lower self’. Neat.
All this backed up with the support and approval of the rest of the flock. That is pretty powerful reinforcement, making it even harder to go against the flow.
So, this is a basic, bedrock deficiency of what we have been told is the ‘Fourth Way’. Defer to those in the authoritarian hierarchy who know better, see further and more clearly. Who will tell you when you have arrived. And, of course, who always have your best interests at heart.
As to the references to “consensual”, that is purest baloney, mere propaganda. Of course, this is overt in regard to the façade presented to the outside world, but it also applies internally. I well remember Burton claiming that all his relationships were consensual, even loving. This was backed up by some who came forward publically to claim the same, including in a special meeting devoted to just that one subject, shortly before I left in 1994.
But this simply cannot be true, due to the grossly unequal power between Burton and anyone he wanted. The requirement to “give up one’s will to the teacher” coupled with the intense pressure from one’s peers to conform, plus the active grooming by previous inductees to the harem is practically irresistible. The grooming is particularly nauseating. In my day, Burton told me and other potential victims to ‘have breakfast with Shiela Grunwaldt’. I am told (I refused the opportunity, so I rely on what others have told me) that this is where Shiela, a trusted ‘older student’, with her perfectly coiffed silver hair and refined deportment, would gently introduce the victim to the facts of the situation, and wax eloquent about the amazing spiritual opportunities that would invariably follow if the victim acquiesced to Burton’s wishes. Lots of messaging along the lines of releasing the norms and morality of mere sleeping machines, and the unique opportunities to go against ‘mechanical inclinations’.
In later years, one could actually observe and overhear previous victims grooming new recruits at La Cucina, using the same arguments. I guess that there were some complex psychological currents within the groomers, a mixture of adding another link to the ‘chain of pain’, plus maybe a sort of advertisement of one’s closeness to Burton and trying to impress the newbie, or sometimes a deep cynicism, I don’t know. And on the part of the naïve victim, busy trying to find a path to the ‘highest right’, confusion and dismay mixed with eagerness to “accelerate his evolution” and the idea that no price would be too high. But the unrelenting pressure from one’s “new best friends” and Burton himself, combined with much flattery and gifts, is pretty damn compelling.
What a total fuckup!
My guess is the religion emerges from these fourth way terms:
Giving up will
c influence
willfulness
To research this I open a copy of “The Fourth Way” for the first time in over 2 decades. I turn to the table of contents and I see literally hundreds of fourth way expressions in 16 chapters. I immediately remember why I liked this book when I first found it. It is raw, direct and is completely void of appeals to religious faith.
Only the last chapter deals with a religious issue: Eternal recurrence. But the first item in the chapter is, “The idea of recurrence can only be regarded as a theory”. Also, readers of Ouspensky will know that he was writing about this before he met Gurdjeiff. It was his pet interest in an earlier book. He is careful to separate it into the last chapter and clearly labels it as something he cannot personally verify.
I am a bit relieved to see I wasn’t such a dip-shit after all for ending up in a religious cult. I was actually tricked. I joined the FoF because of my interest in looking deeper into these very non-religious ideas based on human psychology with other people.
But the mystery does deepen. How does this book devolve into “c influence wants you to come in my mouth”? The only doorway I can see for an emerging religion is
Giving up will
c influence
willfulness
I read the table of contents over and over and I can’t find anything that is religious rather than psychological. Can anyone find any dirt in this book that leads to a religion being formed from these ideas?
FoF concepts that lead to a fundamentally religious world-view:
c influence
44 helpers
predictions
Physical environment being altered by disembodied conscious beings in order to communicate with you personally through symbolism on an hourly basis
lifetimes
ladders
plays
Manichean concept of school vs life
Manichean, fundamentally religious concept of “former students” as rotting in a Dante type Hell
The concept of man number 1 through 7 is also used to establish a sharp religious hierarchy. Pretty much everyone is seen as a #4 while he is a #7, which is (by fourth way theory) 3 distinct levels of development higher than his students.
This claim of a massive gap in development is used to make claims with an air of certainty that clearly cannot be verified by anyone and are religious in nature.
These seem to be the basic levers that are used in the FoF to turn application of fourth way ideas into a religious project.
If I’m not mistaken, “c-influence” is defined in the “work books” as a verbatim influence direct from a living being one believes to be “conscious”…as opposed to influences derived from reading a book. That belief, along with giving up one’s will and “willfulness” (or more blatantly, punishing dissent), are practices that certainly could lead to cultish behavior, but not necessarily to religion as a lifelong devotee, IMO, given the “fourth way” caveat that one is only supposed to proceed based upon personal verification or one moves on…IMO, what makes for a cult-religious experience is when the seeker stops verifying for themself and starts believing solely in his or her confirmation bias or what they have been told, surrendering their ability to reason and reality test in order to fulfill the need to belong.
Apparently from day one burton warped the idea of “c -influence” into a spiritualist delusion compromised of disembodied “angels hovering over the dinner table” to fit his in-bred tendency toward superstition, ideas of reference, and magical thinking, IMO, along with providing himself a convenient excuse to abdicate responsibility when necessary to save face with his flock.
His version of “higher forces” never sat well with me, but was an underlying reason I was drawn to be as close to him as possible, wading through the “cosmic speak” to know the man behind the curtain.
It seemed to me at the time that burton’s mesmerizing formal dinners were solemn occasions, taken quite seriously, to be experienced by followers as a seance in which he communed with and channeled the “44 helpers from the spirit world” (after a few glasses of wine all around) who lovingly inserted pithy sayings into his head and to warn us about the impending apocalypse, while he played footsie under the table I was soon to learn.
Back then there wasn’t much talk about “entering Paradise” or the “afterlife” as he waxes on about currently, having dearly departed from the “work books” from day one, as he slowly has cultivated the burton tax-free religion where you stay your whole life and he gets to feast upon his followers, literally.
Since nobody else can see these “angels”, or “feet of the Absolute”, followers in for the long haul either have to faithfully believe without verification that he’s telling the truth and not psychotic, or they will tend to verifabricate their own supernatural spiritualist beliefs along the party line with his in order not to be excommunicated.
Belief in the supernatural, ideas of reference, and magical thinking all definitely have a religious appeal, and are practiced widely today in various American Protestant and evangelical denominations, IMO. In that regard burtonism is not too different from other cultish religions…except for the fact that his is a rape factory.
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