Fellowship Of Friends/Fourth Way School/Living Presence Discussion – Page 197 February 10, 2024
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Fellowship of Friends - Living Presence Discussion 
Unfortunately the turn of the page on this blog is equivalent to turning the page on yesterdays newspaper. So I’m reposting Ames Gilbert’s post at the foot of the previous page (196) so that anyone curious as to the true nature of the FOF (Fellowship of Friends) who may possibly be landing here for the first time gets
a good start on the seediness, vileness and corruption at the heart of this organisation. The Robert Earl Burton Blogspot served as a great repository for truth and first hand accounts of the hypocrisy, lies and criminality that are endemic in this doomsday cult but the Fellowship of Friends in characteristic fashion sued to have it taken down. The truth is unbearble within the organisation which strives to recruit and corrupt new members
106. Ames Gilbert – February 8, 2024
Thanks to Whalerider, above, for the U.S. News article on narcissism. The money quote:
“Because narcissists lack empathy, they also tend to see sex as transactional, Durvasula says, and have less qualms about engaging in casual sex and one-night stands. They also will be more likely to manipulate new romantic partners into having sex sooner in the relationship than they may want to.”
Multiply the words ’transactional’, ‘less qualms’, and ‘manipulate’ by several negative orders of magnitude, and they would still remain inadequate to describe the actual imbalance between Burton and his pets. It’s hard to think of a more unequal setup, when one looks more closely at the power dynamics.
And as for the word, ‘relationship’, I>vis–a–visBurton, words fail me entirely.
What is the true nature of the relationship between a pet rat and its owner? The owner may be proud of the rat, may teach the rat tricks, let it run up and down his arm, he may show off the rat to his acquaintances.
On another level, he may feed the rat—or forget to feed the rat; either way, few consequences. And the owner may at some point decide the rat is not worth the bother, and decide to decant the (totally unprepared) rat into the (extremely hostile) countryside, to take its chances with coyotes and owls. Or sell it to someone who needs food for his pet boa—or even drown it in in a bucket. It is his to do as he pleases.
Yet, my example still fails to encompass the utter disdain, the total underlying contempt, the complete lack of valuation of Burton for his toys, or care for their fate once he tires of them. Not to mention, his vindictive rage should a rat escape.
Burton specializes in turning those young men who trust him into prostitutes, dresses them like dolls, according to his whims, has them perform sex acts with each other, gives them drugs to simulate desire, tells them who to marry and who not to marry, continually demeans them sexually and psychologically, and tells them that they are chosen by angels to service him—he controls every aspect of their lives. And persuades them that they are special and all this use and abuse will advance their spiritual evolution. Then finally, when he is tiring of them, he orders them to recruit and train their replacements…
It looks like the comment cannot be corrected so I wanted to add that in the fellowship, the ‘boys’ are actually abused by Robert because every one of its members living in Oregon house, enables the abuse.
In the political cult, for example in Germany, most everyone who was judged in the Nuremberg trials, argued that they were simply ‘obeying orders’.
Hi, this is Clara Gutiérrez, formerly Elena Haven, I’ll change that name above when I’m reminded how to do it. I do apologize for all my previous mistakes, excesses and abuses on this blog, thank all of you who put up with me long enough while I transitioned out of the cult.
I hope all of you in and out of the Fellowship are well.
I’ve been working on cults ever since I left the fellowship and would like to share some of the ideas that I’ve amassed during this time in the hope of filtering and improving them with anyone of you interested in discussing them.
1. The structure of the individual according to the Work, is clearly reflected in society.
Realm o being – Realm of Authority
Political realm – Realm of Knowledge – Intellect
Religious realm – Realm of Love – Emotions
Sexual Realm – Sexual Function –
Spatial Realm – Moving Function –
Economic Realm – Instinctive Realm
The realms of Being and Knowledge, Love and Nature are third forces that act in both individuals and societies. Institutions represent integrities or unities that act as intermediaries between the ideal and the individuals that struggle towards it. All individuals struggle towards UNITY in each realm. Wisdom is the unity of knowledge that informs both the academic and political institutions in society which correspond to the intellectual centre in individuals. Love is the ideal of integrity that forms and informs churches and other spiritual institutions in society and models the emotional realm in individuals.
In the realm of Being, unity is present in the Self and personality is so structured that it’ll strive and struggle towards integration with the respective social UNITIES that correspond to each of its functions: The Family, Academy, Military, Church and State.
Every institution represents an ideal that attracts a particular centre or function in the individual, as if every human being were already wired to depend on such integration for the development of their functions and ultimately, their Self. An obvious example can be observed in the relationship between nature and the body. Nature represents the integrity or unity that the body belongs to and depends on and this same process can be observed in the relationship between the other functions and their particular unity. It is less clear to understand knowledge or love as unities as complex as nature and perhaps even more so, to understand the unity of being in relation to personality, but it is not only necessary but worth doing so, if one aims to understand the deep structure of the human being.
One of the best ways to get people out of religious, political or economic cults, would be helping each other understand that every time one choses to belong to one or another cult, one is denying the integrity of one’s functions and their respective needs.
People in economic cults, today, hold the attitude that ‘making a living’ is different to ‘making a life’, demonstrating that the schizophrenia of our social personalities is already advanced enough to find it ‘normal’ to separate the work one does with the ideals one has. Likewise, people in fourth way cults that are meant to remain in society, as it is ‘The Way of Life’, give themselves up emotionally making it very easy for the cult to manipulate all their functions, use and abuse them and lead them to tragic consequences in the long run.
When adepts give up their will to the will of the guru, they lose all control over their own development and set themselves up to all forms of abuse. Sexual abuse is one serious form of abuse but it is caused by the much more delicate process of giving up the adept’s will to the will of the guru, that can not only allow for the guru’s sexual abuses but for all the abuses the adepts are willing to perform on other people on the guru’s command.
Well, I’m totally enlightened now after reading this bizarre lecture of babble.
I remember how when I was in the FoF I would join in as fellow members and myself would pontificate after dinner as if we had some special insight into truth and reality. I can also see how that habit is hard for me to shake, even 34 years after leaving. It takes effort to step back and realise how little I (and probably others) really know. One of the pernicious effects of cult life.
John Harmer @ 5
Right on, write on.
Certainty appears to be a common denominator in the fundamentalist mindset regardless of stripe or variety. If a person has managed to escape a cult it doesn’t necessarily follow that s/he has escaped the mindset – that mentality may only be shifted from one object, from one belief to another. The need for certainty in an uncertain world seems to be in many cases a “subconscious” or inherently human strategy for coping with the anxiety that comes with uncertainty… a means of “self-calming.”
Oh! Thanks for those last three comments! That does enlighten me!
Does the system itself have no value to any of you three?
I am at a gathering of fellowship members, in the periphery, observing, anxious, not wanting to be noticed.
A familiar woman, someone I want to avoid, I don’t remember her name, someone whose role is to collect membership payments, recognizes me and approaches. I am discovered.
She stands in front of me and asks, “so, are you a member then?” I answer, “it’s complicated,” and attempt to leave, but burton is standing with others by the door, blocking my exit.
I try to slip behind him, but he turns, sees me, and grabs my arm. “Oh no, here we go again,” I think to myself.
At once I feel the familiar combination of conflicting feelings: part of me feels special in the company of other fawning members…his seductive attention makes me feel special…at the same time I sense a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach because there is a price, I know what he really wants, what he expects from me…only this time, now, I am stronger and going to remain in control of my self.
He leads me out of the meeting room with another man, his secretary, who looks disapprovingly at me, and we three retire to his personal quarters.
The other man and I sit in arm chairs opposite each other. I can see in an adjoining room a table being set for dinner, with three place settings.
Burton approaches me and gives me a necktie; I realize I’m not wearing one, and notice how the color of the necktie happens to match my shirt. He leans in and says to me, “this happened to (so and so, I don’t recall his name) six months ago and he ended up in the hospital.”
I take this as some kind of warning or threat. Then he tries to kiss me on the lips.
As he gets close to my face I notice his lower lip is cracked. I push him away and tell him, “I’m just here to talk.”
I can see this displeases him.
At that moment, I awaken from my dream.
And that is how my nightmare ends.
Clara, you ask if the system itself has any value in comment #8. Well I spent 10 years looking at the world through the lens of the system, and I guess it revealed some things about people and myself that I might otherwise not have noticed. And I am open to not feeling too bitter about the decade I spent in the FoF. However my position now is that the system was constructed by people who were in no particularly priveliged position to account for man and the world. There is a place where Ouspensky states that the system is the product of higher mind, and if that were not the case he would not have anything to offer. That is where I now disagree with him. Humans have been puzzling about life for many centuries, there is a written tradition we can trace in both east and west with many differing opinions. The scientific tradition is special in comparison to the others. Firstly it does not claim any higher mind authority, it depends on reasoning and experiment. It is also remarkable in growing with each generation building on the work done before. It also at its heart (Popper is responsible for expressing this) is ready to be updated or overthrown by new insights or new evidence. The Esoteric traditions claim to know already everything needed to be known, and thus are frozen with their partial picture.
Whalerider
Dreams are so strange. As i engage in this forum fof memes bubble up often. I wrote recently that it is impossible to get out of ‘group think’. Perhaps i am using the term too broadly. It seems to me that whatever we are ‘consciously’ thinking and conversing about we are drawing on some historical form of group think dominant in our family and culture…our past experiences. It may be ‘judeo-christian’ group, some political group or economic theory group etc. etc.. Even scientific ‘group think’ divides into factions (though it might be argued that ‘true science’ is entirely empirical. Even if that is so it seems to be opening one Pandora’s Box after another)
I fear we are destined to remain like blind babies stumbling, bumbling and mumbling around in the dark.
But maybe the dark is the light.
Yesri:
I’ve been reflecting upon your post…I think Jung would agree with you: the dark is the light. Sometimes only at our worst moments lies the potential for immense change, and sometimes great discoveries are stumbled upon by leaning into the darkness or the unknown instead of avoiding it. At the same time, i’ve had to learn to accept the unknowable.
IMO: “Groupthink” by definition is antithetical to the scientific method which is evidence-based and open to change. Groupthink flourishes in isolation and is blind to all contrary evidence…and common sense.
WR
Memories….check, dreams….check, reflections…check, guess that about covers it.
Yeah…i guess my use of ‘group think’ was a bit broad. Precision thinking is not my strong suit.
.
Did Burton go through his customar Valentines sex ritual on the 14th ? Sex of various kinds i.e. blow jobs, anal sex, golden showers, (being peed on for sexual pleasure), Scat Play, ( getting pooped on for sexual pleasure ). Group sex etc And were there 100 chumps ready and willing to step up and show their devotion and freedom from female domination by donating their sperm to the Goddess? That’s a litre of sperm he swallows by the way. Take a look at a litre bottle and let the realisation sink in.
Used to be that after sucking the life out of his students he would offer each one a chocolate from a valentines chocolate box and caution them to only take one. then waive them away and have his secretary introduce the next donor, who’d been dutifully waiting in line outside his door.
Anyone from the Fellowship reading this who thinks he’s not sick, please come forward and explain to me how to take this man seriously and yourself for that matter.
Diego, you have this nasty habit of releasing the most revolting brain worms on your unsuspecting readers!
I’m sure that anyone who has access to the “Inner Circle (squared)” website already knows the answer to your question. Either he broke his own record or he didn’t. If he did, no doubt it will be ‘headline news’ on that website, and someone will carelessly blab, and we will soon get to hear all about it. If not, just silence, though the word of Burton’s failure will eventually percolate to the laity, together with something along the lines of, “Woe is me, C–Influence humiliated me again, but better luck next year”.
Getting into the weeds, the interwebs tell me that the average human male ejaculates from two to five cubic centimeters (about a teaspoon) at a time, depending on a lot of factors. My guess is that when Rowena or other researchers conduct their investigations, their field records include meticulous measurements of objective results, such as volume, force, taste, and refractory period. Not to mention the length, girth and weight of the organs of delivery, always the most important attributes of interest to Burton. And I’m sure that Burton has come to rely on the other, more subjective observations made by these selfless researchers, such as general satisfaction with performance, and, of course, elasticity of morals.
Anyway, let’s assume that if a young, healthy Romanian male in his prime can produce 5 cc, then 100 can produce 500 cc, only half a liter, slightly over a pint. To produce a liter, double normal production, some other factors would have to come into play; I’m thinking drugs of various kinds, but you’d have to ask the Fellowship doctors and psychiatrists for those data.
There is more information on this subject at this blog entry, which referred to Fellowship documents supposedly written in 1991, here:
http://tinyurl.com/y95pwh4u
Uh–oh, apparently that URL in my last post may not work, sometimes those shorteners just don’t.
Try this instead: http://tinyurl.com/2hap347v
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Wow, Yesri, there could be a hundred simultaneous blogs all discussing “groupthink” with no overlap, and it would scarcely scratch the surface!
There is just layer after layer after layer; recognize and study one, come to terms with it, peel it away, and there is another.
No end to it.
I think it is just in the basic nature of the human animal. It is a very social animal, which means we congregate into groups, which inevitably means that there has to be some methods of organization so we all get along, more or less. Maybe that is too simplistic? But if it is so, then it means that there are hierarchies of power, methods of distributing power, food, sex in such ways that the total society prospers and grows. Contrariwise, there is no governing structure that deliberately plans for society to wither and eventually disappear, is there? —Unless the Rulers, as a group, are mentally deficient or psychotic.
The ‘field of agreement’, if I can put it that way, is that some people give up power, and some people receive that power, in order that the group benefits as a whole. At least in theory. I would postulate that the main mechanism that backs this is the phenomenon we call groupthink, which is an extra–individual web, with nodes inserted into the majority of (‘sorta’) individuals in the group. And that that web is more intrinsic and more powerful than the intra–individual web, the part within the brain and nervous system. There are lots and lots of webs or layers, some of them, like adherence to a particular political party, easily discernible, and some of them, and this is just one example, the acceptance that market capitalism is the pinnacle of human economic endeavor, that are a bedrock assumption that almost everyone in our society unquestioningly accepts as a basic truth. The political party groupthink web is more local, the capitalist groupthink is nigh universal, at least here in the ‘West’.
However—the cleverer or more driven members of a group might suss out how to manipulate the distribution of power for their own benefit.
If the ideal is to promote the wiser and more experienced and more capable members to positions of leadership, and ideally those chosen are altruistic and have the interests of the group at heart, then the group as a whole can prosper.
I’ve been in a few small groups, all non–profits, where something has to be done, and the group as a whole automatically turns to the individual best suited to lead that particular effort. No questions need be asked, except for, “Are you willing to take this on?” I call this “Leaderless Leadership”. And that leadership is temporary, just for the duration of the particular project. And obviously it only works where the group is small enough that the members have come to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses over time. This, IMO, is an example of one of the positive benefits of groupthink.
The manipulators amongst us, on the other hand, have learned to make claims that undermine this process. Call it ‘advertising’, or ‘propaganda’ outright lies, or, most cunning of all, lies leavened with just enough verifiable truth to convince listeners that the lies are also true, by association. These kinds of people seek power for its own sake, and will do what it takes to achieve it. In almost all cases, they have learned how to appeal to emotion, and make promises of emotional gratification to their audience. IMHO, at the basic level, they are mentally ill, since the result of their usurpation of power is that the decisions are not optimal, they are self–serving, with the result that the group does not prosper.
One of the reasons I still study the Fellowship of Friends and what is going on there, is that, things are occurring on a scale I can more easily encompass, the various webs are discernible. It’s a small enough pond, and the individual amoebas and volvoxes and hydras (one of which has just split into two!) can be recognized and studied. I myself was a participant in many of those webs, and I certainly gave up my power for a while. I think that gives me some insight into the situation. And I sincerely believe I can extrapolate what I learn onto larger scales, like observing the groupthink that goes on with sporting teams (for a recent example, the Super Bowl), or in the political partisanship here in the U.S. (and the ‘West’ in general). Layer after layer of groupthink, and appeals to emotions, not reason.
O.K., Ames, then is the situation hopeless? Do we just freeze up? No. We have our own lives and our own reality and our own ethics, and in the end, some ability to act on the local scale. So, we have to look around and see what we can do to make things better, and get on and do it.
Ames #15
“Diego, you have this nasty habit of releasing the most revolting brain worms on your unsuspecting readers!”
Thanks, yes I hope so and I hope the worms eat any last remaining shred of misinformed or misguided attachment to Burton
“The force and amount of semen that is ejected during ejaculation varies widely among men, containing between 0.1 and 10 milliliters[13] (for comparison, a teaspoon holds 5 ml and a tablespoon, 15 ml). Adult semen volume is affected by the time that has passed since his previous ejaculation; larger semen volumes develop with longer abstinence. Wikipedia
[13]Rehan, N.; Sobrero, A.J.; Fertig, J.W. (1975). “The semen of fertile men: statistical analysis of 1300 men”. Fertility and Sterility”
Do you feel 500ml makes it more palatable?? Or closer to normal perhaps?
Ames
Thanks for taking the time to say a few words on ‘group think’. It does seem prevalent….
I can barely summon up half a teaspoon…
(boy do i feel ‘less than’)
Ironically, of course George Orwell’s coining and satirical use of the word “groupthink” in “1984” really isn’t referring to actual thinking at all, but speaks to tacitly incorporated beliefs and assumptions, instilled through an authoritarian regime and deployed to disempower a population.
In “Vital Lies, Simple Truths”, author Daniel Goldman develops the idea of “groupthink” as faulty decisions based upon a shared delusion among a group of elitist, narcissistic individuals who, for whatever reason, are isolated from scrutiny by their “lacuna” or psychological blind spot, failing to face facts, while maintaining and operating in their own separate delusional view of reality, such as with JFK’s Bay of Pigs fiasco.
IMO, in cults such as the FOF, it is the group’s mystification and manipulation of language that distorts a follower’s thought processes, inhibiting critical thinking, for instance, in redefining the words, “sleep”, “awake”, “conscious”, “imagination”, “life”, “lower and higher”, etc.
Thus, to be truly free from the cult, to once and for all vacate the Ivory Tower, so to speak, IMO, one must totally abandon and eradicate all forms of fourth way, FOF “cultspeak”.
IMO, the language of the fourth way is a sociopathic playbook: how to enslave others by making them believe they lack what they inherently possess: self-awareness.
My dream last night revealed an insight into why the FOF cult demonizes “sleep” and the so-called “instinctive center”, equating it with the so-called “lower self” which I understand in Jungian terms to be aspects of the shadow side of the Self.
In my dream in which I faced hostile forces maneuvering in the periphery of my awareness, it was a male figure (usually portrayed in a dream state as the shadow side of a male dreamer) to whom I sought for protection.
In other words, I realized more profoundly that that is where survival mechanisms reside, in the shadowy unconscious, and in dire situations, that part of the psyche can be a necessity when self-preservation is at stake.
The beauty and value of Jung’s approach to his mapping of the human psyche as opposed to burton’s bastardization of the fourth way is that Jung assigned both a “positive” or useful and “negative” or destructive aspect to the shadow side of an individual.
More often than not, male figures appearing in my dreams are not pleasant characters; they symbolize my fears and baser instincts, but sometimes they are quite surprisingly useful.
So by demonizing the “instinctive center” or “lower self”, and thereby stunting a follower’s inherent survival mechanisms in addition to the gut response, burton indoctrinates his followers to act against their own self-interest to fulfill his narcissistic supply.
IMO, this is how burton’s sexual abuse psychically damages his victims…in a dire situation (such as in the case where an individual might wish to escape from their harsh circumstances) in which an individual might naturally seek protection from a father-guru figure like a religious cult leader, burton exploits their vulnerability to satisfy his own selfish needs, turning his followers and enablers into dependent slaves of his shadow side, cut off from their inner resources.
WhaleRider – thanks for bringing that up. In Jungian psychology, the process of Individuation involves incorporating aspects of the unconscious into the conscious part of the psyche. The aim is to become whole again. During infancy and childhood, the psyche is split into what is acceptable by family and society and what is unacceptable and becomes repressed. The unconscious was mapped by Jung as consisting of different parts that he called ‘archetypes’. He demonstrated that these archetypes are universal; for example the Father and Mother archetype are found in every civilization and represent the same values of justice and creative power and nurturing care and receptive fertility respectively. The Shadow archetype contains what was repressed, is shameful and one cannot easily be aware of without challenge to one’s Persona, one’s principle identity that develops contextually and is the side of one that is positively reinforced by the circumstances of one’s life.
So, in the FOF, a ‘School of Awakening’, members add to their Shadow because of what is unacknowledged and unacceptable. This includes survival instincts as you wrote, WhaleRider. Members must be defenseless and wholly in the power of the teacher in order to be good students. The defense instinct becomes projected onto the institution and aspects of the member’s Shadow are harnessed in service of Burton’s interests. At some time we have probably all come face to face with the ‘Instinctive Center’ of the FOF and it is fucking scary. This is crime of a spiritual nature. Vulnerable people are corrupted and it is made much more difficult for them to become whole and assimilate the repressed aspects of their psyche; instead they become thralls of Burton and the institution that has grown around him. Quasi-Spiritual growth at the cost of one’s wholeness is very dangerous. For example, one of the worst things you can do as a member is to listen to ‘I’s that are critical of the ‘school’ or of Burton or do not see everything as the unfolding of a divine play written by C influence. These feelings and instincts are not given their due respect but are suppressed. The conscious part of member’s psyches become more unbalanced, are easier to control and members redress this imbalance by investment in the beliefs prevalent in the FOF teaching as it is the only way for the contractions to be contained without bringing on a crisis.
The FOF’s model does not encourage or allow members to become more unified and whole. It feeds off the partitioning of their psyches. This is the great weakness of the FOF. Once you question the fact that you are not allowed to question the ‘School’ or the ‘Teacher’ you are half way out. How can a school of psychology forbid members to think about their relationship with the school? ‘An unexamined life is not worth living’, but we may not examine things that might affect the status quo of our values and how they are held captive by the institution that makes the rules.
Spiritual growth in such a milieu is not possible; or maybe it is better to say that it is possible if it results in a crisis that makes you take back your spiritual responsibility from Burton and leave the FOF. If you are a ‘perpetual student’ terrified of listening to parts of yourself that are not sanctioned by the FOF doctrine, you are severely hampered. I really feel for the well intentioned and honestly motivated people who have fallen under the control of the predatory FOF. It is so ironic that this is known as a ‘School of Awakening’, it is a place of repression and separation; a place where the ‘Lower Self’ is doomed to be judged and ostracized rather than being educated and loved so that we may become whole again.
Beautifully written synopsis, Magdalena, spot on, thank you.
By completely “abandoning the system” and viewed in Jungian terms sans authoritarian hierarchy and psychological partitioning, the FOF “play” is indeed a spiritual tragedy.
IMO, detrimental to individuation is the FOF’s self-deprecating use of “the machine”.
It has been argued on these pages that on the one hand, the Fourth Way system may have been sadly misused by Burton and his minions, but that one should not “throw the baby out with the bathwater”, and on the other hand, the many weaknesses and few safeguards in these ‘Fragments of an Unknown Teaching’ render the whole scheme too dangerous to be worthwhile.
For a time, I supported the former, but after mulling the alternatives, came to the conclusion that ‘seekers’ are better served by acting on the latter.
That is, promoting unquestioning obedience to a ‘teacher’ without at the same time giving specific and detailed information on how to detect fraud and also how to extricate oneself from an unhealthy situation, is a red flag danger signal, right off the bat.
Promoting some kind of spiritual advancement that is only detectable by the ‘teacher’, or must be sanctioned by the ‘teacher’ is another red flag.
Promoting that having sex of any kind with the ‘teacher’, for any reason whatsoever, is more than a flag, it should be like having a laser pointer shone directly in one’s eyes. Criminal alert!
Promoting a ‘school’ that has no clearly defined path to graduation is yet another sign of a hoax, as is the idea of a ‘permanent student’, or theoretical ‘graduation at the end of many lifetimes’
…and on and on. It’s a veritable forest of red flags.
So, my conclusion is, and certainly in the case of the Fellowship of Friends, there is definitely no baby, and never was, so hurl the bathwater as far as you can, and preferably off the edge of a thousand foot cliff.
In relation to the Jungian stuff…
Without ‘object permanence’ no-thing exists. Demonizing ‘body’/’personality’ demonizes the whole world requiring the invention of a savior to fix the situation.
Ames,
Don’t forget the tub…
I seem to recall Gurdjieff told Ouspensky that one must verify everything one is told. By the time I joined in 1982 Robert had already thrown this precept out with the bathwater. Maybe I wasn’t harmed as much as I could have been because I kept trying to verify rather than believe.
“Verification” provides no assurance, as Popper explains (check out pp. 34-35): http://phil.uregina.ca/korte/Phil-science/10-philscience/Class/PDF/Popper-Conjectures.pdf
Ahhhh yes…the old verification bait n switch trick….
“Have you verified ‘C influence’, goodness?”
Presto changeo… the influence of someone who has realised ‘their’ true nature , from the fourth way literature, combined with the observation of the minds tendency to make synchronistic connections magically becomes…
C- INFLUENCE. Disembodied old white guys turned ANGELS.
‘Larger’, more comprehensive forces become ‘HIGHER FORCES’. DIsembodied old white guys turned ANGELS.
Abracadabra! Your face has been magically chiseled back into the millennially formed cave wall.
Thirty years later you are still worshipping some douche who has guzzled 2000 gallons of jizz (estimates vary) on his hands and knees kissing the feet of the Absolute (whatever you may have verified that to be)
Ya can’t make thus stuff up.
Absolute
Def:
That which you can never have and can never lose.
(doesn’t have feet….well….has your feet…)
Reuben Kincaid, thanks for the reference to Karl Popper’s work; those are great points about the nature of verification. In my opinion, the examples he gave are examples of the development of groupthink, as each ‘verification’ is added to the previous ones, until one ends up with an unassailable citadel of ‘verifications’. At some point, this citadel becomes ‘established truth’ or, ‘common knowledge’, or, ‘conventional wisdom’, one of the givens.
Just for laughs, here is the intellectual giant of the Fellowship of Friends, Girard Haven, informing his readers what constitutes verification in his local bubble.
From his book, “Creating a Soul”, page 73, which I quote without comment (though I’m sorely tempted):
“…I suddenly found myself making a distinction between ‘verifying’ and ‘testing’…
In the way I mean it, ‘testing’ is essentially a negative process. It refers to the attempt to disprove something or to make it fail, as when an automobile door is tested by a machine which opens and closes it thousands of times, or when a child tests his parents by deliberately going where he is not supposed to go. In the Fellowship, testing usually starts from negative attitudes towards school disciplines, attitudes such as “Why should I have to do this?” These attitudes lead to efforts to discover what is wrong with a request, what is beneficial about its opposites, and what one can get away with, although all this often occurs in the guise of thinking for oneself, finding one’s own expression for the work, etc. In any case, it is easy to see that testing embodies the attitudes of opposite thinking.
Verification, on the other hand, is a positive process. It begins by adopting the attitude that the thing to be verified is correct, and then uses observation of the results of acting according to that attitude to determine the validity of the original assumption.
As an example, consider a child who is told that fire is hot. He tests this by putting something into the fire; he verifies it by trusting his parents and by observing. Although this may seem a trivial example, there are people all around us (as well as many ‘I’s within us) who insist on sticking their hands into fires, particularly when the emotional center is involved. We even refer to such people as being ‘burned’ in, for example, a bad relationship.
The dangers of testing are compounded by the fact that our emotional centers are so underdeveloped that we are often unable even to realize when we are being burned. This is especially true in relation to the School. We have only a very limited understanding of what actually serves our evolution, and that understanding is restricted to a very small part of our machines, that part of the king of hearts which has been trained by the School itself. The rest of the machine does not understand awakening and so easily adopts a negative, testing attitude which, if not recognized for what it is, can lead one out of the School.
This, then is why it is so important to learn to verify rather than to test, to develop an ability to trust the wisdom of Higher Forces and to affirm and strengthen that trust by acting on it, as the Teacher does. Essentially, the attitude that one must test in order to verify betrays a lack of understanding of our relation to Higher Forces. In our sleep, we act as if we were their equals, and set ourselves up to test and judge their requests. When we get away with it, as mechanically as we sometimes will, this illusion is reinforced. Consequently, no matter what one may finally learn from it, testing always feeds false personality.
Verification, on the other hand, can be seen as the process of intentionally deciding to adopt attitudes which presumably come from higher beings, and then confirming those attitudes, and hence their origin, by action and observation. It is an ongoing process, the method by which knowledge is brought into being to create understanding.
Moreover, because verification involves setting aside one’s own ideas to adopt the ideas or attitudes one is verifying, it runs counter to the illusion of self–importance, and so is relatively free of false personality. Instead, it is a manifestation of true personality, embodying the understanding that one cannot test Influence C, set conditions for them, or make demands of them. One cannot even ‘prove’ their existence: one must accept them, and in doing so, verify their presence.”
Join the revolution…
https://www.facebook.com/groups/339475282745814
Ames/30
“Teleology” — the intended conclusion controls the reasoning used to reach it. Same process as Christian apology. Reasoning which would lead away from the intended conclusion is labeled as flawed from the get-go, because the intended conclusion by definition is sacred, and therefore not amenable to doubt.
Hey everyone. I’m making my first comment so I can register to the site. I had a very horrible experience with BePeriod.com. cult is the word and what I searched on google…and this site popped up. Just found this blog. I’m almost afraid of what I’m gonna read.
Hello C, and welcome.
Contributors to this site have been commenting on Asaf Braverman for many years, ever since Burton proclaimed him to be something special and thereby came to our collective attention. And, of course, especially since we found out about the BePeriod scam. So, there is a lot to go through, if you want some history. Ten years or more!
I hope you were not too badly burned by your experience with Asaf Braverman and BePeriod. If you’d like to share your story, you would be doing us all a favor, but perhaps, more importantly, to yourself. IMHO, sharing your pain with sympathetic others might be quite healing, and you might also help warn off other seekers who might otherwise be ensnared by Braverman.
But even if you don’t say another word, I wish you all the best and better luck in the future as you search for meaning and purpose in your life.
To be fair to Girard Haven, the book I quoted in #30 above was published in 1999, a quarter of a century ago. And the actual essay was first formulated ten years earlier. So, maybe he has changed his mind about things in the meantime.
Well, I can’t read his mind—fortunately. It must contain an impressive jumble of cognitive knots, dissonances and competing narratives galore, all conveniently separated by and cushioned in a bath of absolute faith in Burton and his works.
Think about what must have gone on in his noggin when Burton told his flock to give up on the Fourth Way, and to dump or destroy all books pertaining, plus any and all videos of meetings until then.
This would have presumably included Girard Haven’s own books on the subject, like the one above. Talk about a mental auto-da-fé! Talk about literally ‘abandoning the System’! I’m told the only exceptions were Burton’s own books, which were obviously of such purity and merit that they were totally free of the mistakes and incorrect arguments and suspect sources and whatever else that Burton imagined disqualified the rest.
Now imagine how Haven must have twisted and beaten his neurons to explain and justify the replacement with the Brand New™ central teaching, ‘The Sequence™’, ‘The Thirty Work I’s™’ and so on. Those artifacts, invented out of whole cloth by the new star in the Fellowship of Friends’ firmament (and anointed successor to Burton), Asaf Braverman. It was he and his mentor, Robert Earl Burton who worked together to produce these crowning achievements, the best efforts of ‘The Brightest Light in 2,000 years” and the latest in a long line of ‘future conscious beings’.
All built around Burton’s psychological bedrock of numerology and superstitions.
It is a tribute to Gerard Haven’s, ahem, flexibility that he was indeed able to do so, and also persuade the majority of the laity to follow along with him. His output during this period included the book, “The Use of Keys” (2005) which provided intellectual cover for Braverman and Burton’s advanced numerology and their new science of ‘keying’, the interpretation of various signs and symbols.
Look closer at this brainiac’s thought process. The signs validate Burton’s words. Each sign, in his view, makes his words true. For his followers, his words were already true, and the signs (arranged by powerful angels, according to Burton) simply confirm that FACT . Circular reasoning, but good enough for Haven, who then embellishes those words with yet more words and publishes them to the laity. Girard Haven, by virtue of being ‘conscious’ adds that special extra luster that helps bedazzle the congregation.
Another work from this period, “The Art of Presence: Perspectives from a Fourth Way School” (2015) lures the unsuspecting reader with the bait, “Fourth Way School”, but a quick look at the contents shows the true intent. One chapter is called, “The Use of Keys”, another, “The Sequence: Preparing the Nine of Hearts for Prolonged Presence”, which succinctly show the actual direction, and underlying assumptions Haven intends the reader to make.
But…
After a dozen years, most followers’ worldviews were likely severely shaken again. Suddenly, the Fourth Way was back in fashion! But fortunately Haven, having twisted his mind like a pretzel so many times to accommodate Burton’s delusions, was up to the task. Four decades and more of advanced obedience training came into play, and I’m told he resumed the Fourth Way schtick without a hiccup. The secret? Haven posits an absolute faith in Burton. It is his standard fallback position, and within the context of the Fellowship bubble, an unassailable position.
Burton is right, no matter what, and moreover, it is not possible for him to be wrong.
Here’s a concrete example of his thinking. He recalls Burton reaching forward to readjust a towel on a rack—just so. Haven uses that episode to illustrate his relationship with Burton, saying that henceforth he always arranges towels in exactly the same way, and to do otherwise, to arrange his towels any other way would be going against Burton’s teaching, and in such a serious way that he might as well just leave the ‘School’. He is saying he has such utter trust in Burton’s superior knowledge, integrity and truth–telling that he considers the very slightest of deviation from example or instruction to be worthy of exile into the outer darkness! Such utter blind and unthinking trust, despite the evidence of fifty years to the contrary…
Such is the state of mind of one of Burton’s most adoring, obedient and unquestioning disciples, and one of the three ‘conscious beings’ at present infesting Oregon House, CA 95962.
#35
Just trying to keep score for my records. Are you now saying that Haven is back in the conscious being category? Last heard he was left off the list. How do you get these updates?
Now Showing: “Avatar: The Last Mindbender”
Movie House, CA~The fantasy is set in a world where human civilization is grouped into four basic body types: named after the four psychic elements: the Instinctive Tribe, the Dancing Kingdom, the Emo Nation, and the Thought Nomads.
In each group, certain people, known as “benders” develop the ability to telekinetically manipulate and control the corresponding type, by requiring their group members to severely restrict their movements, thoughts, feelings and gut reactions.
The “Avatar”, who thinks of himself as “The One and Only”, is the individual who has succeeded in the ability to bend the minds of all four types to his will and desires.
The Avatar’s duty is to maintain disharmony among the four body types, by acting as the exclusive mediator between vulnerable humans and the whims of unseen spirits hovering over the dinner table.
The Avatar can enter a condition known as the “Avatar Trance State”, in which they hone the sociopathic skills and deploy the warped knowledge of all their past incarnations to mystify their followers. Although this is when they are at their most delusional- if the Avatar is ever confronted with the inconsistencies of their behavior while in the Avatar Trance State, the spell would be broken and the Avatar would cease to exist.
When the Avatar dies or begins to display dementia, their spirit is reincarnated in a new body, who usually leaves the group and starts his own in the next town, following a set order based upon his type known as the Avatar cycle: Emotion, Thought, Movement and Instinct.
By tradition, the new Avatar will travel the world to in search of signs and wonders, after which they will begin in earnest their role as a prophet of global disasters that never happen.
“bad alchemy you’ve got there”, I don’t actually know, of course.
Burton claimed he was ‘conscious’, and Haven told me himself he was ‘conscious’, so that is sufficient input to allow me to fire up the snark engine.
Whether Burton or Haven were telling the truth, even as they see things, I have no idea, how could I? And I certainly don’t know if there is an official list pinned up somewhere.
When I was in, the list was sort of informal. We serfs heard things through the grapevine, and if a particular thing was said often enough by an ‘older student’ or someone in authority, it became a local truth.
However, I did ask Girard directly, and he told me he was a Man #5. I also asked Miles Barth directly, and he told me that he felt the same as before Burton announced he, Miles, was ‘conscious’. Burton did add later that C-Influence had not yet revealed it to Miles. But Miles said, as far as he knew, nothing had changed.
This essay, written more than a quarter of a century ago, documents the essayist’s experience in a group called “New American Wing” which has a lineage tie to the Fellowship of Friends:
…..
“The Numbers Game in the New American Wing”
by “JM”
I was in a group called “The New American Wing” (NAW), a spinoff of James Randazzo’s “Spiral of Friends” (SOF), which in turn came from “The Fellowship of Friends” (FOF).
The NAW teachers (a married couple, Jim and Carolyn Kuziak, aka “J&C”) had the final word on who was “a five”, who had awakened. I knew two women who told me they “didn’t realize they had awakened” until a couple days later when the teachers told them so. This was an important clue that something was not quite right, because Man #5 is supposed to be objective in relation to himself. Also in my own personal experiences of non ordinary degrees of consciousness, it was obvious to me that my state had changed. These two women had actually believed they had awakened because the teachers told them so.
A few days after a friend of mine supposedly awakened, I asked him about what had happened. He didn’t say much except “it changes your life”, and “the teachers say I am a five when I am self-remembering.”
There was little doubt who the fives were, because during meetings the teachers would occasionally ask to the audience, “who here has awakened?” (As though they forgot, as though they didn’t know us each quite well.) Hands would rise into the air, like kids in a classroom. It was a public performance, resulting in a feeling of superiority in those who raised their hands, and a feeling of self-loathing in those who didn’t. On one occasion, a student raised her hand and the teachers scolded her, “you haven’t awakened, you’ve had experiences but you haven’t awakened.”
The NAW has two main “centers” — one in Ann Arbor and one in Lexington KY, overall about 25-40 students combined. Of these, I can recall eleven who claimed to be Men #5. Generally, these were the older students who had dedicated their lives to the school and had bought-in 100% to the game. People usually awakened during one of the major ceremonies we had during the year (Christmas, Easter, July 4, Thanksgiving). It also usually occurred during “obligatories” — the ritual movements.
These students had special privileges after their conversion experience. They could attend special private meetings, held only for those who had awakened. They were also given special exercises. At the time I left, I was just starting to be included in these “older student” activities, even though I had not awakened. They were giving me exercises that did not seem to be practical for me — imagining myself the size of the earth, imagining energy and directing it through my body, etc. There was a thrill in receiving these new exercises, because it gave me the illusion of being an advanced student, of being part of the inner circle, etc.
Fives also had a more prominent role during ceremonies and obligatories. They were also allowed to ask less practical questions at meetings — they could ask theoretical questions regarding higher energies, the ray of creation, symbols, etc., and the teachers would entertain those questions now. This was not an explicit privilege, but was a sort of unwritten understanding, as though now the students had enough being for these questions to be considered “practical”.
Strangely, once someone awakened, they were allowed to take much greater care of their instinctive functions. The teachers would not complain if an older student dropped out of some “work octave” because of physical discomfort. If a non-awakened student tried this, the older students and teachers would come down hard on them. “Do not let the instinctive function eat your work”, “learn how to dominate those queen-of-clubs ‘I’s”, “no half efforts”, “once you decide to do something, do it whole hog and twice the postage”, etc. But awakened students were allowed much more sleep, more breaks, less strenuous work, more desk jobs. The rationale seemed to be, “in a higher state, you are much more sensitive to the needs of the instinctive function.” Or, “if you don’t take care of your machine, it will become negative and eat you when in a higher state.” The teachers exemplified this behavior. They received massages and sexual favors from the innermost core of students, took considerable time each day in a hot tub, and spent hours each night laying in a bed with about 15 pillows watching a $3000 wide-screen TV. One particular student, the teachers’ pet, cooked their meals each night with utmost care: only the best organic foods, making handmade ice-cream, all sorts of special dietary requirements, etc. While preparing food for them, we were told that if we were in a negative state while cooking, they could tell from the food itself, as though our negativity had corrupted the food.
But being considered a Man #5 was not all positive… Awakened students were given additional duties and responsibilities, such as being sent out to start centers in new cities. They were also treated more harshly by the teachers, because they had “verified that this was a C influence school” and were now supposed to devote their entire lives to it. The teachers claimed to control the higher states in the fives, “when you awaken you swim in our higher being bodies.” They also used this as a threat, “I’ve got your nickel … once you’ve awakened, you belong to me — do you understand me?”
Outwardly, there were various signs that would indicate one of these students were supposedly in a higher state. Often they would shed tears, sometimes tears of horror and sometimes tears of joy. The state was usually onset by heavy controlled breathing on the part of the student — such as during obligatories, or during a meeting if a student wanted to be seen making a “super-effort”. They often had a far-away look in their eyes, as though they were not interested in the trivial events taking place around them.
They usually would not look directly in your eyes, and others generally didn’t “photograph their instinctive functions” (stare at them) either. If I looked them in the eyes, sometimes I felt waves of shame arise within me, fearing they could see into my horrible feature-ridden soul. This kind of self-hatred was glorified in various subtle ways throughout the school. A common expression was, “you cannot look in the face of something higher” (without becoming extremely identified). This grand suggestion actually encouraged us to become more identified in these situations.
Sometimes they would experience brief twitches, as though bolts of energy were shooting through their system. One student kept experiencing these jolts frequently a few days after he had “awakened”, until the teachers scolded him during obligatories, “you can’t go there every time, now it is time to get serious.”
The fives quickly became more self-confident, especially around non-awakened students. I can remember how quickly one particular student changed after going through this experience — within a couple weeks he changed from being a true wuss into an assertive person able to take what he felt he deserved. (In many ways it was an act and after a few months he gradually returned closer to his original state.) This new self-confidence came from a renewed certainty about their faith, and also seemed to justify their increased outbursts of negativity towards others. In other words, they were now peers with the other awakened students, and, lacking that fear to keep them on-guard, they were more likely to try to control situations with negative emotions. Their new strength, self-confidence, and perceived power gave them a kind of charisma.
The teachers probably liked the idea of having more awakened students too. They validated their credentials, “proof that this school works”. Awakened students were fully crystallized in their devotion to the school — it seemed that these were the students who would do ANYTHING for the teachers (get a divorce, move to a new town, make large payments, sexual favors, hold multiple jobs, etc…) It justified giving these core devotees extra privileges and extra duties. It maintained the hierarchical power system and justified it with a spiritual basis. It gave these students a feeling of increased being.
Older students also took over many of the public responsibilities previously performed by the teachers. By allowing them to hide in their bedroom, with all contact fully controlled and orchestrated, the teachers were able to generate a kind of mystique. In their absence, we had less chance to ‘catch them in the act’, less opportunity to discover if the teachers were truly higher beings. When we finally did interact with them, it was so formalized and so fear-laden that we were easy prey. And with mere fives running most of the show, any faults could be blamed on them, thus protecting the teachers’ facade of perfection. And although fives were supposedly conscious, they were not fully objective to the external world, so their eventual mechanical flubs and failures could still be forgiven without breaking our belief in the actual existence of something higher.
Source: http://www.fourthwaycult.net
One of the most dangerous lies you can ever hear in life is: You need us if you want to become you.
The “baby” (knowledge originating from a conscious source) is born into a “corrupt” world (the world of appearances) and often times finds itself residing in a “manger” (a low place). That, in short, is the story of Gurdjieff’s ideas and the FOF.
The FOF’s criminal misuse of Gurdjieff’s ideas is good cause to exercise a high degree of vigilance (discernment) when coming into contact with a group which professes to be engaged in Gurdjieff’s “Work”. It is not, however, a good reason to “throw the baby out with the bath water” (unless, of course, one doesn’t wish to have his/her “sleep” disturbed).
Doublespeak is language that aspiring authoritarian leaders use to deliberately obscure, disguise, distort, or reverse the meaning of words…IMO (and in my experience) like using the word “sleep” in the example above to both inhibit critical thought and cause an individual to act against their own self-interest, in furtherance of the self-interested aims of others like Mr G who claims to be more “awake”.
Why not just use the word “ignorance” instead?
Simply put, what is an individual most ignorant or unaware of themselves? Usually it is an individual’s own inconsistencies and biases that are uncomfortable to bear.
And even though I may at times rely upon others to reveal those gaps in my self-awareness, that’s no reason for me to “worship the god of what other people think”.
IMHO, self-knowledge ought to empower a person with more individual freedom, not enslavement to a cult engaging in doublespeak.
Gurdjieff’s ideas, “objective knowledge,” bosh. You can criticize them on their merits, AND you can criticize the turkey who trumpeted them. The latter is criticized as ad hominem argument, but it’s really no different than observing what a schmuck Trump is AND talking about what comes out of his mouth. Frank Lloyd Wright heard G to claim 104 sons and 27 daughters; G had at least seven children with six different women. The guy couldn’t keep it in his pants. (Small wonder he stigmatized “a policeman attitude towards sex.”) G was an alcoholic drunk driver who bragged about “shearing sheep,” the people who looked to him for guidance. He painted sparrows and sold them as canaries. He was a con man and had no compunctions about it. At least O., in his fifties, confessed that he thought “the system” was a fraud but he couldn’t give it up because he was addicted to the lifestyle.
The claim that “Gurdjieff’s ideas” are “pure” and Burton “corrupted” them is a weak argument masquerading as strength. If you want to insulate yourself from critical examination of your ideas, describe them as “pure” and “sacred” and make a cornerstone of your system the dogma that “if you disagree, you do not understand.” Weak, weak, weak. Instead of grappling with the claims Gurdjieff’s ideas make about reality, the defender of these ideas becomes the champion of purity and sacredness. It’s a moral stance which inflates its proponent’s conception of himself as an heroic defender of the faith.
The response to criticism of Gurdjieffian ideas is usually a refusal to engage. Seldom if ever does one see Gurdjieffian ideas defended on their merits ina debate. William Patrick Patterson says publicly, “I don’t take criticism of The Work seriously.” The further position he asserts, based on lineage and sacred purity claims, is that people in the Fellowship didn’t really have contact with The Work. But that position misses the boat, because both the Fellowship The Work itself are defective to the very core of what they purport to be.
41. Beelzebob “The ‘baby’ (knowledge originating from a conscious source)…”
Could you possibly give a small example of knowledge originating from a conscious source?
If a tree of objective knowledge fell in the forest and there was no one there to hear it, would it make a sound or would the leaves just rustle in a sleep?
“knowledge originating from a conscious source” = “argument from authority”
The discussion about knowledge originating from a conscious source recalled to my mind the counter example of Albert Einstein’s happiest thought, which he said he had while looking out of his window at a building while pondering the nature of gravity. The idea is simplicity itself, of course General Relativity that emerged years later after Einstein had thought things through, requires effort and mathematical sophistication to follow, but here is his “happiest thought”
Imagine a workman standing on the roof of a house and losing his footing. As he plummeted in free fall, everything within his grasp (a toolbox, for example) would plunge with him. Therefore, from his local perspective gravity wouldn’t seem to exist.
Well I guess I asked for it. I am going to try to respond to the various comments without being overly long winded and certainly not in one post or in one day.
#42 Whalerider
The word “sleep” more accurately describes our ordinary “waking state” than the word “ignorance”. G did not coin the word – it has been used for centuries to describe a particular psychological state (for example, references to “sleep” in the New Testament) .
By “sleep”, G means a state of hypnotization that is analogous to (though less intense than) the state of a person who has been hypnotized by a professional hypnotist. It is only a matter of degree. In either case, the person is rendered both suggestible and credulous. He or she remains generally aware of what they are doing while acting in the manner that is being suggested to them.
The word “ignorance” pertains to a lack of knowledge or information. Although the word can be used, as you say, to denote our unacknowledged inconsistencies and biases, it does not contain the idea of being in a hypnotized state.
I agree that self-knowledge does empower a person with individual freedom (provided that it is real self-knowledge and not the pseudo versions that people generally find more palatable).
Responses continued:
#43 & 46 Reuben Kincaid
Sorry Reuben, I won’t be responding to your posts. Besides the first post being too long and disjointed, both posts are in the nature of diatribe rather than a sincere attempt to come to a common understanding through discussion.
#44 Bad Alchemy
Examples of knowledge originating from a conscious source:
The Law of Three
The Law of Seven
The idea that we are a microcosm of the Universe differing only in scale (“As above, so below”, Man is made in the image of God).
The idea that we are “asleep” (that is, that we live in a state of hypnotization subject to being pushed and pulled willy-nilly by suggestions coming from outside us or inside us).
The idea that we are “many I’s” (and its corollary that we have no real Will).
It seems to me that ‘objective’ and ‘knowledge’ are poor and ineffective terms to describe anything but as Einstein’s general theory of relativity shows it can be fun and creative to beat a dead horse.
Reuben Kincaid (39), thanks for sharing.
There is just no end to the mind–fuckery.
It seems like sociopaths inevitably breed more sociopathy. The Spiral of Friends offshoot of the Fellowship of Friends, New American Wing from SoF, more sociopaths no doubt learning the ropes there before they go off on their own. On and on and on. There have been several other spin–offs from the FoF, none of them as successful as far as I am aware, but their proponents tried their hardest and no doubt left their share of wreckage in their wake. Asaf Braverman is doing better with BePeriod so far, but it will be a while before he snares the numbers and $$ that Burton has accumulated over five decades. Give him time…
I’ve collected quite a few testimonies over the years, people’s realizations and explanations of what happened when they joined ‘high–control’ organizations, and what happened when they left, and afterwards. And, sometimes, why. Plus, a number of books by cult survivors on the same topics.
When I read these, I feel a deep recognition and a deep compassion for what each of these victims went through. On a personal level, they help me understand and forgive myself for my weaknesses, naiveté, and complicity while I was in the Fellowship of Friends; I certainly wasn’t alone.
And I see, once more, that this pattern of the abuser and the abused, happens again and again, and on many scales.
Anyone can become a rich, grasping guru. Here’s how.
Study some spiritual subject, become familiar with the vocabulary, learn important passages, memorize the key words.
Practice the humble look and the ‘thousand yard stare’ in the mirror until you have it down perfectly.
Now, look out for the first marks, the needy seekers, there are many close to hand. If they are drunk or stoned at first contact, so much the better.
Claim you have some exclusive spiritual insight and also practical help to offer. Groom and flatter the ambitious ones, invent important positions for them, imbue them with your authority then let them do the work.
Claim exclusivity and start the process of isolating the group; establish your own groupthink. Get high on the adoration or fear, and spend the money lavishly.
Inevitably, the guru and his minions will be blind to the next phase of corruption, and in my view, pretty much a law. At some point those leaders, having spun assorted tall tales to their followers, and having had them reflected back, will come to believe their own bullshit. And at the same time, the main purpose of the group will change to self–preservation and continuity of the group.
There is the personal scale, there is the small group or tribal scale, and there is the super–group or national scale, with others, such as sports fandoms, in between. But the same dynamics, the same group–thinks, the same trajectories, and the same unfortunate results. In the larger groups, some of the effects can range from rebellion, civil wars, to external wars on the (usually fabricated) “other”.
It is disgusting and dispiriting to acknowledge, but it seems endemic to so–called Western Civilization, and the end games on the larger scale seem to so often manifest as deliberate efforts to normalize plunder, violence, and the unbelievable inhumanity we see around us.
What can I personally do about all this? All that is in my limited purview is, to look at things squarely, bear witness, tell the truth as I see it to myself and others, and try my best to do my best in my corner of the neighborhood.
Damn Ames!
That is as close to objective knowledge as i’ve seen in a while!
Re: Bob Paterson
“He or she remains generally aware of what they are doing while acting in the manner that is being suggested to them..
I believe you are generally referring to the performance of a professional stage hypnotist, correct?
In the example you describe, yes the “subject” in a stage hypnosis show is generally aware of what he or she is doing, and “acting” in the manner suggested to them by the grandiose stage hypnotist, albeit with a “grain of salt” because it is usually the case that they are being asked to perform silly behavior like the others onstage, reinforced by the audience’s laughter and most often conforming out of peer pressure, otherwise they are dismissed from the stage…not unlike those enslaved in a cult acting out of ignorance…of their own inner guru.
This is why I believe your continued use of the word “sleep” is misleading….doublespeak, in fact, when referring to states of mind. If you were to literally go without sleep long enough in the common use of the word, you would become psychotic…far from more “awake”.
Where your example of “sleep” vis à vis “hypnosis” falls flat is in regard to general human behavior; IMO, people usually act with much more consciousness, intention, conviction and belief than apparently you give them credit, and sometimes acting in direct opposition to what they are being asked to do.
Just to be clear, in the therapeutic setting of a professional Clinical Hypnotherapist, however, the client is merely placed in a trance state in which their innate healing capacity can more easily manifest on its own, which is a much more empowering experience than simply being told what to do, as what you seem to suggest occurs in everyone else on the planet not in your particular mental silo.
50. Bob Patterson
Examples of knowledge originating from a conscious source:
The Law of Three
The Law of Seven
***
Can I ask what you use this knowledge for and why? Where is it taking you?
55/bad alchemy
𝘌𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦:
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯
Which source is that? Are you just defining it as coming from a conscious source, in which case it’s “sacred,” that is, not open to debate?
Conversation with Gemini
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Can you turn it into American English.
It is a blog post, so keep it simple:
Hi there.
I have been in the Fellowship for 11 years. I left in 2006.
This period has pretty much gone out of my system.
I post to tell you that I met a guy from the east coast, who is a member.
He joined after I left. He was quite open and said that the Oregon House resort, is practically a village for the elderly, and that less than 25% are below 45.
I looks like nature is taking its course.
Show drafts
Hi everyone,
I was a member of the Fellowship for about 11 years, until 2006. Just wanted to share an update I heard recently.
I ran into a fellow member from the East Coast who joined after I left. He mentioned that the Oregon House Resort has gotten a lot older since we were there. Apparently, less than 25% of the members are under 45 now. Sounds like things are shifting naturally towards a retirement community vibe.
Anyway, just thought I’d pass this along!
Re: so-called “Laws” of Seven and Three…it is highly likely that your verifabrications of these theories are the result of confirmation bias, since you heard or read about them first without examination of any supporting rigorous scientific studies…only that they were “observed” by a “higher mind” and therefore they must be true.
For example: while it may be easily observed that human endeavors often do not proceed from beginning to end without interruption, the demarcation of steps or “notes” and “intervals” or “half-steps” that mimic one particular musical scale (of which there are many) in a human endeavor is likely to be arbitrary and subject to bias based upon the observer’s preconceived point of view…for certainly a computer program (unknown in Mr G’s time) can proceed from beginning to end without interruption or intervals, does it not? Is not a computer program “mechanical”?
A better example of a law that is derived from an individual with a higher degree of intelligence is E=MC2, which has been scientifically proven.
Your examples of “higher mind” only serve to inhibit critical thought and reinforce blind conformity to a system of authoritarian hierarchy, IMHO.
Dear Bob Patterson,
We are unlikely to come to a common understanding through discussion, because we disagree about fundamental propositions. You are a Defender of the Faith. The Faith cannot be wrong, you insist, if not in your words, in your refusal to engage. Your reasoning is teleological, scripted, unfree. Another way to put it is that you can come to any conclusion you like, so long as the conclusion you like is that the system is objective knowledge, and those who disagree “do not understand.”
I wish for you the salutary experience of being absolutely certain of your point of view, only to discover that you are wrong.
John H.
‘Therefore, from his local perspective for him gravity wouldn’t seem to exist.”
I was re-reading some posts and saw that my response to this was kinda cryptic and might need clarification.
I wasn’t belittling Einstein’s genius by suggesting he was beating a dead horse with his theory of general relativity.
I’ve been at this ‘spiritual’ shit for over 50 yrs….done the meditating, done all the drugs, done the not doing all of that stuff and done the doing it while not doing it and the not doing it while doing it.
Now..as i mentioned before i’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer..maybe even border line retarded…this has been my experience and this isn’t some objective knowledge i’m trying to impart and certainly others may have experienced far different things.
I have heard tell of creating a soul and escaping organic life on earth, i’ve heard tell of astral projection, remote viewing, non-local consciousness etc.etc…
Again, remember, borderline retarded, i have never never ever ever exprienced anything but a local perspective…so fucking local i cant imagine a time past or future or a space distant that wouldn’t be local.
Hence the ‘beating a dead horse’ comment
47. John Harmer
“Imagine a workman standing on the roof of a house and losing his footing. As he plummeted in free fall, everything within his grasp (a toolbox, for example) would plunge with him. Therefore, from his local perspective gravity wouldn’t seem to exist.”
If within the workman’s local perspective gravity didn’t seem to exist then time wouldn’t exist either. Which would mean the workman had by accident attained eternity within his local perceptual field. In the world of the falling workman time space would become suspended. Only in the ordinary view of a earthbound onlooker stuck in the predictable world of cause and effect would the miraculous reality of the workman look like an inescapable tragedy.
“Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts that where gravity is stronger, time passes more slowly. That’s called time dilation. Gravity is stronger closer to the center of the Earth. So, according to Einstein, time should pass more slowly closer to the ground.”
The important difference between scientific ideas and those that come from traditions such as esotericism, religion and scriptural authority, is that scientists are welcome to attempt to disprove their own and others theories. This simple twist has allowed them to build upon each other’s work. It is also philosophically more modest. Though many do believe the latest science as gospel, at heart it is just the latest as yet unfalsified model of reality, waiting for something more complete to come along and displace it.
In the FoF and similar setups the only option is to “verify” the truth of the knowledge that others pass on, with the gotcha that because the knowledge came from higher beings, if you disagree with them, you are always wrong.
Verifying Burton’s idiosyncratic version of C influence, by observing coincidences and weird synchronicities, was a road to delusion and self deception.
Now we have a real live lawsuit underway, I wonder what the members of the Board of Directors of the Fellowship of Friends, past and present, are thinking. However much they believe they are protected by powerful angels who work 24/7 to protect Burton—and by extension, them—they must be feeling some pressure.
I mean, this is Reality pushing a finger into their bubble. Reality means that no matter their collective mindset encompassing a breath–taking dogmatism (really a kind of ideological solipsism) hitherto preventing these Fellowship élites from seeing the world as it actually is, they will be forced to confront powerful adversaries that don’t subscribe to their peculiar world view. And those adversaries, at least in the courtroom, will seek to expose a different truth. Which is, Robert Earl Burton is a serial confabulator and a serial rapist, who has committed many crimes.
It is true that only a few of those crimes will be tried, but any present or former Fellowship honcho knows of many, many more. As do the majority of the laity who live or have lived in or around Oregon House for more than a few weeks, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, over the years and now. Maybe some of these will be exposed in discovery, as part of the process?
Will this finger of Reality burst the bubble, either on an individual level or a general level? What will people like Linda Kaplan (who is specifically named in one of the three complaints) say when they are put on the stand? Will their words, under oath, excusing or condoning their actions through the years, as they either belittled or ignored Burton’s victims who sought their help, penetrate the barriers thrown up by their own egos? Not to mention, some of the defendants were actual pimps for Burton, bought fake passports, smuggled money, broke the laws of inurement in numerous ways, committed tax frauds, and trafficked in human beings. How will they deal with that when confronted?
No doubt there have been many meetings amongst the various Fellowship power centers, to come up with a common (amongst the various witnesses), believable story to try to hoodwink the judge and jury. Not to mention agreement on outright lies of commission or omission.
Every potential Fellowship defendant will no doubt be coached by the defense lawyers as to what to say in order to protect Burton and the other honchos. Will the fact that they have to be coached mean anything to them? Coaching means eliding the truth to support a common narrative cobbled together by the defense lawyers. This in order to persuade the court that the (rehearsed, therefore fake) unanimity suggests some objective truth to the court.
Within the Fellowship bubble, words mean what Burton and those in power say they mean. The ‘truth’ behind the narrative became irrelevant decades ago. This has been a wildly successful gig for Burton for over five decades. Will the intrusion of Reality finally bring it to an end?
What mattered in those decades was the force of Burton’s narrative. Burton’s words and actions projected absolute certainty, a characteristic that was very attractive to those, like me, who were uncertain and had questions.
Increasingly divorced from meaning, Burton came to compel a singularity of messaging, and to demand that belief in the new order be reflected, not just by obedience, but by assimilation of the messaging into the personal conduct of his followers in every waking hour.
The infamous St Petersburg meeting, where too uncomfortable questions were asked, was the last of its kind that Burton permitted. From then onwards, critical questions and critical thinking were disallowed, and in fact denoted as an actual enemy (“lower self”), that is, a threat to be crushed.
P.S. I’m sure that tool of “intentional insincerity” will be fully deployed (reminder, “intentional insincerity” is FoF–speak that condones lying as long as one brings “intention” and “presence” to the lie). This would be especially useful when the lie is for the ‘higher good’ of the Fellowship and Burton.
Fuck around and find out is the eternal law.
Last Monday, 18th March, the first case management conference was held. My understanding is that Slater LLC wish the three lawsuits combined into one. This streamlines the whole judicial process.
Apparently there is a transcript of the proceedings, available to anyone who calls the court. If I remember, I will have a go at getting a copy tomorrow. But if anyone beats me to it, welcome, and please publish here!
The Superior Court of California, County of Yuba case numbers are:
CVPO23-01227 (filed 11/20/23)
CVP023-01339 (filed 12/29/23)
CVPO24-00001 (filed 01/02/24 and 12/29/2023)
The first phone I will try is (530) 740-1800 Ext. 6
Burton, and his personal possession (the Fellowship of Friends including its physical property and the circa 1500 human components) finally, after over five decades of literally fucking around, has been found out, and the lawsuit will show the disgraceful results of Burton’s predations, both sexual and financial, in public. The plaintiffs have asked for a public trial.
For regular folks, exposure like this would be very humiliating, and for an ordinary non–profit, this much humiliation would probably be fatal to its cause. But Burton is shameless, and his organization, for all intents and purposes a mere external manifestation of his ego, is thus institutionally shameless, so the humiliation will have to be complete.
This degree of humiliation can only be imposed from the outside, and must be imposed throughout the entire organization, to have any appreciable and lasting effect.
At the very least the entire hierarchy (including travesties such as the ‘Spiritual Council’) has to be disbanded, and of course every member of the Board sanctioned collectively and individually. Hopefully the organization will not survive in anything like the present form.
Although I’m sure the worshippers of the God–Emperor Emeritus™ of Oregon House will somehow ensure a comfortable landing for him.
64. Ames Gilbert “For regular folks, exposure like this would be very humiliating, and for an ordinary non–profit, this much humiliation would probably be fatal to its cause.”
As has happened a few times already, all it takes to make this new headline splash disappear entirely is a settlement with enough money to satisfy the plaintiffs and their lawyers. Suddenly deafening silence.
Not wishing to buzzkill. Just recommending being guarded about celebrating any public damage to the cult.
O.K., there is no transcript, because a court recorder is not present at Case Management Meetings. But, there are minutes. In this case, one page. Fifty cents. They don’t take payments over the phone…
You have to go down in person to the court in Marysville to get a copy. Or, you can send them a letter with the request and fifty cents, and they will mail you the copy.
Superior Court of California, Yuba County
215 Fifth Street, Suite 318 Marysville, CA 95901
bad alchemy you’ve got there, of course you’re right about settling.
I had high hopes for the Buzbee case, the dad swore he would stick it out to the end, and raised money for the purpose. I too, sent my mite. But the end was a multi–million dollar settlement, and the records were sealed. I assume the son was set up for life, and I don’t particularly blame him. Though it led to a huge number of victims since then, with all the harm and hurt that entailed. No consequences whatsoever for Burton. Not to mention whole decades of other crimes and frauds perpetrated by Burton and the Fellowship of Friends since then.
<B>I’m told that the present plaintiffs are of a totally different caliber and character. And their end is a successful public trial, not a settlement.</B>
Not being a lawyer, I have no idea what happens if some of the Does decide to settle and the others don’t.
But we’ll see. Nothing to do but wait things out, and send good wishes to the plaintiffs, and hope this whole sordid mess finally comes to an end. And that there are consequences, extremely serious consequences for the guilty all the guilty parties.
BTW, any reader going near Marysville today? Court hours are 8–4 p.m.
I read recently that California has a regulation (law?) that stipulates that the plaintiffs side has two months past the filing of the complaint(s) to serve the defendant with the notice they have been named. Any truth to that? How does that affect the 1-100 John Does?
https://www.courts.ca.gov/cms/rules/index.cfm?title=three&linkid=rule3_110
And the reason some defendants are named John Doe is because plaintiff doesn’t know who they are yet. A little fiction California has that permits you to sue someone before the statute of limitations expires, even if you don’t find out who they are until later.
In watching the evolution of the Trump trials fiasco with the barely veiled partisanship, corruption and unbridled stampeding confabulations (fucking lies) it seems hard to believe that the tyrany of The God Money won’t prevail.
Very good discussion. I posted here a few years ago and I have some questions:
There was a collection of web pages that provided an excellent early history of the FoF that used to be associated with this discussion forum. Is it gone? If not, how can I find it?
How do I get back to previous pages and earlier posts of this forum? It is not easy to navigate.
Does anyone have an easy way to view the posts that were made a few years ago?
Thanks.
35
“Think about what must have gone on in his noggin when Burton told his flock to give up on the Fourth Way, and to dump or destroy all books pertaining, plus any and all videos of meetings until then.
This would have presumably included Girard Haven’s own books on the subject, like the one above. Talk about a mental auto-da-fé! Talk about literally ‘abandoning the System’! I’m told the only exceptions were Burton’s own books, which were obviously of such purity and merit that they were totally free of the mistakes and incorrect arguments and suspect sources and whatever else that Burton imagined disqualified the rest.”
An auto-da-fé… surprising… but makes totally sense to me. Books concerning 4th way were declared as B-Influence anyway by definition, except, strange enough, Burton’s “Self-Remembering”. The one’s I’ve read (50 or so) surpass Burton’s book by far, concerning content and intellectuality (like Rodney Collin or John G. Bennett) and thoughtfulness (like Maurice Nicoll). And interestingness. I have the impression, his opus is just collection of thoughts that came to him during his monologues at the dinners after enough wine. Again and again you could hear a silent “Note this…” to his momentary scribe-servant at his side.
His book was the most nothingsaying and boring to me of the 50 or so, Guinevere Ruth-Mueller’s the most embarrassing one for it’s spineless devotion (I was not friends with her, but I found her sympathic, long time ago).
I think he senses like any distrustful dictator that almost all these books are sort of a concurrence if not threatening to him (to his authority, his credibility, his money, his orgies, his jewels, his parasitic live-style) as they question his “teachings” and his “school” and his way of living and behaving in the eyes of his followers. And like any distrustful dictator he removes the political opposition by decret.
Take away a people’s history and it will loose it’s identity.
PS to the entry above: political was meant in the sense of intellectual
It is an exclusive prison where the prisoners have been convinced that they are the only ones who are free. It is a happy prison where the prisoners cheerfully ignore the anxiety generated by their doubts.
In the upper right corner of this page there is a list of links to follow. One is:
Robert Earl Burton Blog That will take you to the archived “early history of the FoF” website you mentioned. There you can find links to this discussion thread’s history going back to ~2007. Also, in the upper right corner there is the “Home” tab that takes you to a list of prior pages of this discussion in a reverse chronological order where you can paginate back through time. I hope this helps. Good surfing to you.
Oooops, the “Home” tab, I meant to say it is in upper left corner.
Tom Kost (72), here you go—I hope. WordPress is doing funny things right now…
Fellowship of Friends Discussion (Parts 1 – 9)
Fellowship of Friends Discussion (Parts 10 – 33)
Fellowship of Friends Discussion (Parts 34 to Present)
Fellowship of Friends on Wikipedia
Fellowship of Friends on Internet
Perhaps, Tom, you are thinking of this?
https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://robertearlburton.blogspot.com/
So, Linda Kaplan/Tulliso/Rockwood is mentioned by name in one of the complaints, and not in a good way. I can’t say that I feel at all sorry for her, she has more than earned her place in infamy.
But, in the spirit of pure charity, I feel moved to help her and perchance guide her as she synthesizes the next twenty–seven or so volumes of her recollections as a devoted member of the Fellowship of Friends for over five decades.
<I>Linda, if you are reading this, know that these are merely suggestions, I won’t feel in the slightest bit offended if you don’t make use of them, nor will I claim any credit if you do use some, or all, of my ideas.</I>
This will be a work in progress, and if there are readers of this blog who are likewise moved to aid a struggling author, step right up!
I’ll start with possible titles for just the first ten volumes. These are not actually in any particular order, but only numbered for ease of reference. Each is followed by the kind of brief summary Linda might consider putting on the back cover i.e., to show the main thrust of the book. Or she could use it as the traditional Amazon blurb, to tantalize and entice potential readers to shell out for that particular volume.
O.K., we start with the actual, recently published, Volume 1 (600 pages), <B>The Seeds of the Divine Beginning</B> . Readers may recall that earlier I did a full review of the introduction and also the back cover of this book (195-116, 12/ 22/23). To be quite clear, I did not purchase the book, and Amazon did not allow me to look past the introduction.
<blockquote><p>… in which I briefly explain how wonderful it was to meet the only Conscious School on the whole planet, the only Conscious Teacher ditto—with bells on! And, more importantly, how exceptionally intelligent and talented and discriminating I was to so quickly recognize my good fortune and take advantage of this unique opportunity. </p></blockquote>
Volume 2 (750 pages): <B>Learning to Live with Angels, part One</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I explicate at bounteous length on how Beloved Teacher first told me about angels, revealed how he was an angel too, and explained how angels monitored everyone in this Divine School and arranged special, individually tailored suffering for each student, for their own good and ultimate salvation. And how, despite their incredible powers, they desperately need the help of we poor mortals to achieve their aims. </p></blockquote>
Volume 3 (600 pages): <B>Learning to Live with Angels, part Two</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I recall at considerable length on how Beloved Teacher told me the names and nature of the panoply of angels, and how one of them chose Him for special consideration and advancement, and arranged such special suffering that He achieved Consciousness in less than eighteen months! A metaphysical rocket that reached escape velocity, and more! And all about their special methods of communication with Beloved Teacher, using license plates, mailboxes, and T–shirts, that only he can interpret correctly. And why they cannot communicate more directly, and why they so often humiliate Beloved Teacher by steering him wrong. </p></blockquote>
Volume 4 (1,380 pages): <B>Women are of a Lower Order</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I enlarge at gargantuan length on how I first discovered that women were not fated to became conscious in this lifetime, how I willfully and mistakenly determined to prove Beloved Teacher had somehow accidentally erred when interpreting that particular license plate, how I eventually came to terms with Beloved Teacher’s superior wisdom, and personally verified his theory of Feminine Dominance, and how Beloved Teacher soothed my disappointment by convincing me that I would one day play the part of Elizabeth I, the one and only woman in history to have achieved consciousness. </p></blockquote>
Volume 5 (1,230 pages): <B>Sharing the Divine Seed</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I expound at astronomical length on how I first discovered that Beloved Teacher was sharing his divine seed, despite claiming celibacy, and how I came to terms with my feelings of jealousy of the men he so favored. And how I learned the hidden, deeper, inner and more accurate meaning of “celibacy”, as patiently explained by an actual angel clothed in a man’s body, right here on earth! </p></blockquote>
Volume 6 (725 pages): <B>Sharing More of the Divine Seed</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I explicate at considerable length on Beloved Teacher’s conscious collection of young mens’ sperm in industrial quantities, and how I conduct my internal work of battling against unworthy fantasies and dreams, those in which I enthusiastically offer to share with him the burden of draining the boys. </p></blockquote>
Volume 7 (800 pages): <B>Sharing Even More of the Divine Seed</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I explain and justify at interminable length about how I developed my network of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), and how I purposed and dedicated this network to advance the aims of Beloved Teacher and the School, and the subtle yet vitally important differences between such Conscious and Intentional Efforts™ and mere mechanical gossip. </p></blockquote>
Volume 8 (450 pages): <B>Sharing An Ocean of the Divine Seed</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I expound in a few choice words about how Beloved Teacher explained that he was a Goddess in a Man’s Body™, and therefore hardly a homosexual, and thus how it was perfectly fine to have ‘supersex’ with men—just like me.
And how the tentacles of my rapidly expanding network informed me of the supersexual proclivities of Beloved Teacher, and how I transformed any judgement I’s and learned to personally benefit from the ‘rebound effect’ of Beloved Teacher’s trail of discarded, haggard, strained and drained, burnt out ‘gifts from C-Influence’ as they struggled to find ways to re–assert their masculinity. </p></blockquote>
Volume 9 (2,250 pages): <B>Learning to Separate my Lower Self from my Higher Self</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I explicate at Brobdingnagian length on how Beloved Teacher taught me to recognize the chasm between my Higher and Lower Selves, how my Lower Self was best represented as a disgusting, all–devouring crocodile, and then how to conduct and eventually win the internal battle, and after a lifetime of effort, actually almost vanquish my Lower Self. </p></blockquote>
Volume 10 (700 pages): <B>Policewoman for the Divine–the Early Years, Part One</B>
<blockquote><p>… in which I extravagantly pontificate about how I concluded that a suitable initial role for my talents was to police the laity to ensure that no–one had sex outside marriage. And how it was, at the same time, correct for me to do all in my power soothe the feelings of shame of heterosexual men that the gods had given to Beloved Teacher as gifts. I tell of the techniques I developed to catch them on the rebound, and how I reassured them in word and deed of their potent masculinity, and thus recondition them, ready for Beloved Teacher to break them again. All in all, a divinely sanctioned win–win! </p></blockquote>
O.K., folks. That’s the first ten volumes, only another sixteen to go. Which I’ll post later…
Good lord, WordPress has completely changed. It doesn’t seem to be interpreting the usual formatting commands, and then making the actual commands invisible, as you can see in the post above. Anyone have any ideas?
Ames, Yes, WordPress changed something recently where the window for text entry now has the enhancements across the top of the window for: Paragraph, Align text, Bold, Italic, Link; so that there is not a need for html coding for those things in a post.
I demonstrate that in this post by bold & italic the word: WordPress. I hope that helps.
Ames
I don’t have any ‘tips’ for the witch’s encyclopedia at this time but may have a couple of cents later.
I did, however, notice that there had been so much ball draining by the time i got down to the part starting:
“how the tenticles of my rapidly expanding network…” my mind instantly transposed testicles much in the same way i misinterpreted the word in the title of her book ‘seeds’. I thought it meant seeds like in plant seeds not like in ‘load’ as in a mouthfull of jizz.
Now the book makes sense.
Wouldnt You Like To Know, thanks so much for your help. I did see that new formatting bar, but assumed that it was optional, not obligatory, to use it.
What a way to find out I can no longer use those fabulous block quotes at all, they add a lot of interest, IMHO. I like them so much, I used ten of them in that last post!
In reflecting upon belinda’s role, my memory of her was that she was a person to be feared and avoided, due to the power she wielded as “center director” of Renaissance.
For many newer and peripheral followers, she was burton’s mouthpiece, acting both as his spy and the delivery mechanism of his edicts, pronouncements and sanctions, which I imagine she delivered with sadistic pleasure like a Kapo in a Nazi prison camp.
I realize now in retrospect that, given the backdrop of “feminine dominance” followers were indoctrinated to avoid, it is likely that her “presence” was in a way a leveraged vehicle for burton’s predatory behavior, IMO, whether she realized it or not.
One way that a young man (such as I was at the time) to circumvent belinda’s influence and inoculate myself from her watchful eye, was to get as close as I could to burton…a trap I unknowingly fell into.
Scenes like this we’d like to see in Oregon House at Apollo, Fellowship of Friends compound:
Feds search Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ properties as part of sex trafficking probe, AP sources say
More at:
https://apnews.com/article/feds-search-diddy-combs-sex-trafficking-8883ed2c7308f3fcdb2cdf03fbe329d1
AP, now that WordPress (or at least the version presented to me) does not offer block quotes in the formatting bar, can you please tell me how you did it? The meager choices that WYLTK listed, in 82 above, are the same and only ones offered to me.
Ames said:
When I put my cursor in the text window and click, the:
changes to:
with a big “+” sign in a black box appears to the right and the aforementioned formatting bar appears across the top
of the window. I click the “+” which deploys more choices.
You then can do:
There is also a “Search” feature that I have not experimented with yet.
I hope this helps.
Yes, Yesri, unlike Burton, your mind was operating on a higher plane. Mine too. Charmingly naïve.
Little did we know that when Burton said, “Our task is to produce the seed of a new civilization”, that he was referring to the other meaning, and that in fact his ambition was, and still is, to float ‘the ark’ on a veritable ocean of jizz
speaking of charmingly naive….
i dont know about everyone (anyone), but speaking to the positives of cults, it seems to me that many were drawn to the fof by their true self. The idealism and openness to explore and take risks are examples of this.
No matter what evil fucks or traumatic cul-de-sacs life throws its way i believe it prevails cause its whats real.
Much of what i read here and other places, for me, confirms this.
As you may know, Dorian Matei is now a “crystallized conscious being,” with “fused higher centers,” just like his Godfather and mentor, Robert Burton. The momentous event happened on March 28, 2023 as Dorian was asleep and dreaming. Now, Fellowsheepers enjoy two weeks of celebrations each March (not to mention two weeks of a ritual known as “the lightening of the wallet”) to encompass the anniversary of Burton’s biggest scam up to that point (March 19, 1976), as well as Dorian’s copycat scam 47 years later. As Burton has always said, “Why change a winning game.”
It is less than, and more than and completely other than what you think it is.
On Dorian’s chrystalli…wudever the fuck it is….
Man:
“Doc! Doc! We need your help! My brother has gone completely bat-shit stark raving mad bonkers, he thinks he’s a chicken.”
Psychiatrist:
“Well, make an appointment and bring him in…i’m sure i can cure him.”
Man:
“I would, but i can’t, we need the eggs!”
re: Dorian’s Dream of crystallization… in my experience, wish fulfillment dreams are a means for the unconscious to compensate for an ego deficit in the waking state…so, of course he dreamt up the experience. At the time it probably felt quite real, as dreams often do. I bet it was rather emotional for him.
If he were honest with himself, he’d realize the dream was his inner guru showing him what he lacks, not what he achieved.
Conscious influences have abandoned the Fellowship and Robert Burton. “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad” Burton and the Fellowship have been made mad and are destroyed as a conscious influence. Their alchemy is now very low, bad. The grapes have rotted. The wine has cheapened. The faces have weathered and become horrible. The mercuries have taken over. The lead liars are now crystalized in psychosis. You are forced to surrender your cocks into the mouth of the hellhound.
C influence is sending warning words of doom for those able to wake from the stupor and flee before the fires.
Origin, quotation source, of this statement:
Later, Longfellow, shortened and put it:
Re: Dorian’s Dream…”I am standing at the top of a staircase, the bottom of which is in the water.
Bernard says, “When you are in the water, the water pushes up. When you are in the air, the air pushes up.”
I understand I am to step off the ladder into the air and I do it without hesitation. I find myself flying, quite literally, at first with great effort, but then it becomes natural and effortless. Two men appear and begin to make critical comments; I see them somewhere below and I step on them to lift off again.
I am now heading directly towards the horizon, and the sun is straight ahead. Gradually the light increases and everything merges with it.”
The truth is, all dreams are visionary in some form or other, if we choose to “fathom the depth of their meaning.”
Since dreams are a subjective experience and each element of an individual’s dream can have special meaning only to them, an outside observer such as myself can only speak of it in general terms.
IMO, given the fact that the dream happened in the early morning hours, in the liminal “staircase” between sleeping and waking, it is evident to me that the water at the bottom of the stairs may signify the dreamer’s unconscious realm, as the dreamer’s ego awareness begins to gradually emerge within the dream, rung by rung.
It is certainly true that when in the water, or fully asleep at night, the water pushes up or fully engulfs one, obliterating awareness and vice versa. When in the air or fully awake during the day, consciousness fully engulfs one and just like the stars during the daylight hours, all signs of the unconscious disappear in the light of consciousness.
Interesting that although “Bernard” may represent the positive aspect of male dreamer’s own shadow side, burton attempts to insert himself, which speaks more about burton’s grandiosity than the dreamer’s psyche. It would appear to me that the dreamer’s inner guru is attempting to establish his own identity by changing the name of this aspect of his shadow side from “burton” to “Bernard”.
As the dreamer begins to emerge from sleep into the air of the waking state, it can literally feel like flying, which I personally find to be an exhilarating experience. The fact that emerging from sleep into the waking state feels effortless speaks volumes regarding all the pointless “efforts” the dreamer makes at “self-remembering” in his waking state. Here his inner guru may be showing him that having consciousness is a natural process that happens without effort, as opposed to fourth way dogma.
The two “critical men” may represent the negative aspect of his shadow side, which he has to “step on” or repress back into the unconscious. I have always found these aspects of my shadow side as the parts of myself that are uncomfortable “other” characteristics of myself that are difficult to accept, yet in doing so, frees me from projecting those aspects onto others to boost my ego in a narcissistic and unhealthy manner. In my dreams, I attempt to grasp what is being presented for me to see about myself from this aspect.
As the dreamer more fully awakens from the dreaming state into the increasing light of consciousness, these separate aspects of himself merge together…and if he chooses, can provide him with a more complete picture of his Greater Self…although IMO, his female side seems to remain hidden or inaccessible to him at the moment.
Of course, given the soup in which Dorian is swimming, he and his great leader may choose to interpret his dream differently, in a vain effort to inflate both their egos, IMHO.
At some point, Dorian Mattei was anointed “a future conscious being” by Burton. This was a reward for complete obedience and sexual services rendered. Mattei was and is completely under the domination of Burton, and whether he actually had the pure faith of Girard Haven (Burton is always right and can do no wrong, period) is not that important. Why would this not affect his dreams?
So, he had a lucid dream and remembered it, or claims he did. And he interprets it as showing him as having become ‘conscious’. Burton played his part and reinforced this claim, completing that particular circle jerk.
Whatever.
I have never come across a good reason for someone to declare that they are ‘conscious’, ‘enlightened, or whatever. It is just an unverifiable claim, and meaningless of itself. There are plenty of bad reasons, however, and they all revolve around changing the perceptions of those around them. Simply, such a claim can only inculcate adoration or fear in those predisposed or propagandized to accept it.
Though, of course, normal, mature people just laugh and walk away.
I personally think he is just another grifter who struck lucky and took advantage of his particular circumstances, but that is just my subjective opinion.
What we do know is, Dorian Mattei is now in clover. He has been doing his version of the Grand Tour. Followers in cities in Europe and here in the States have been graced with recent visits by this new star in the firmament, and I’m told he is making bank as he voyages around his new dominions. I’m also told he is being adored and worshipped everywhere he goes, especially by the younger followers.
I’m sure he is congratulating himself on having made his fortune and assured his future.
Little does he realize that he is following Burton, Braverman, and many others into slavery, not freedom. He is now dependent on the followers for income and validation. His opinion of himself and his status and his claimed ‘consciousness’ will be reflected back at him, and in time it will become his psychological reality—just like Burton. The lies will become truths, and he will hew to these new ‘truths’ as if his life depended on them, which in a way it does—unless one day he realizes his predicament, which is unlikely. Why would he ever question his worldview when his salary and comfort, external and internal, depends on it?
Ouspensky confided in his secretary, Mary Seton, before he died. What he confessed was that the System he preached did not work, and in fact he felt contempt for his students, but he was too addicted to his lifestyle to admit this to his followers and the world at large. In other words, he was a slave with no internal freedom.
Burton is a slave, Braverman is a slave, and Mattei is a slave. They put themselves in these situations, not because they are in any way better or more knowledgeable or more self aware, but because they are actually lesser, more dependent, and more trapped by their needs and circumstances than ordinary people.
As the saying goes, the best slaves are those who think they are free. These fools have to have followers, they have to have people adore them or fear them, and they cannot give up the lifestyle.
The followers are equally trapped. They need answers they believe can only come from outside themselves, they have no faith in themselves, they give over power and responsibility to those who who have no training, no character, who thus inevitably misuse them.
Followers are actually afraid of their own power, because with it comes responsibility. Responsibility for their lives, responsibility for the consequences of their actions, responsibility to seek out truths about themselves and the world they are born in. So, they hasten to give both power and responsibility away as fast as they can, and eagerly enter their servitude.
With the recent elevation of Dorien to conscious status, I thought we could enjoy this moment when conscious being number 2 asks to check the zipper of conscious being 1 as 1 has become quite forgetful of his zipper manners of late.
„I had a bad teacher. That was a good school.“
(Anonymous)
Actually I had no teacher at all. When I came to FoF, I’ve just seen this movie „Meetings with Remarkable Men“ shortly before, and without being much aware of it, I had a strong wish for a teacher (not a guru, not a holy man, just a teacher, whom one could ask some things and who would kindly explain and leave it to me to decide whether I want to accept his answer or not – I liked the Zen saying: If you meet Buddha on your way, kill Buddha.). My first prospective meeting was in the lobby of a noble hotel, the second one at the private home of a student-couple. On a cupboard I saw a portrait of someone, and as it was the only one in the whole room, I asked who that was. That’s our teacher, they said, and I was disappointed. To me he didn’t look like a highly spiritual being or some enlightened one, he just looked like someone who deals with used cars or some bank clerge, who sells Lehman papers to helpless old customers. What I heard later – they never tell you in the beginning – confirmed my first impression: false prophecies, preaching sex-exercise and living like a perverted sex-maniac himself, inability to manage the finances of FoF, etc.
I never believed in Burton.
I was told, Burton was a pupil of Horn who was a pupil of Pentland who was a pupil of Gurdjieff, so there were some lineage. This turned out at least partly to be nonsense, as Horn was nobodys pupil, only his wive Sharon Gans has had some loose contact to Bennett.
Of course I was curious to meet him, to ask him a few things, both was disappointing, too. The dinners were very fine „impressions“, but more or less boring. Sometimes Burton must have felt that himself, too, then he came along with statements like „Rilke is here!“ (everybody gazing at the ceiling). The way he answered questions showed mainly a very lazy (if not lame) intellect, but in his somehow charismatic and self-confident way, I think for many it came along so wise, so very much Zen. Somebody for instance asked a question concerning octaves and hydrogen-tables. His answer: „Let the numbers speak for themselves.“ For students who share his intellectual laziness, a very satisfying answer, and so full of humour and of deep wisdom. For someone who really tries to understand, just frustrating. Burton hided his lack of knowledge and intellect this way, on the cost of the student who asked, as he let him look like a fool.
Somewhere in the Stella Wirk pages if I’m not wrong it is mentioned that Burton (proudly, how else) proclaimed he never read Beelzebub’s Tales. I was not surprised. Too difficult.
Nonetheless, finally I stayed for more than ten years. Burton was a negative force from the very beginning. I stayed because the Fourth Way answered a lot of questions for me (and opened up a lot of other ones), because the Work worked (for a long while, then came stagnation and the realization, now it would be good to have a (real) teacher), and because of the friendship and the cincerity of many students, that gave me so much, that for a long time I could ignore the lack of a real teacher.
A little more on ‘Mary Seton’, Ouspensky’s secretary, and her views conclusions about him, for those interested.
For a start, I was working from memory, and I got her name wrong. It is Marie Seton.
I can’t quite pin down the exact date, but she published a monograph on the subject in about 1962.
Here is a link to the PDF manuscript. AFAIK, it is an addendum to the Yale Library collection of Ouspensky’s informal and research writings after he started working on the subject of the Fourth Way:
https://tinyurl.com/yps6jaax
Well worth reading, IMHO.
In these thirteen pages, she outlines the main weaknesses of “The Fourth Way”, and in particular, the dangers of and to the ‘gurus’ —and equally, their followers—who lead various ‘spiritual’ groups, using Ouspensky as a salutatory example.
BTW, does anyone remember the timeline and details of when the FoF sent ‘researchers’ to the actual Yale Library archives to look through Ouspensky’s papers? And what happened next? I recall that some of the findings didn’t reflect well on the FoF and the official narrative, so were suppressed. I’ve thrown away ALL my notes from those times (though many of my earlier posts on this blog reflected those notes when I still had them), so please fill in gaps if you have reliable information.
Thanks for sharing that link (in 102), Ames; I found the essay worth reading as well.
Other than the risk to anyone who wears the mantle of a ‘teacher,’ what were you referring to when you said ‘she outlines the main weaknesses of “The Fourth Way?”
Final paragraph of:
The Case of P. D. Ouspensky
by Marie Seton reads:
#102 Ames
Thanks for posting the Seton article. I read it many years ago but found it useful to read it again with the perspective of having a few more years on me.
Seton strikes me as perceptive and intelligent. Her observations on the pitfalls of the guru-worshipper relationship seem dead on. Especially inciteful (because it is most often not recognized) is her understanding of the role that both parties to the relationship have in creating the problem.
The guru-worshipper relationship stems from a psychological weakness that is common in our modern society and can be found in politics, big business, religion, professional sports, and the celebrity world of music and movies in addition to the world of spiritual pursuits.
The article is not intended to be, and is not, a critique or criticism of the “Fourth Way” (a name which should properly be used only in connection with Ouspensky’s seriously limited version of G’s teaching).
We Were There, you asked, “what were you referring to when you said ‘she outlines the main weaknesses of “The Fourth Way?”
O.K., herewith my opinions.
First, there is no guard or corrective against infatuation or fear of the authority figures by the followers. SM mentions the fear of ‘Madam’, and I would class the ‘young couple’ who paid all the bills and gave large amounts of money as an example of infatuation.
[Exactly the same as in the Fellowship of Friends.]
Second, there is no way to correct or discipline the authority figure. None of the ‘older students’, except MS herself, questioned Ouspensky’s methods, or him going off the rails. Instead, they invented reasons for his behavior, such as losing his temper with them ‘being a test’. SM wrote, “Ouspensky was often sharp with them and they took this, as others did to whom he was no less sharp, as a ‘test’ to ‘awake’ them up to self-awareness.
[Same in the FoF, no one dares question Burton, and one had to work overtime to justify and explain Burton’s aberrations, pecadillos, rapes, and yes, losing his temper. All justified as, ‘tests’, ‘lower cannot see the higher’, no longer under the law of accident’, ‘law unto himself’, and so on and on.]
Third, she described what I could call the draining of life force from the ‘older students’ (MS wrote, “drab, joyless”). Another example, “I began to wonder why the pursuit of self-knowledge had to, as it seemed, eliminate an atmosphere of warmth between people and something that might be described as a lack of lovingness.”
[I saw this in myself and, in my opinion, with the majority of followers who had been around more than a couple of years; the range of emotions became as restricted as the range of questioning, and more so each passing year. I personally felt I was suffocating.]
Fourth, as with so many other ‘spiritual’ systems, the demands of the job or the inclination of the leader almost inevitably leads to the leader living off his followers, which has its own set of dangers for all. For a start, this particular dependence on the followers restricts the leader’s degree of freedom, and the followers feel more entitled to the leader’s time and energy, since they are paying his salary, seeking answers and advice about matters that should be their own responsibility. SM wrote, “One day he said: “I have become dependent on the comfort, the luxury. I can’t give it up.”
There is nothing to stop the mutual dependence of each party on the other, and the inevitable mirroring back and forth. SM wrote, “We often went out and talked a great deal. It was often about the attitude of the people who stayed in the country house. He knew they were afraid to be on their own.”
SM wrote, “Being a guru is one of the riskier occupations psychologically, and being a devotee is no less risky. I have sometimes wondered how much damage P. D. Ouspensky did psychologically speaking to the people who were his devotees during the period he lost himself
“They are fools!” he said contemptuously.
“But I really feel I have learned something from the System,” I said.
“Then you are the only one who ever has!” said Ouspensky.
“I have really tried.” I said, “tried for myself.”
“The others are deluding themselves. They have never gained anything,” Ouspensky said.
…
“The System has become a profession with me”.
[In the case of the Fellowship, there is no inherent decency, as SM attributed to Ouspensky. There is no sign of self–awareness, no pity for his victims, and there are fifty years of damage to those thousands unfortunate enough to fall in with Burton. Burton actually trades on the weaknesses of his followers and ignores or diminishes their strengths.
I would tend to agree with those that say neither Burton or the Fellowship of Friends actually understand and practice the System, though many followers tried their best despite Burton’s misdirection and corruption. But who knows? Maybe there is a ‘pure’ iteration of the System somewhere out there, invisible to me, with a legitimate teacher and balanced students, and it is actually working as advertised. Right now. I cannot separate what I know of the System from its failures and the parade of associated charlatans and their unhealthy dependents.
Certainly Ouspensky seems to have been of a far higher caliber than Burton, Horn, and all of their offshoots, despite his failings. But still, his weaknesses appear to have overcome his strengths, according to SM, and he had no business setting himself up as a teacher.]
Sorry about using the initials ‘SM’ rather than ‘MS’, referring to Marie Seton…
Regarding the ‘joyless’ followers (third point above), I described how I personally felt in a post in 2012, and I’m told other followers had similar feelings of diminishment rather than growth.
“My experience is that, after the initial excitement and fresh energy (say, the first five years) I became more and more asleep in the Fellowship, and everyone I knew around me, the same. I joined the groupthink, and despite gaining lots of theoretical ‘brownie points’ as I collected an endless series of ‘high states’, became disappointed and depressed. Nothing could be good enough, and although I felt I was making the maximum efforts in every regard, there was always the feeling that I could have done a little bit more, and that I was a failure. Despite the ‘high states’, I felt my efforts were futile and even pointless, and I was in despair. And there was always the question, “How could Robert have done it in only 18 months?”
It took a long time to realize that I had indeed tried as hard as possible, that I had been led down a blind alley, that Burton was lying, by commission and omission, about practically everything. That I had to back out, that I knew what was best for myself (or at least I knew that I didn’t want to follow Burton into deeper darkness), and had to be responsible for myself.
I realized that whatever Burton claimed, I had to start looking for, recognize and rely on my conscience—a bedrock principle of the Fourth Way, and part of the guidance I expected to receive when I joined the FoF. Far from guiding his followers about how to go about this, Burton revealed himself fully, as he really is, when he said, “Conscience is just a collection of I’s. Anyone accumulating too much should leave the school”.
And then, for me, the circle became complete. When I was on my knees, in despair, begging for help, help came. Maybe one could call it ‘C–Influence’, but that, by definition, is reserved exclusively for members of the Fellowship of Friends who are up–to–date with their dues. So I’ll call it what I’ve always called it, Grace.”
Blog Moderator:
Wouldnt You Like To Know
posted a message about a day ago that did not say it was in moderation; has not appeared. Would have been around #104 on current page.
Can you find it?
The Case of P. D. Ouspensky
by Marie Seton
Some more information. When Gurdjieff and Ouspensky split Gurdjieff set his followers against Ouspensky who had cut off funds he’d been supplying to Gurdjieff from wealthy London. When Ouspensky died his follower Lord Pentland visited Gurdjieff for a few weeks before Gurdjieff died and received the anti-Ouspensky indoctrination. Pentland bought it, even though he was with Ouspensky for years. When Seton met up with the Gurdjieff crowd, part of the initiation to be accepted was to denounce Ouspensky. Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjieff’s concubine who had assumed leadership in Europe (Pentland leader in America), put Seton up to concocting this confession to discredit Ouspensky after his death. Lovely sort of gal.
It was all a mean-spirited cult soaking in “identification.”
#109 Bad Alchemy
Do you have references to support your “information”? You made some pretty wild allegations.
Ouspensky even told Seton that his pupils were fools, that they had gained nothing from the “System.”
Ouspensky told this actress that he enjoyed glancing at across an expensive restaurant table in fashionable New York while drinking himself into a comfortable state the truth. His pupils were fools. All spiritual pupils are fools. Anyone who believes that someone else has the power to coax them into a psychological condition of self-reliance and self-possession is a fool. Simply by being in a self-imposed mindset of submission and second-class status to another makes any “awakening” perpetually impossible, of course.
Ouspensky was amusing himself with his secretary. He was past the need for followers and assumed she would tell everyone what he was saying the next day hoping they would all pack up and go.
Ouspensky went through the student phase desperately looking for answers, to the teacher phase shrewdly inventing answers, then into the done with all this nonsense phase when he just didn’t care about what anyone else thought. He didn’t care what happened to anyone else because there is no such thing as schooling people into psychological self-assurance or the deep calm that takes over from the personal natural development of the brain circuitry over time.
People naturally don’t know what is going on in this turbulent world when they are young and some panic. They run to a cult. Ouspensky at this point in his life knew what was going on: nothing. There is nothing going on. There is no contest. There is no trial. There is no development. There is no ultimate reward for “working on yourself.” There is nothing to worry about. There is no glitter in the afterlife. No authority to pat you on the head. That’s an Abrahamic pathological con that has terrified fools for thousands of years.
Ouspensky knew all this and just wanted a drink or two and to toy with a vain perceptive attractive actress of some notoriety in the otherwise tiresome American evenings.
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