FPT-3

False prophets and messiahs, teachers and gurus

PART III

Rick Ross Cult Education Institute forum

Re: Fellowship of Friends, Oregon House, California

Posted by: corboy

Date: August 19, 2013 10:44 PM

Fellowship of Friends (aka people of the bookmark) have also gone by various names: ‘Ark’ and ‘Oregon House’, ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Apollo’.

This website, apparently set up by persons who do follow Gurdjieff work, lists problems that students can fall into. And in passing, mentions Fellowship of Friends.

[fourthwayschool.org]

Robert Earl Burton and The Fellowship of Friends

An Unauthorized Blogography of

“The Teacher” and His Cult

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 1970

Early Lies?

The Beginning…

We met Robert Burton in July 1970, as described somewhat in the next page in this sequence.

The following here is a “new beginning particulars” as the result of inquiries received about the early days of our experience with the start up of the Fellowship of Friends.

My reply to inquiries sent to me:

Subject: Re: RB in the beginning
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 01:36:17 – 0700
From: Stella Wirk

Thot Plickens – May 14, 2010 –

Was reading some of the previous pages, taking my own advice…

~~~~~~~~~

1. What You Should Know About Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends – January 18, 2010

• It’s a doomsday cult.

• The predicted doomsday never came.

• Burton predicted major catastrophes for 1984 and 1998, and then nuclear war for 2006. For decades, he predicted the Fellowship of Friends would become the beginning of a new civilization in 2006. Burton said, “Our task is to establish a new civilization.”

• Through cognitive dissonance, followers try to forget the above predictions, or downplay them.

• Like other cults, followers object to the word “cult.” But there’s no better one-word description for this organization in the English language.

• Burton has coerced and seduced several hundred young followers — and perhaps thousands — into having sex with him, using promises of spiritual salvation, expensive gifts, vacations abroad, as well as playing on their fears of being outcast from their circle of friends. As a result, many former and current followers have suffered lasting psychological scars and emotional trauma, and a few have committed suicide. (Read the numerous personal accounts within this blog.)

• In doing the above, Burton has violated the trust of thousands of his followers who were unaware of the extent of his sexual activities within the cult, and unaware of the extent of his deception.

• Burton is a sociopath and malignant narcissist who shows no concern for the welfare of his followers unless they are useful to him in some way. When they cease to be useful to him, he discards them.

• Burton’s “public” persona is one of a gentle guru who speaks with a soft voice. This personality helps him deceive his followers into believing they have found the one true path to enlightenment, salvation, and heaven.

• Burton tells his followers that 44 angels, or gods, guide the Fellowship of Friends — and that they guide only the Fellowship of Friends. Angels, he says, do not guide anyone else on earth.

• Burton advances a world view that Hell exists, and that there’s only one way to avoid going to Hell when one dies: Join the Fellowship of Friends, and stay in the Fellowship of Friends until your death. All people on earth who do not join the Fellowship of Friends will go to Hell when they die. Likewise, followers are warned that they will go to Hell if they leave the cult.

• Followers are discouraged or forbidden from communicating with former members. Those who leave the cult will lose contact with their closest friends within the cult.

• Followers are forbidden to discuss any of the above. If they do discuss these facts with their friends, or question anyone about these facts, they will be expelled. This in turn fosters secrecy and lack of transparency within the cult.

• Burton charges exorbitant membership fees – anywhere from 20% to 40% of income, depending on a person’s salary. The full amount of these fees is never discussed when representatives try to sell people on joining the cult.

• The fees have helped pay for Burton’s extravagant lifestyle, which includes expensive clothing, frequent expensive vacations, and a lavish home at the cult’s compound in Oregon House, California (between Grass Valley and Yuba City).

• Burton and the Fellowship of Friends have been sued by former members on multiple occasions. Most of these suits have been settled out of court, with insurance companies paying the settlement on behalf of the Fellowship of Friends.

• Burton founded the cult in 1970. For more than three decades, he characterized the cult as a so-called “Fourth Way school.” In recent years, the cult has virtually abandoned any discussions about the Fourth Way.

• Because the Fellowship of Friends (also referred to as Pathway to Presence) has been granted religious status, American taxpayers help pay for this cult.

• In the last four years, several hundred followers have left the Fellowship of Friends, and many followers continue to leave. It’s believed that slightly over 1,000 members remain worldwide, but reliable statistics are not publicly available.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2011

Deadly Cults: The Crimes of the True Believers

True-believer syndrome is an informal or rhetorical term used by M. Lamar Keene in his 1976 book The Psychic Mafia. Keene used the term to refer to people who continued to believe in a paranormal event or phenomenon even after it had been proven to have been staged. Keene considered it to be a cognitive disorder, and regarded it as being a key factor in the success of many psychic mediums.

The term “true believer” was used earlier by Eric Hoffer in his 1951 book The True Believer to describe the psychological roots of fanatical groups.

The true-believer syndrone merits study by science. What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable. How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it’s exposed in the bright light of day he still clings to it — indeed, clings to it all the harder?… No amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie. — M. Lamar Keene and Allen Spraggett

~ Wikipedia

Tempus Fugit – July 30, 2014 – Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog

INDEX TO THE BLOG

Animam Recro – Fellowship of Friends – a cult for intellectuals, and Fellowship of Friends Discussion
Part 1 through Part 10

http://animamrecro.wordpress.com/2006/04/16/fellowship-of-friends-a-cult-for-intellectuals/

The Fellowship of Friends Discussion – Free speech is a dirty business
Part 11 through Part 33

http://fellowshipoffriends.wordpress.com/

Fellowship Of Friends/Fourth Way School/Living Presence Discussion
Part 34 through the current page

https://fofdiscussion.wordpress.com/

These links will allow you to access every page of this blog from its beginning in 2006.

Read with an open mind and you will find out the truth about Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends.

And if you are a member of the Fellowship of Friends you may find your path to freedom.

Tempus Fugit – August 2, 2014

Well, well. I just re-discovered this Fellowship of Friends wiki page where Bonita posted her own story in 1997.

Here’s the link:

http://fellowshipoffriends.wikispaces.com/Bonita?responseToken=6c201e3ddfcf16cb0bb55319ab50bf47

and here is Bonita’s account. You’ll note she clearly calls out Burton on his dishonesty.

Bonita
27 May 1997
Tuesday 15:34

HISTORY OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS
From Dec. 1969 to Dec. 1973
By Bonita Hightower
First student of Robert Burton

Foreword

I left America in Dec. 1973 with the permission from Robert Burton, to be gone for 2 years, then return to America and be with him again, as a student. He had said that if any time in that 2 years I wanted to return and did not have the money to do so, I was just to telephone him, and he would send me the airplane fare to return. In the first weeks of being in another country, I wrote him a letter. In that letter, I said that he surrounded himself with “Yes” men, and that I did not feel it was beneficial for him. It gave him an unreal view of himself, and how things were, in the school. I also asked him why he referred to the students as “his” students, or “my” students. That why couldn’t he just refer to them as students. (I had been a student teacher in Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe, and Hawaii.)

Soon after that letter was sent to him, a Hawaiian student went against the rules of the school, and contacted me, and told me that Robert had put me out of school.

I did not tell anyone the name of my Teacher, or the name of the “Fellowship of Friends” to anyone after leaving America. Not even my dear husband, who has been my partner for 16 years.

So, it was not until 1996 that my husband heard those two names, while I was speaking to someone on the telephone and they mentioned them.

Therefore, I would like it to be realized that it is only with a great amount of thought, and a deep realization that the story that shall be told may be of benefit to those that came after me, in helping them to heal old wounds, and giving them a history which is not only my history with the FOF, but is also their history, which they have a right to know. Much of what shall be written has not been told to anyone in all these years.

It is my hope that those who read it may find some of the unanswered questions they may have had, over the years. Also, I deeply hope that it shall in some way, help them to heal.

“THE HISTORY OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS”

In Dec. 1969, I was invited to a New Year’s Eve party. It was to be held in Lafayette, California.

I did not know the persons giving the party. They were said to be millionaires. It was my impression that the money was from the woman’s side. It was to be a costume party.

I was 33 years old, a housewife, and was married at the time to my second husband. I had 2 daughters from my first marriage. One was 14½ , the other was 13 years old. They were both from my first husband, who had been of German and Choctaw Indian decent. I had been told I was of part English, Scott-Irish, German, and Cherokee Indian decent. We had a long haired German Shepherd, named “Muski.” We lived at 511 Kiki Drive, Pleasant Hill, which was close to the town where the party was to be held.

My husband did not wish to attend the party. I told him that I was to meet someone that would be very important to me at that party. I have not considered myself clairvoyant , but sometimes I do seem to know something that is going to happen, before it takes place. This might have been the most definite instance of that type of occurrence taking place. None had told me of the above important person to come into my life. I just knew it.

I had been taking belly dancing lessons in that time period of my life, and had made 2 belly dancing costumes. Therefore, I decided to wear one of them to the party.

The party was held in a large, rambling wooden house, surrounded by lovely trees. The persons who had invited me were the only ones I knew at the party. As I was a passive type person, and rather shy, I sat alone, and watched other people at the party. In time, I sat by the large fireplace, and greatly enjoyed watching the fire, and the glowing embers that came. In time, a man asked me to dance. He was a tall man, with black hair, and was quite good looking. After the dance, we sat down together and began to talk. His name was Robert Burton. After some time, I said to him, “There is something quite special in your eyes. I have never seen it before. Do you know what it is?” I do not remember the response, but we continued to talk for the rest of the evening. Eventually he said that I was the first person other than his own teacher who had recognized that special quality in his eyes. One of the statements he made that evening was, “I have found a God that has no clay feet.”

Robert was a little drunk that evening. I was “high” on some ‘60s drug. Probably it was mescaline. There was the feeling of awe, and a quality that was well known by many in the ‘60s – that feeling, that “anything can happen”. As I had “known” I would meet someone that would be important to my life at that party, it had not taken long to realize that it was this apparently wise and mysterious man. It was Robert Burton. I had never before met anyone like him.

There was such intensity to our conversations that at times everything and everyone else just seemed to disappear. I had entered a new, wondrous world, full of hidden portent. As the party ended, we each left, going our own separate ways.

On Jan. 1, 1970, at home, after being awake for a time, I suddenly realized I had no way of contacting that man. A sense of horror came over me. How could I have been so dumb as not to have secured myself a means of further contact?

It did not take long to make a phone call to the hostess of the party, with the aim to try and find a way to contact him. The hostess said yes, she knew him. He lived with his mother in Walnut Creek. She gave me his phone number. With great relief, I made the phone call. He was home, and we made an appointment to meet in a restaurant in Berkeley. I do not remember for sure if it was for the same evening, or the evening after. I think, however, that it was for the same evening.

I had my own car, and could drive. It was a little pale yellow Datsun station wagon. However, I had been in a bad automobile accident in 1951, and had never really gotten over some of the trauma of that accident. I did not like to drive. I had not so very often had to drive to a place I did not know. I was somewhat upset that I would have to find that meeting place by myself. Yet, that discomfort in no way took hold of me to the extent that I would even consider not going.

In fact, the night that the meeting was to occur, my brother stopped by, unannounced. It had been quite a long time since I had last seen him. I was ready to leave when he arrived. We spoke a short time together, and I told him I was sorry, but I had a meeting and would have to leave, in order not to be late. I suppose he was rather upset with me at the time, but honestly, I was not in the least concerned with how it affected him. This was too great an event in my life to be concerned with hurting him. I really do not even remember if I had thought about it, at the time. It was only much later, that I realized that I had probably wounded him pretty badly. I had fairly much raised him from the time I was 11, and he was 7 years old, until I left home, when he was about 14 yrs. old.

That had been necessary because my parents had a Spanish/American restaurant in Windsor, California. They worked 6 days and nights a week, and I took care of him after school. They did not return home until after we were both in bed, asleep. My older sister had worked in the restaurant after school hours.

I found the meeting place, and it was perhaps only the second time I had ever driven in Berkeley. Robert was waiting when I arrived. He congratulated me for being on time. At this meeting, he told me of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. We arranged to meet again, the next day, I think, and I was to buy the book, “In Search of the Miraculous” by Ouspensky. He gave me the name of a book store in which to buy them. I think both the store, and the next meeting, were in Walnut Creek.

We sat for hours in a cafeteria or restaurant, and had only coffee. I was worried about what the waitress would think of us spending so much time there, and spending so little money. Robert said I was not to be concerned with such things, and that it was an example of what was referred to “In the Work” as a feature in false personality called, “Inner-Considering”.

That meant that what one did and did not do, were dependent on what other people would think of our action or inaction, instead of acting from what was true in and of ourselves. I seem to recall him saying that we had to be realistic, and realize that we did in fact, not have much money to spend. At that second meeting, I asked him to autograph the book I had bought. He said, “No, it is not me that is important. It is the knowledge that I release that is important. Someday you will autograph for me, a book that you write.” That has not as yet come to pass.

At some point in the meeting, after having had some of the basics of the theories of Gurdjieff / Ouspensky given to me, I quite clearly remember going to a toilet, and trying so very hard to “remember myself”. It might have been the first real attempt I had made to do so, and was apparently somewhat successful, as it has created a memory that lasts to this day, more than 27 years later!

At one of these early meetings, Robert said he had only been with his own teacher for 3 years. He also said that his teacher had increased his payments until he had had to hold down 3 jobs to be able to make the payments to be able to remain with his teacher. Then there had come a time when his teacher had told him it was time for him to leave, and go out on his own. Robert said that he had traveled across the United States, searching for a student that he may be able to teach, and was it not strange that he had come home, and found one (a student) in his own back yard.

The next meeting was held in Pleasant Hill. We were in a “Burger Bar” of some kind, and I ordered a hamburger. Much to my surprise, Robert did not talk. Eventually he said, he would not teach while I was eating. Eating would be a deviation of my attention. Of course, I finished my food as quickly as possible! I made some comment as to the negative appearance of some of the customers. Robert said that to him, they look “just right”, according to their body types.

At one of the early meetings I asked what would be needed for me to become his student. He explained that one could not be considered a student until a payment was made. He said, “What do you consider it would be worth to save your soul?” He said I was to think about those things he had taught me considering payments, and to arrive at the amount I would choose to pay. I chose to pay 90 dollars per month. I paid the amount, and became his first student.

The subject of voluntary sacrifices was spoken of. I told my teacher that I would give up many things, but I would not give up my children.

In a short time, my husband also became a student. From that time, the meetings began to take place in our home, in Pleasant Hill. From the beginning, Robert and I met 6 days a week. When my husband became a student, the meetings became 6 nights a week. The two children had a hard time, as it was necessary for them to be quiet in their rooms up-stairs, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. 6 nights a week. Of course, that was only one of the reasons their life became more difficult. Yet, that is a story for a later time.

As I had the great good fortune to be a housewife, it became possible to increase the teaching periods I had. It became 6 nights a week, plus many extra meetings in daytimes, alone with Robert. I was also given a number of personal exercises which took up a lot of time.

1. I was fat at the time – weighing perhaps 150 lbs. and 5ft. 3½ inches tall. I had a wardrobe for several different sizes, as I was one of those people who had been on and off diets much of my life. One of the exercises was to make a skirt and a long vest, and a blouse.

2. I had previously colored my hair, (had a grey streak down the middle from the time I was 15 years old, due to the auto accident) and had gone through the discomfort of letting all the color grow out. I was to color my hair, as an exercise. Robert said the grey – which was no longer confined to the streak in the middle – was a sign that the hair was dead, or dying. (These are not really important, they just might be a source of humor now, to some “who have been there”.)

Quite early, I was given the exercise to make a poster, to advertise the meetings, to acquire more students. It was quite a surprise to me, and I asked “Why shall one advertise a ‘C’ Influence teaching?” It was one of those exercises that gave me a lot of friction. I was so very passive, just the thought of carrying that out took a lot of working against what “came natural” – or, “what was mechanical” for me.

I had 3 months of a teacher to myself, much of the time. So much went on in the day meetings, that I surely felt myself highly privileged, and grateful. Because of the many hours spent together, the time took on another dimension of being taught. That is to say, it could not be considered to be the same kind of a 3 month period for those that came later, and, for example, may have been mostly taught in a group, 3 nights a week.

As I remember it, the 3rd. student was a Doctor. At one time the 4 of us were doing an exercise in our back yard, doing some yard work. It seemed strange to me that I had already noticed a few times when it was necessary for Robert to “separate”, when it was not needed at all for me. I figured out that perhaps it was partly because he was a couple of years younger than I, and had not been married, or had children. Meaning, simply, a lack of experience in family life, which helps one to overcome and accept many things that are not as one would want, if it were only oneself to take into account. Another thought was that perhaps it was just due to our different body types. He was Saturn, with a little Mars. I was Venusian, with a little Mercury.

There came more students. We continued to meet in our home until there came others with a suitable home to have meetings in.

Sometime in the beginning, Robert said he would like me and my husband to make our payments in advance, so he could have enough money to make a down payment on a Volkswagen van. I think he was using his mother’s car, though am not sure. We did not hesitate to do so, to the extent we could manage. The house we lived in made it look as if we had a good amount of money. That was not correct. My husband had saved a large amount of money before we had met, and put an unusually large down payment on the house. Most likely we had the smallest monthly income of any in that housing tract. We did explain that situation to the teacher. He gratefully accepted what we could manage to give him, and he bought the Volkswagen van. In its time, it carried many a student to wonderful excursions. It was sort of the “hippy car” of the time, in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. Many a hippy lived in their V.W. vans, and many were decorated in wild and beautiful colorful designs. Robert’s was destined to remain its own discrete color, with none of the fancy decorations of the time. It is surely remembered with a touch of nostalgia, for those that can remember the wonderment of the time, without coloring those memories with the disillusionment that came later.

From the beginning, it was made clear that persons that became students and left, were to have no more contact with each other. The teacher said he had devoted himself to work with those persons who wished to evolve, and it was necessary to keep the energy within the group, and not let it “leak” out, to those that left.

At one point I told Robert that I had an opportunity to belly dance at a local bar. It would include being topless, as there were the usual topless dancers there. I was told that it would be o.k. to do so, as it was possible to make the performance, “without being it.” I was delighted. I wanted to experiment with the dancing I had been taught. As I had been a nudist for some years, going topless was not something of concern to me. I invited a couple from San Francisco, who were friends of mine, to be there. I did the deed. It was exciting, but really quite hard work. I changed costumes 3 times, and had a wonderful time on stage. It seemed that doing a strip-tease act was right in my essence!!! Ha Ha. Because that was what I made it into. Between performances, the top-less dancing ladies were to serve drinks. In doing so, one dear customer was so sweet as to ask me to marry him. Oh, my, did that boost my ego! Ha. However, though I felt my performances were rather successful, I did not get the job. So it was my one and only night as a professional topless belly dancer. I was quite proud of myself to have been so bold, and was glad that I would have the story to tell if I ever had grandchildren.

Many years later, in the ‘90s, my oldest daughter told me a story concerning the night I had been a topless belly dancer. She said that a boy at her school had asked her about it, because HIS FATHER HAD BEEN AT THE BAR, AND SEEN ME DANCE. Oh, my poor, dear, precious daughter!!! She said she had been horribly embarrassed!!! It was certainly NOT the first time I had embarrassed her badly, for sure, but that time had been particularly difficult for her. In many ways, I was grateful that she had waited so many years to tell me. She had not told me until these later years how difficult it had been for her, due to my “unusual” interests, of a variety of kinds.

When we were still quite a small group, one of the members, named Stella, asked me if there was anything between me and the teacher other than that of teacher and student. I answered, “No, of course not.” I would like to say at this time, so many years later, that I had lied.

My second husband and I had been separated 2 times, for short periods. The final separation and divorce occurred because I told him that I was having an affair with a young man that had come into school. He was a Mormon. My husband could not “take” that information, and we separated and he filed for divorce. It is too long a story to go more into, at this time.

Due to the separation, it was necessary for me to return to work, to earn money. I had begun to work as a practical nurse to earn money, and knew it was a job I intensely disliked. That was because I had taken the education to be able to “give” to other people, and the jobs I had held in “Old People’s Homes” had shown themselves to be a horror to me. The work load was literally impossible to carry out, and it became necessary to jump over many of the functions one was supposed to carry out. To me, it had become a nightmare of being inhuman to those precious persons for whom I had learned to value and care very deeply for. So, when I saw an advertisement to be trained as a masseuse, I quickly applied for the training. I was trained by a registered nurse, and learned the trade. Because I already had a certificate as a practical nurse, I was legally allowed to massage people. I acquired a job as a masseuse.

One day, Robert asked me if I would come to his apartment in Walnut Creek. (He had moved away from his mother as soon as he had enough money from students to get his own apartment.) I gave him the massage in his bed. After, he asked me if I would like to have sexual activity with him. Of course, I was really delighted at the offer. I had been quite curious at what it would be like to have sex with him, a conscious being. He suggested I take a shower first, which I did. We had sex together. Afterwards, he congratulated me on not buffering, by closing my eyes. He also said he had been greedy, as he had attempted to have sex again, after the first orgasm, and had not been able to do so. I had been somewhat disappointed, as it did not seem that he had any special abilities, because he was a conscious being. Also, I did not have an orgasm. There had been no noticeable “foreplay” by him to me, but of course, he had just had an hour of massage, so perhaps that had played the part of “foreplay” for him. In other words, it was just ordinary sex, not exciting or particularly positive. The most positive part of it for me, was that my curiosity was satisfied.

Later that evening, there was a meeting at my house. He seemed much more identified with the fact that we had had sexual activity earlier that day, than I was. He made a statement to the small group, that he was “A bit low on energy that night, due to an unusual expenditure of energy during the day.” I do not think I acted any different to him that night, than at other meetings, but I supposed that I had had a lot more sexual experiences than he. That was just the impression I had had. (As a “liberated” woman of the ‘60s, I had experimented quite a lot in the area of sexual activities.)

At some time later, I cannot remember how long, he made a statement to the group of students that he had been celibate since he had been a Teacher. Of course, I knew from personal experience, that it was a lie. It created some confusion in me. I just could not understand WHY he would LIE about such a thing. It would have been so easy just to say he was celibate … without adding the lie, “SINCE I HAVE BEEN A TEACHER.” It did not, however, become a large negative for me, as he had previously taught me, “It can be a legitimate tool, TO LIE. It must not, however, be from mechanical parts that, for example, just want to protect an idea of an identity, or to protect mechanical features.” So, I let it go, and did not, at the time, give much space to thinking about it. It did not in any way make me think he would have sexual activities with others, and also lie about it, still stating he was celibate. Which means, that for me, later, when such statements were made, I believed them, thinking that I had been the exception which for some unknown reason, he did not want to acknowledge. (I never told anyone this story as long as I was in his school, or in America.)

Later, at a school party, he notified me that we would not repeat the sexual experience together, because I did not value him and the experience with him, enough. He also told me not to have sexual activities that did not include a “full relationship”. That is, one in which there [would] be several centers involved, and a wish for a relationship, rather than just a sexual experience. He said that otherwise, it would be “tramp” against myself. That is, not valuing myself enough. Earlier, he had told me that his mother had been married 5 times. Perhaps, in some way, he had wanted to try and spare me that kind of fate, with those suggestions. (As it turned out, I did marry 4 times, anyway. The last marriage became “THE REAL ONE”, FOR ME, THANK GOD!!!)

Quite early Robert had spoken of the future, in which there would be acquired a farm for those students that wanted to devote their life full time to evolution, which included learning to separate from the expression of negative emotions, and learning to “Self-Remember.”

The idea was very interesting to me. I knew I needed and wanted such conditions for myself. Since we were in the process of getting a divorce, my husband and I put the house up for sale. It quickly sold. My husband and I each received 10,000 dollars cash at the sale of the house.

Because it was so very important to me to devote more of my time to evolution, I offered Robert 4,000 dollars to start the account for the buying of a property. He did not want to accept that. He said that it was too large an amount for one person to contribute. I talked and talked to him. Finally, he agreed to accept the money, if it could be considered to be a loan, which would be repaid. I agreed. In a relatively short amount of time he informed the other students that I had made that commitment of money, and there would be a collection made to gather enough to buy a farm. At that time, he said that he would make the decision as to what would be the amount of money which he would require from each student. If one did not make the payment in the amount of time designated, they would have to leave school. At a meeting, envelopes were handed out, telling each student how much they were to contribute. The amount stated in my envelope was 800 dollars. I was surprised, as I had already given the 4,000 dollars. Yet, I paid it, without question.

WhaleRider – August 2, 2014

THANK YOU, TEMPUS!

What a great read. Bonita seemed like an honest person, and I appreciated hearing a little about her early family life growing up with working parents who were unavailable. I could be wrong, but this appears to be a pattern among cult members, IMO. Bonita seemed to have been so deprived of attention she swayed into exhibitionism.

Her account of burton’s teaching reminded me of how to be a better sociopath in five easy steps:

Rule #1. Learn how to lie.

Rule #2. Do not empathize with other people.

Rule #3. Silence and shun anyone who disagrees with you.

Rule #4. Threaten to withdraw all contact from anyone who does not pay up.

Rule #5 Promise anything.

Here’s how, IMO, to do the opposite and be a better person in five more difficult steps:

Rule #1 Tell the truth.

Rule #2 Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.

Rule #3 Be open to criticism.

Rule #4 Serve someone unconditionally other than yourself.

Rule #5 Only make a promise you can keep.

ton2u – August 9, 2015

Though difficult to recognize when you’re in the cult, after you step outside of cult programming, its use of mind-control techniques becomes all too obvious.

For example the “eternal damnation” meme is already deeply embedded in the collective psyche of “western” (judeo-christian and including muslim) cultures. This idea is a control mechanism that’s been used by religions for hundreds of years – along with belief that the only way to avoid damnation is to adhere to the religion and to follow its dictates. Burton adopts and uses this idea with the threat of one’s soul “going to the moon” should you “lose” the school – it’s the “4th way” equivalent of “eternal damnation.”

Another mind-control technique has to do with the nature of burton’s numerous false prophecies, there’s always a prediction of some cataclysmic event hanging in the air, threatening all those who are not part of his “school.”

Whether the “prophecies” are true or false isn’t the point, nor the effect…. these “prophecies” are simply designed to scare those who are fooled into believing.

Psychological fear tactics act as part of the invisible fence which keeps the “flock” in their pen.

wolves-in-sheeps-clothing

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Matthew 7:15-16

Laura – October 4, 2007 – Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog

Yesterday I was in one of my city’s major bookstores. As I was waiting for some books I had requested, I wandered through the esoteric book section. The shelves held one or two copies of Gurdjieff and Ouspenski’s main titles and, surprisingly for me, three copies of obscure teacher Robert Burton’s Self Remembering. Italy is one of the countries (maybe the only one?) where Robert’s book was translated and published by a local editor.

All the fourth way books had been bookmarked. There were two kinds: the “before makeover” G-O-style ones and the “new look” divine presence ones (“reaching wordless divine presence is the greatest miracle of the universe” !!!!!!!!!!!).

Anyway, before I even thought about it, I found myself pulling all the Fellowship bookmarks out of the books. My understanding is that the Gurdjieff foundation is not happy about them bookmarks either. So it occurred to me that this is a quite easy way to boycott the Fellowship of Friends: take those bookmarks out, again and again, till they get tired or find a better advertising tool. It’s a little considerate gesture that any of us located in a city where there’s a centre can do!

A little addition: as I was researching info for this post, I ran into an Amazon review of a book called Taking With the Left Hand: Enneagram Craze, People of the Bookmark, & The Mouravieff “Phenomenon”; was this mentioned already on the blog? It looks like an interesting read. The “People of the Bookmark” are us, just in case that was not clear.

Kid Shelleen – October 4, 2007

Laura,

Taking with the Left Hand is by William Patrick Patterson, who was a student of John Pentland’s and supposedly was anointed to lead the Gurdjieff Foundation when Pentland died. The observations he makes about the fof in his book are mild compared to the real deal. His point of view is coming from the “Burton has no legitimate connection to this work and is misleading his students” angle.

Here’s a story:

A couple of years ago, I was in a local book store and saw a poster for one of Patterson’s talks near my home. Just out of curiosity, I went. He talked the fourth way mumbo-jumbo for awhile, had us do some “sensing” exercises, and opened the floor for questions. For fun, I asked a question about self remembering and creating memory. He asked me about my understanding of self remembering and in my answer I used the phrase divided attention. He told me this was a wrong understanding of the idea and then, seemingly out of nowhere, launched into a diatribe about false teachings and corruption of the ideas. On and on it went. At the end, he turns his best Gurdjy steely gaze on me and says, “And this is the story of Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends, is it not?” in an incredibly self-satisfied tone. I almost laughed out loud. Judging from his manner, I believe that he thought that I thought, “Wow, how did this guy read my mind?” I came away from the experience thinking, “Same s#@t, different bag.”

Oh, and his students were a hoot, too. They seemed about as uptight as any group of folks I’ve run into. The woman who introduced him (one of the inner circle, probably), spoke of him as if he were the second coming. After the event, I asked the two people manning the concession stand how many times a week the group met and how many students were in the local area. They stopped, stared at the ground for a moment, looked at each other with a look I’m sure we are all familiar with, and told me they couldn’t answer my question. So it goes.

Another Name – May 28, 2008

Like this you tube on spirituality and letting it go from Alan Clements

innernaut – May 28, 2008

Another Name

Thanks for the Alan Clements video. It reminds me of something that happened very early in my FOF time, about 1981.

I was in the Boston center, and at one point I was dispatched, along with two other students, to visit the Yale library in New Haven, Connecticut. Our assignment was to rifle through the “Ouspensky papers,” which had been donated to the university after O’s death.

We drove down there, and signed in. We were ushered to a room, where we could select the boxes we were interested in viewing. There were about 50 of them, mostly meeting transcripts covering 25 years or so, right up to his death. We chose a cross-section, with various dates, and got a few boxes brought to us. We were not allowed to make copies. We had to write down whatever we were interested in, using only a pencil and paper the library issued to us.

The boxes were crammed full of typewritten pages. Mostly just stuff that could have come from “The Fourth Way” — not terribly interesting. But there was one box — the last box, chronologically — that I was really interested in. I had read about O’s last, bizarre meetings, and I was wondering if they were transcribed. They were, so I spent almost my whole allotted time copying down the questions and O’s strange answers.

The gist of what he said is known: he told his students to “abandon the system,” saying that it was basically BS. Even back then, I felt strangely liberated; not that I had the courage to chuck it all aside then, but that one day I would be free of it. I noticed this feeling then, but pushed it aside, because what did that say about the System I had devoted my life to, that I couldn’t wait to be free of it?

After copying down many pages of this very interesting stuff, one of the students did a guilt trip on me, saying we shouldn’t be spending so much time on “unhelpful” material. Hmmm… so party-line. Ouspensky is “good,” and Ouspensky when he finally sounds like he’s a human being and is telling the truth is “bad.”

This experience was probably the beginning of the end for me, in terms of the System, though it would take many years before I had the courage to throw it all out — baby, bath water, everything.

One more thing, which Alan Clements mentioned – getting rid of the notion of enlightenment means being able to live without the certainty that a dogmatic spiritual framework provides. If it helps you live sanely, then more power to you.

One more thing. When I asked the idolized “older students” what they thought Ouspensky meant when he said, “abandon the system,” they had many creative things to say. But in the end, what they essentially said was, “Don’t abandon the system.” That’s right, when O says abandon the system, what he really means is don’t abandon the system.

People sure act funny when their belief system is being threatened.

Just the Facts Ma’am – September 17, 2016

I, too, had been to Yale Library to see O’s legacy:

http://ow.ly/6PBu304j2Vt

I went several times while living in the neighborhood of the east coast in the 1980’s. The description copied above in Tim’s post is accurate.

I, with limited time allotted, concentrated on the unpublished manuscripts as first priority and, secondarily, published manuscripts. It was interesting to see and experience the documents that O. actually wrote, corrected and handled. You could see the development of ideas, corrections and refinements made, and his handwriting. Also, they would be full of his emanations. Very interesting impressions as I remember – to this day.

Also, I wanted to see what more there was that I did not already know about. Since then, the more obscure matters have become published.

One other thing worthy of note about seeing O’s papers at Yale: They wanted to know why you wanted to access them. I said I was doing research for a forthcoming book: The Life and Times of a Conscious Being.

Prologue (excerpts)

Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, the extraordinary messenger who introduced and established in the West the ancient esoteric teaching of self-development of The Fourth Way, understood that – as with all things in time – gaps, intervals, counter currents would appear that could deflect or distort his teaching from its original direction. There would appear self-appointed teachers who would distort or deflect his message and Mr. Gurdjieff would call them “Candidates for Hasnamuss.” They would “take with the left hand,” as it is said in the East, where the left hand is used when toilet paper is lacking.

He had brought this sacred teaching to the West because he realized, as he said, “Unless the ‘wisdom’ of the East and the ‘energy’ of the West was harnessed and used harmoniously, the world would be destroyed.” Being esoteric in the true sense, the teaching, he said, had been “completely unknown up to the present time.”

The deflections and distortions that have occurred have manifested at the margins of the teaching. However noxious, they have had their use in that they served to test a seeker’s desire for spiritual evolution and knowledge rather than power, beauty and sex. Previously, these “takers of the left hand” have been ignored, for whatever is said only brings them attention. And yet a time comes when so much has been taken that the public—the seedbed of the teaching—must be warned against the false posing as the true.

Robert Earl Burton I have never met. I know of him through newspaper accounts, personal contacts with his former students, and his book Self-Remembering. Burton claims his Fellowship of Friends is a school of the Fourth Way. However, Burton’s only teacher was Alexander Horn, a faux-Gurdjieffian, who tried to enter but was not accepted into the teaching.

Of all Burton’s students I’ve met over the years, the only one of his inner circle was Ed Grieve. He was at the dinner Burton held for Lord Pentland. Pentland had contacted Burton because he was having his students put bookmarks advertising the Fellowship of Friends into Fourth Way books and with the film version of Meetings with Remarkable Men he had students standing outside theaters passing out Fellowship flyers. Grieve told me that Burton believed Pentland was coming to hand over his students to him because he had recognized Burton’s “higher development,” and even bet on this with several students. In fact, Pentland was coming to ask Burton to make a sizable contribution to the film inasmuch as he was falsely profiting by it.

On Pentland’s arrival, Burton presented him with an expensive sleeping pillow, his idea of an esoteric joke. Several of Burton’s close students joined the two for dinner, Grieve was one of the servers. “Watching the two of them together,” Grieve said, “there was just no question of who was awake and who asleep, and I left the next day to become a student of Lord Pentland’s.”

The number of Burton’s students has greatly declined with the continuing sex scandals and lawsuits, but those who believe he is, as he declares, “a goddess in a man’s body,” stay blindly loyal. Always a great merchandizer, Burton has attempted to solve the student problem by creating an online school, headed by a married Israeli student, Burton’s “close friend” Asaf Braverman. So the “esoteric” Fellowship parade continues.

Tempus Fugit – June 5, 2012

From the “Backstage” section of Braverman’s website on Gurdjieff:
http://ggurdjieff.com/backstage/

“I encountered the Fourth Way in 1995, joining Burton’s Fellowship of Friends, and am still a member of that organization. I moved to the California headquarters in 2000 and began working closely with Burton on his teaching. In 2007, I was forced to set out on a two year journey, which brought me in contact with the origin of the ancient wisdom that I had been previously studying in theory.”

Note: I WAS FORCED TO SET OUT ON A TWO YEAR JOURNEY

Could this have something to do with allegations of bigamy noted by Wondering Who’s Watching in Post 6, Page 121 (current page)?

Golden Veil – July 28, 2014

Teacher Asaf Braverman is busy adding “pillars” (his term) to his Ark in Time. The text of Being Present First may be instantly translated for Russian readers by the click of a button just after the main body of text.

http://bepresentfirst.com/self-remembering-and-being-present/

Robert Stolzle – July 28, 2014

Golden Veil, et al-
Who is Asaf Braverman and how does he come to be RB’s chosen one? Also, I’ve been reading some of the history and saw a picture of Jim Chisholm and Joel Friedlander. I had passing acquaintances with them back in the old days (70’s). Are they still part of the FOF?

nevasayneva – July 28, 2014

re: Golden Veil

just for accuracy, the blog you list

http://bepresentfirst.com/self-remembering-and-being-present/

does not appear to be authored by Asaf Braverman. It is authored by another member of FOF. No connection / association to Asaf Braverman’s blog is mentioned and they may not be connected aside from being blogs from members of the same organization.

FOF like so many organizations uses blogs and other sites such as http://www.meetup.com to express its understanding of the world and to attract interested people to join. Hooray for the first amendment.

“The exclusion of family and other outside contacts, rigid moral judgments of the unconverted outside world, and restriction of sexual behavior are all geared to increasing followers’ commitment to the goals of the group and in some cases to its powerful leader. Some former cult members were happy during their membership, gratified to submerge their troubled selves into a selfless whole. Converted to the ideals of the group, they welcomed the indoctrination procedures that bound them closer to it and gradually eliminated any conflicting ties or information.”

Coming Out of the Cults
Psychology Today, January 1979
By Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D.

Coming Out of the Cults

By Margaret Singer

Golden Veil – July 28, 2014

Robert Stolzle

In answer to your question, “Who is Asaf Braverman and how does he come to be RB’s chosen one?” That’s a question I cannot answer. I don’t know if he should be described as “RB’s chosen one”, but on the Ark in Time it is claimed that Asaf is “expanding the legacies of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.”:

“Asaf Braverman is the Founder, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Ark in Time network, a collection of blog sites focused on psychological and philosophical teachings.”

and

“Under the guidance of his teacher, Robert Burton, Asaf incorporated more ancient sources into the Fellowship teaching, in effect, expanding the legacies of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and engaging in a continuation of their search for the origins of the Fourth Way.”

http://asafbraverman.com/

As for Joel Friedlander, he’s no longer with the FoF but I think that he is a member of the Greater Fellowship and he has an ad there for the Body Types book he wrote while in the FoF. On this blog on November 2, 2007 he had this to say about body types:

“When I wrote the book I was in the Fellowship of Friends. I was programmed, just the way we all were, to see reality through the lens of a learned insanity. Those who still believe that there really are body types, like slow and lazy for a Venusian, active and aggressive for a Martial…have not, to my mind, freed themselves of the madness. It’s simply a learned mental disease. Friends, there are no body types—except metaphorical ones.”

I didn’t see the above until after I bought the book!

4. nevasayneva

“No connection/association to Asaf Braverman’s blog is mentioned and they may not be connected aside from being blogs from members of the same organization.”

I said, “Teacher Asaf Braverman is busy adding “pillars” (his term) to his Ark in Time.” Yes, the lengthy verbiage of Being Present First is penned by someone else, William Page, but the site is very connected to Asaf Braverman. Take a look at what the links say on the bottom of each page of Being Present First:

Being Present a pillar of the Ark in Time network

70. leaf – September 26, 2015

Super moon on Sunday — a total lunar eclipse combined with the moon being at its closest point to Earth. Of course, rather than view this as an awe-inspiring celestial event that stirs wonder and curiosity about the universe, the Fellowship uses such events to suggest that the Moon is a sinister orb circling the earth like a predator. And that you had better remain in the Fellowship if you hope to escape its jaws in the afterlife. (This is no exaggeration. It’s the precise dogma that the Fellowship articulates.)

For years, I’ve been around people in the cult who talk about “the moon cycles” (3 days before and 3 days after each full and new moon) as obviously having weird effects on human behavior. This viewpoint conveniently neglects the fact that weird things also happen constantly when it’s not “a moon.” So the conventional wisdom in the cult is that people have “verified” it. They are ever on the lookout for more evidence.

There are other views: livescience.com/7899-moon-myths-truth-lunar-effects.html

It’s our choice which world view we decide to adopt. But tomorrow night I fully intend to leave the fear and superstition far behind.

71. WhaleRider – September 26, 2015

leaf:
“..the Fellowship uses such events to suggest that the Moon is a sinister orb circling the earth like a predator…”

Unfortunately, it can take years for a cult follower to discover who the real predator is circling the earth.

72. ton2u – September 26, 2015

re: 70

“Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in political and organizational contexts.”

wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation bias

142. Ames Gilbert – October 1, 2015

It might have been better to just give you guys a link, but since I collected this review, the link has gone bad. Anyway, everything from the end of this sentence is a quote!

From the introductory chapter in Robert J. Gula’s book, Nonsense – Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How we abuse logic in our everyday language

“I just know that that doesn’t make any sense, but I’m not sure why.”

It’s frustrating to know in your heart that what you’ve just heard is nonsense but not to be able to pinpoint why it is nonsense. If you’ve ever found yourself in that position, this book should help. It identifies and itemizes the many different guises that erroneous thinking may assume, and it explains some of the reasons for erroneous thinking. This book will not turn you into a skilled rebuttalist, but it will give you the ammunition to become one. And, even more important, it will put you in a position of strength in steering a discussion. You’ll find many of your friends and acquaintances throughout these pages, but you will also find yourself from time to time. None of us is immune to nonsense.

Are men and women by nature hopelessly muddled creatures? By nature, yes. Muddled, yes. Hopelessly, no. Men and women may be rational animals, but they are not by nature reasoning animals. Careful and clear thinking requires a certain rigor; it is a skill, and, like all skills, it requires training, practice, and vigilance. Before one can use one’s reason, one should know the traps that are always awaiting the untutored mind.

Hence this book—a book on nonsense, a summary of the devices that camouflage and subvert reason. If we recognize the pitfalls and ruses, we may be able to avoid them and we may be able to discourage others from relying upon them.

First, some general principles. Let’s not call them laws; and, since they’re not particularly original, I won’t attach my name to them. They are merely a description of patterns that seem to characterize the ways that people tend to respond and think. For example, people:

1. tend to believe what they want to believe.

2. tend to project their own biases or experiences upon situations.

3. tend to generalize from a specific event.

4. tend to get personally involved in the analysis of an issue and tend to let their feelings overcome a sense of objectivity.

5. are not good listeners. They hear selectively. They often hear only what they want to hear.

6. are eager to rationalize.

7. are often unable to distinguish what is relevant from what is irrelevant.

8. are easily diverted from the specific issue at hand.

9. are usually unwilling to explore thoroughly the ramifications of a topic; tend to oversimplify.

10. often judge from appearances. They observe something, misinterpret what they observe, and make terrible errors in judgment.

11. often simply don’t know what they are talking about, especially in matters of general discussion. They rarely think carefully before they speak, but they allow their feelings, prejudices, biases, likes, dislikes, hopes, and frustrations to supersede careful thinking.

12. rarely act according to a set of consistent standards. Rarely do they examine the evidence and then form a conclusion. Rather, they tend to do whatever they want to do and to believe whatever they want to believe and then find whatever evidence will support their actions or their beliefs. They often think selectively: in evaluating a situation they are eager to find reasons to support what they want to support and they are just as eager to ignore or disregard reasons that don’t support what they want.

13. often do not say what they mean and often do not mean what they say.

To these principles, let’s add four observations cited by J.A.C. Brown in his book, Techniques of Persuasion:

“Most people want to feel that issues are simple rather than complex, want to have their prejudices confirmed, want to feel that they ‘belong’ with the implication that others do not, and need to pinpoint an enemy to blame for their frustations.”

149. Tempus Fugit – October 2, 2015

Hi friends,
I decided to take a break from the blog a few months ago, but I’ve checked in periodically.

I think the blog is fine just the way it is. Steve is an excellent moderator and knows when to step in and when to stay out. This blog is an open forum that accepts posts from anyone in the world. This openness serves various good purposes, including providing a place for injured victims of the FOF to express their pain and find healing. This openness also comes with the occasional need to address those who abuse the privilege, and I think Steve does that well both publicly and privately (as evidenced on this page).

Former members who post here represent a range of experiences in the FOF. For some, joining the FOF was just another “new age” group. As I mentioned before, about a year after I left Stella Wirk contacted me and through her I had a number of encounters with former members in the 1980’s. I was actually surprised that some, who otherwise considered themselves serious “students,” never took Burton’s threats of damnation seriously and recalled their time in the FOF as simply another spiritual experience on par with similar things they had tried (i.e., other Eastern religions, gurus, meditation, etc.).

Unfortunately my attitude was that of the “true believer,” so after I left I initially felt I had failed completely and was going to hell. Then I became really angry when I realized I had been deceived by a charlatan and horrified when I understood the truth about Burton’s predatory and disgusting behavior. I’m still struck sometimes by the sheer weirdness of my experience – to go from believing Burton was a true enlightened being to knowing he is only a common criminal; and in my opinion an especially ugly and crude one at that.

It’s also still shocking and sad to realize I was luckier than many others. This blog is filled with testaments from members who were severely injured by the horrific criminal behavior of Burton and his gang. I wonder how many of Burton’s victims developed severe depression, anxiety, or PTSD? Recovery from trauma of this magnitude can take many years for those fortunate enough to recover.

Healing is not guaranteed, however, and may never come. Victims of abuse often try to hide their experiences, especially if they feel shame about what happened to them, but denial is usually unsuccessful because the psyche needs to expel the poison in the wound to heal. If the infection is not cleaned out the victim will continue to suffer and perhaps even die (substance abuse and suicide are two possible consequences of untreated abuse).

Also, if and when the wounds do finally open, the putrid substance of the unprocessed trauma may shock both the suffering person and those around them. If they don’t understand what’s going on they may think they are getting worse when in reality they have just taken a major and necessary step towards healing.

If any of you reading this think I am describing your experience, please take my advice: find a licensed counselor or therapist immediately and let them guide you through the rough times. Don’t think about it too much. Ask your friends, look online, or call the local psych association. Any experienced therapist can get you started, and you can always switch if you don’t feel a good match. Not only will you survive but you may happily discover you are much stronger than you realize. You may find joy and freedom, your natural state, restored to you. You see, criminals like Burton can hurt you but they cannot kill your spirit. They only have power over you when you give it to them. And you’re done with that, right?

So in light of these thoughts, when someone on the blog is angry and blaming or inappropriately sexual or rude and crude, I try to remember that I don’t know what they experienced. Maybe they were one of the unlucky ones harmed by Burton who still need to release their anger and suffering. Maybe when they post the ugliness here it means their wounds are opening and their Spirit is healing itself.

152. linda – October 3, 2015

Nice to see you back Tempus Fugit and thank you Ames for your patience and endurance in remaining on this blog …..

161. invictus maneo – October 5, 2015

FOF members have known for a long time that REB is a voracious sexual abuser, a vicious predator, and relentlessly takes all the money his students have.

Members justify staying in. It comes down to them believing the FOF is the only way to “contact Higher Forces and evolve”, so they hold their noses and keep trying to evolve. They don’t feel any need to look the other way. And, a lot of them are relieved they are not sexually appealing to REB.

It is useful for this blog to continue educating readers about the nature of REBs sexual abuse. Some readers may not know this. But knowledge of REBs sexual abuse of students is clearly not enough to convince people to leave the FOF or never to join.

My post is already too long. Almost all the ones above that are not personal stories are too long. You’re not helping people leave or skip joining by rambling.

163. invictus maneo – October 5, 2015

REB once told me his chief feature is greed. (He probably told other people other things at other times in his never-ending attempt to take money or sex from them.) I don’t think anybody is born a remorseless, vile predator, like him; I think this is learned behavior. But greed is an understandable starting tendency for developing an uncontrollable thirst for endless amounts of money, objects and sexual stimulation.

166. brucelevy – October 5, 2015

robertearlburton.blogspot.com/2014/05/sex-lies-and-grand-schemes-of-thought.html

169. jomopinata – October 5, 2015

163/invictus maneo wrote:

I don’t think anybody is born a remorseless, vile predator, like him; I think this is learned behavior.

When I interviewed various people in the 1990s who knew Burton prior to 1970 what most surprised me was the absence of any indication of what came later, in terms of remorseless exploitative behavior. I expected reports of something “weird” or “off,” but that was not what people said; I was told (for example) that he was a capable, well liked fourth-grade teacher. So much for a theory that his psychopathy was “developmental.”

But later I read that damage to a region of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex can produce something called “acquired sociopathy.”

See: scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-make-sociopath-through-brain-injury-trauma/ (which doesn’t actually mention the orbitofrontal cortex, but talks about how TBI can turn someone into a sociopath). It is commonly known that Burton was in an auto accident in Modesto in 1968 in which he sustained a serious head trauma. The notion of sociopathy acquired as a result of orbitofrontal cortex damage explains a lot. Maybe an autopsy report will tell us more (although I have every reason to believe Burton would sit up screaming on the end of the gurney if they tried to do one now).

171. Ames Gilbert – October 5, 2015

jomopinata (#151-169 or thereabouts),

I’ve heard a reference to this Modesto car accident once before on the blog (maybe from you?) It’s been so long ago (‘78–‘94), but I can’t recall ever hearing about it while in the FoF. I was hardly in the center of things, but I would have thought that I would have heard at least as much fuss about it as the “tennis shoulder injury” which required so much massage and Darvon—and which was the prelude to a number of seductions by Burton—and I heard about that quite a bit, both directly from Burton himself and others.

Anyone else recall this rumor or have evidence for it?

173. jomopinata – October 5, 2015

Ames,

I heard about it in the early 1980s from people who had been around since the early 1970s. Apparently Alex Horn made remarks about the head stitches which were a part of the story, although I do not remember what the remarks supposedly were.

The Scientific American article is simply a general interest piece on the subject of acquired sociopathy. I first read about acquired sociopathy several years ago in the book to which I link here. Start with the last two lines on p. 71, and proceed thereafter as long as you like:

books.google.com/books?id=_rkKxbevFZEC&pg=PA71#v=onepage&q&f=false

There are some pages missing, but you will get a feel for the argument.

175. James Mclemore – October 5, 2015

171. Ames Gilbert

“Anyone else recall this rumor or have evidence for it?”

I can only recall that Burton, while in meetings in the mid 70’s, spoke about the car accident on a couple of occasions. If my memory is correct it was always in the context of “C Influence” and how they arranged friction for us. Once again, if my memory is correct, he did make it sound as if something significant had taken place that day, but then you have to remember that he also thought that license plates and mail boxes could be quite significant.

178. jomopinata – October 6, 2015

Ames, this is a better article about acquired sociopathy, a case study: brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/brain/123/6/1122.full.pdf

179. invictus maneo – October 6, 2015

I do want to provide examples from my experiences in the FOF showing that REB has no connection to higher forces and is nothing but a predatory con artist. I haven’t figured out how I want to do that. I don’t want to post something just to make me look pious and holy. I want to keep the focus on REB not being a real teacher.

181. ton2u – October 6, 2015

re: acquired sociopathy reminded me of the story of Phineas Gage:

psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/phineas-gage.htm

Whether it’s nature, nurture, acquired, or hereditary – when it comes to burton I think it’s apparent that there’s something off… namely a fully functioning conscience.

183. Tim Campion – October 6, 2015

Ames,

I too recall Burton speaking about the accident at large meetings in the mid-70s and, as James stated, always in the context of Higher Forces/C Influence providing friction for our awakening.

This post by Ollie provides a modern retelling. The details seem consistent with what I heard back then.

185. Ames Gilbert – October 6, 2015

jomopinata (#151-173 and more),

Thank you, I didn’t mean for you to do my research for me. Although the number of subjects is small in these other studies (n = 1), which means statistically that they are not much more than anecdotes, the tests were very thorough, and I accept the conclusion that the sociopathy was likely a result of an accident. And I accept the possibility that IF Burton had an accident that required 100 stitches, the same may have happened to him.

The disconnect for me is, if he milked the “tennis injury” story maybe hundreds of times (a dozen in my hearing or directly to me—he asked me to massage his shoulder eight evenings in a row, for example, when I “guarded” the Blake Cottage while he went to the Lodge to have dinner), why would he not milk the supposed “Modesto accident” at least as much?

Ollie’s report (thanks Tim, you have a great memory!) shows Burton had started telling the story again by 2011 (if he ever gave it up). But, is it true? Or maybe there is some substance (perhaps a fender–bender) and it has become, shall we say, embellished?

Look, I was an LVN and an EMT and have worked in emergency rooms. Head injuries are taken very seriously, even the most minor ones, and every one in a hospital is aware that seemingly the most minor bumps to the head can end in disaster or death, sometimes days later. That is why there is a very strict protocol, and tests of cognition before and after treatment. There is no way that Burton got released minutes after treatment. If he was rendered unconscious, even less chance. Not even nowadays, when pressure for hospitals to clear beds and make money is way more intense than the 1960s. This is especially true if he was not released into the care of someone willing to take responsibility for monitoring him, who would have been given the lowdown on symptoms to look for over the next 48 hours if there was deterioration.

Based on my knowledge of Burton as a world–class liar, who only tells the truth by accident, I’m going to opt for ‘maybe a small, superficial cut, maybe four stitches at most’ theory. Even minor scalp wounds often bleed profusely, maybe he was impressed by the amount of his own blood, who knows. Or maybe something like this happened to an acquaintance, or he read about it in the newspaper, and he decided to ‘borrow’ the story for effect.

And, thanks to those who added their recollections about Burton’s “Modesto accident”!

186. ryanopoo – October 6, 2015

Thanks Tim Campion for the link at 183, “This post by Ollie” from 2011. If you’re one of the truly fortunate, who escaped the thrall of Bob’s mad gibberish, you may get a chill reading this and a sense of your profound good luck. I was particularly struck by this little scrap from the dogs dinner of inanities, as it illustrates the effortless, meandering, madcap lying you will find in abundance in Ollie’s post:

“It is curious that a small group of students gave me a Miata as a gift last night. This is exactly the same as the car that I crashed in – a tan Volkswagen bug.” – Conscious Bob

Whutt? Let’s take a look at that for a moment

“It is curious that a small group of students gave me a Miata as a gift last night……….”

Right, agreed, it is curious that a group of intelligent people would stump up for a car and give it to a moron.

“This is exactly the same as the car that I crashed in – a tan Volkswagen bug.”

Bob’s techniques for conscious monologue:

#1 Making different things the same thing.
Any two things, roughly the same color may be called the same color and construed to be the same thing if they serve to illustrate a special story from the incredible life of Conscious Bob.

Don’t get hung up on the gibberish, just see where the gibberish is pointing and be grateful you were one of the lucky few, chosen by Placido Domingo, to hear it and leave.

187. ryanopoo – October 7, 2015

“I met Influence C in Berkeley on the crossing of Ashby and Domingo Avenues, like Placido Domingo, the singer. He was born in Spain and raised in Mexico, so it is an omen of my bringing the sequence – the Song of Solomon – to our school. ’” – Conscious Bob.

Right, let’s see if we’ve got this – Domingo Avenue = Placido Domingo = singer, born in Spain raised in Mexico, omen of conscious Bob bringing the sequence, which is the Song of Solomon written by the King of Israel.

So then, is Placido Domingo an Israeli after all? or was the King of Israel actually Mexican?, and is Solomon a lone, acappela, rastafari singer and why isn’t he on Spotify? I don’t get that part, though I do seem to recall, Lee Scratch Perry claiming to be the King of Israel. This all gets deeper, the further you dig doesn’t it?

189. invictus maneo – October 8, 2015

During my first prospective student meetings, I was told the FOF is not a cult that attempts to prevent people from leaving. I was told people are free to leave any time they wish, and no efforts would be made to make them stay.

After I left, I got phone calls for some time asking me to return. I would be allowed back without paying the accumulated back payments I had missed. The normal penalties for re-entry would be waived. I am still asked about once a year to come back.

Maybe this has something to do with the fact I made larger teaching payments than a lot of other people. It costs a lot of money to slake the thirst of REB, who is a slave to his desires. Did anybody not notice students making larger teaching payments got a lot more attention? Almost as much attention than handsome young men.

How many other lies are told at prospective student meetings?

190. James Mclemore – October 8, 2015

189. invictus maneo

“How many other lies are told at prospective student meetings?”

Here is a small excerpt from the link brucelevy posted at 166.

“The Courtship Entices”

‘We cannot emphasize enough how subtle the courtship process may be. Sensational stories reported by the media–of drugging or starving new recruits; subjecting them to hours of chanting, spinning, or meditating to produce heightened states; taking people off to isolated enclaves for weeks of love-bombing; or stripping them of their clothes in ritual–make it easy for the more sophisticated perpetrator to continue to fool himself and his captives into believing in the legitimacy of his less sensational methods of enticing his “courtship captives.”

Such a courtship begins when you attract the attention of the perpetrator or his representatives. How does this occur? Our group initially uses an impersonal method to attract new people. Primarily, prospective members find flyers or bookmarks that have been specifically placed in areas where people interested in philosophy and religion are likely to be found. These flyers contain local phone numbers of “centers”–groups of members sent out to cities throughout the United States and around the world. Or a potential recruit may see a newspaper advertisement for an open meeting. This impersonal approach reinforces the reigning idea that people are brought to the group by their fate or “higher forces,” that the members have little or no influence over who comes or who stays in the group. Interested people attend a small meeting (rarely, larger meetings may be held) led by more experienced members, but not too experienced: those at the enthusiastic, honeymoon phase of the involvement, before doubts begin to set in.

Leaders of these small groups were often naturally persuasive and perhaps charismatic in their own right; many used a decided “soft sell” at the meetings for prospective new members. We explained that our community was “not for everyone.” Appeals to narcissism were barely veiled, as we displayed an attitude of inaccessibility. Prospective members needed to pass certain “tests” to be deemed “right” or “fated” to join. The best prospects were attractive and attentive, often well-dressed, apparently established in the world. Toward these best prospects a fine-trained attention was directed; glances of recognition, approval, and knowingness would be exchanged, along with an attitude of studied indifference (akin to the clerks at Gucci’s or Cartier) about whether or not they decided to join.’

196. Ames Gilbert – October 8, 2015

invictus maneo (#151-189 or thereabouts),
Yes, we noticed the subtle yet intense wooing of those with money, influence or power. I was never a ‘power possessor’ myself, so was not privy to any actual formal instructions on how to do this, but there was an obvious agenda. Then there was the cluster of second–raters who buzzed around the privileged one—that jockeying was something to behold as well.

I remember that one such was even told that he would become ‘conscious’; he joined the select group who were told such by Conscious Bob and who then left.

Were you taken in by the flattery and attention? It must have been rather wearying after a while. And how would one sort out who were one’s genuine friends, and who just wanted reflected glory?

One advantage I saw was that, as far as I could see, Burton did not try to seduce such men.

What was also noticeable was that this was one area where women were truly equal. A woman with money, influence or power was courted equally assiduously, especially by Burton himself. He could really put himself out, create real connections in a certain way, and the women adored him and made extraordinary efforts for him.

197. ryanopoo – October 8, 2015

“Dear Friends,

We are attempting to understand the esoteric meaning of the Zodiac. Our aim is to understand how it relates to the sequence of six work ‘I’s-the essence of the system-rather than life’s psychological interpretations of the signs.

A few initial observations: There are twelve signs in the zodiac, roughly corresponding to the twelve months in a year. This suggests that they occur in time, in sequence, where one follows another. At this point, however, we do not know why twelve and not six……..” – Assup Braverman

Must be difficult waking up each day to face the challenge of finding, the number 6 in things. So many different numbers out there and only one of them is actually…….well, you know,…….six!

My two cents Assup, is that if it were 6 and not twelve, people would get old and die twice as fast

or maybe it’s because, half the population wouldn’t have a birthday each year and that would lead to fights and a lot of stores like Toys-r-us, would go bust.

Anyway, good luck and I’m sure you’ll be letting us all know what’s the correct reason when you figure it out.

207. Ames Gilbert – October 9, 2015

invictus maneo (#151-202 or thereabouts),
This is just my claim, and unverifiable by you, but I attest that I heard Burton say that he was a 900–million–year–old goddess trapped in a man’s body at a formal dinner in 1994. This was during one of his monologs. He was mumbling along in a low voice, one had to strain to hear him, and there were frequent pauses, but he said these words quite clearly enough; others who had been present at the same dinner afterwards confirmed what I had heard. No one of the dozen guests around the table, including me, said a word in response. I had heard previously round that time that Burton was making claims like this, but thought there must have been some exaggeration. Despite wide experience of his inanities, I was deeply shocked to hear this assertion for myself.

When were you in the asylum?

15. ryanopoo – October 11, 2015

‘Frightened though they were, some of the animals might possibly have protested, but at this moment the sheep set up their usual bleating of “Four legs good, two legs bad”, which went on for several minutes and put an end to the discussion.’
George Orwell in Animal Farm

After six or seven hundred people left the cult a few years back, the concentration of die hard zealot crazies, those more or less entirely adaptive to the endemic psychopathy, increased proportionately among those who remained, such that the cult has, as a percentage of its population, way more crazies now than it ever had.

24. Associated Press – October 14, 2015

The psychological manipulation we experience throughout our lives is easy to miss until we start noticing it. Salespeople, institutions and the media use tactics that we’ve come to expect, but is there an even more sophisticated effort secretly conducted to condition our thinking and behavior? The evidence suggests there is, and that it’s more pervasive and far-reaching than we realize.

It also appears that many of the people behind the effort to control our thinking and behavior are psychopathic. Psychopaths are typically charismatic master-manipulators who crave power and act upon others without the limitations of conscience. If we can grasp the reality of psychopaths both in our lives and in positions of influence, we can protect ourselves from their hidden agendas. Join this panel of experts for a blinders-off, down-the-rabbit-hole exposé of psychopaths and their mind control programs, and its disturbing effects on our world and us.

The Three Key Takeaways from this Event:

1) Mind control is a vast and legitimate area of study that goes much deeper than is commonly believed. Propaganda and mind control in all its forms are very real, very personal, and not to be dismissed as mere conspiracy theories, especially in today’s society. This knowledge is fundamental to a deeper understanding of our World’s problems.

2) Antisocial Personality Disorder (psychopathy) is an under-recognized psychological condition that exists to varying degrees throughout society. There are differing opinions regarding the exact indicators and frequency, but the significant feature is an absence of conscience or remorse, with a keen ability to manipulate and control people. Without moral and ethical “restrictions”, psychopaths (also known as sociopaths) are typically extremely narcissistic parasites who act primarily for self-gain, and with no regard for the people they hurt. Statistically; you are very likely to encounter people like this frequently throughout your life.

3) Because of their insatiable lust for power, psychopathic people are singularly motivated to manipulate and control others. Consequently, they aspire to, and frequently achieve, high positions of leadership. Thus they become concentrated in the enclaves of the world’s major power structures, e.g. corporations, media conglomerates, educational institutions and other positions of mass-influence with their own nefarious controlling agendas against the rest of us!

While there is a long history of psychopathic societal influence, its relevance and prevalence is seldom recognized or acknowledged. To reach a comprehensive, big-picture analysis of the challenges facing our World today, we need this part of the picture. For otherwise well-informed people, not recognizing the occurrence and effects of psychopathy and mind control on societal functioning is a major barrier to a complete understanding of the many puzzling circumstances we face today. As many people eventually discover: it is the quintessential “missing piece”.

Venue/Hotel:
Institute of Noetic Sciences –
EARTHRISE Retreat Center
101 San Antonio Road
Petaluma, California

Copy and paste this PDF link into browser address bar:
anpconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ANP_2015-10-24_EVENT_POSTER.pdf

52. Tim Campion – October 21, 2015

cristalclear, linda, nevasayneva,

Of the over 40,000 comments on this blog, this post by “Anna” is one of the most beautifully written and compelling that I’ve read.

Perhaps you knew (or still know) Anna?

68. Tim Campion – October 24, 2015

63. linda,

Your experience delving into the early pages of the blog is the primary reason I used a link to direct others to Anna’s post. Unquestionably some of the most remarkable exchanges took place in 2007, when the blog was being discovered by so many, and the Fellowship was experiencing a massive exodus. And reading posts in the context of those exciting times is very interesting.

62. Bryan Reynolds,

The REB blog was not intended as a discussion forum, but a blog which primarily gathers and organizes previously posted/published material into an historical timeline. (There is of course some editorializing!) That said, like WordPress (the host of this blog), Google’s Blogger (the REB blog host) does allow comments. However, as you’ve discovered, Blogger’s comment submission form is less “user-friendly” than WordPress’. If you need help commenting on the REB blog, or wish to discuss a post for that blog, you can reach me through the Greater Fellowship.

54. Ames Gilbert,

Ames, thanks for your continuing support of this blog, and the REB blog. I look forward to your new project focusing on Asaf et al.

16. Ames Gilbert – October 14, 2018

With all this attention on Burton and his shenanigans, let us not forget the ‘school’ organized by his long-time disciple, confidante, and co-inventor of ‘The Sequence’, Asaf Braverman. It looks like Asaf is still running his ‘BePeriod’© ‘school’, both in cyber space and physically. I’m not privy to what goes on in the pages only open to members who join and pay dues, but there is no mention yet of “The Sequence” on publicly viewable pages. Rather, these seem a mixture of the usual Fourth Way basics as promulgated by Ouspensky and Asaf’s own interpretations of religious motifs, written and visual, from around the world. He introduced many of these novel interpretations while still a member of the Fellowship of Friends, before his fall from grace a couple of years ago. I have no idea if he still subscribes to or ‘teaches’ the full panoply of numerology and symbology so beloved by the arch-superstitious Burton. Really, it doesn’t matter.

It is apparent that the guy has a superb memory for Ouspensky’s words. And he likely has a strong belief that Burton’s previous claims that he, Asaf, was destined to become ‘conscious’ actually came true, and thus he is qualified to ‘teach’ the Fourth Way, including the essential transmission of energies that supposedly only someone who has ‘already escaped’ can pass on to the next generation of prospective escapees. But there is no getting away from the milieu that he was submerged in for twenty years, the setting where the Fourth Way was distorted beyond recognition and twisted and shoe-horned into a religion with Burton featuring as the Founding God.

And there is no getting away from the fact that Asaf Braverman was anointed by Robert Earl Burton, the God-Emperor of Oregon House as a “Future Conscious Being”™, and that he enthusiastically assumed the role of ‘leadership’ and ‘teaching’ and fundraising that reflected this important prediction, over many years.

So, he is no innocent bystander temporarily bedazzled by the Grand Charlatan; he shared Burton’s interests, beliefs, income (and possibly, bed), for decades. Not only that, he was centrally placed at the abandonment of the admittedly superficial study of the philosophy known as the Fourth Way and the turning instead to “The Sequence”, a philosophy of numerology, superstition, symbology and practice he co-invented with Burton. This means Asaf Braverman is totally unqualified to teach anything about the Fourth Way, rather, he actively helped Burton poison the well and continues to do so, no matter what he claims or infers—IMHO.

76. Associated Press – November 1, 2018

It would be good to reflect upon the below in regard to the recent discussion:

From Wikipedia:

“Stockholm syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity. These alliances, resulting from a bond formed between captor and captives during intimate time spent together, are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims. The FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System and Law Enforcement Bulletin shows that roughly 8% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.

[Interesting that 8% is close to the retention rate that the Fellowship of Friends has; 8% of those who join are still members.]

This term was first used by foreign media in 1973 as eponym when four hostages were taken during a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. The hostages defended their captors after being released and would not agree to testify in court against them. Stockholm syndrome is ostensibly paradoxical because the sympathetic sentiments captives feel towards their captors are the opposite of the fear and disdain an onlooker may feel towards the captors.

There are four key components that generally lead to the development of Stockholm syndrome:
– A hostage’s development of positive feelings towards their captor
– No previous hostage-captor relationship
– A refusal by hostages to co-operate with police forces and other government authorities
– A hostage’s belief in the humanity of their captor, for the reason that when a victim holds the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be perceived as a threat.

Stockholm syndrome is considered a “contested illness,” due to many law enforcement officers’ doubt about the legitimacy of the condition. Stockholm syndrome has also come to describe the reactions of some abuse victims beyond the context of kidnappings or hostage-taking. Actions and attitudes similar to those suffering from Stockholm syndrome have also been found in victims of sexual abuse, human trafficking, discrimination, terror, and political and religious oppression.”

One might also add to that last sentence: victims of cults.

Which CULT Should I Join?
A Choose-Your-Own Guidebook
for the Spiritually Bereft © 2017

By Jo Stewart

A lighthearted–but factual–look at some of the craziest cults in modern history.

Do you prefer applesauce (Heaven’s Gate) to Kool-Aid (Peoples Temple)? Do you think carrots are “the food of the Masters” (Church Universal and Triumphant) or that swimming and joking should be forbidden (the Fellowship of Friends)? This is the book for you! We help sort your E.T.-loving Raelians from your Moonies, your snake-handling Church of God with Signs Following from your Branch Davidians.

amazon.com

91. Cult Survivor – November 12, 2018

GEMS OF FOF HISTORY

Here are the first 4 minutes of a meeting led by Robert on October 30th, 2016, 9 days after the expulsion of Asaf from the Fellowship of Friends. Robert mentions that Asaf is “going from bad to worse”, that “he is controlled by the lower self” and that “he is going to the end of the Ray of Creation”. Robert also comments on a picture he received of a tombstone with the name “Pierce”, which is the last name of Asaf’s wife indicating that it is a “sign from C Influence”, implying that her departure from the FoF with Asaf is a sinister fact (he also stated a few months later that the death from cancer of Denise, the wife of a person in Italy named Fabrizio that left the FoF to join “Asaf’s school”, occurred because “she was involved in a nasty play” and sent her a personal message inviting her to rejoin the FoF “in order to be saved”). At the end of the video Robert notes the coincidence that the angel that was supposed to wake Asaf up was Abraham Lincoln, the same “secret messenger” that was supposed to wake Miles up, and ends saying that “when you talk about as many things as I do you don’t even have thoughts about getting them all right”.

NOTE: Asaf was very close to Robert during the 18 years he was in the Fellowship of Friends — he was part of the “triumvirate” with Dorian and Alexandr (Sasha) and was the dean of the Fellowship of Friends until June 2016, 4 months before his expulsion.

dropbox.com/s/g96sntuqubhb18e / Mtg Robert 103016.mp4?dl=0

2. ton2u – November 16, 2018

I finally found time to look at the video clips from the previous page… thanks to cult survivor(s) for a reminder of what I’ve been missing all these years since leaving the Followship of Fools… and I have to thank any “lucky star” or providence, or fate, kismet, common sense, or guardian angels that may have helped me to escape what would have been years wasted in this ridiculous cult-trap.

I say I only got ’round to looking at the video clips – really I did only look… the old saying is true about a picture being worth much more than words… I trust my eyes to tell me more than all the words of the hypnotized and the hypnotizers, the dissemblers, prevaricators, prisoners, poisoners, rationalizers, liars and bullshitters – in other words I didn’t bother wasting time trying to “absorb” or “unpack” any of the verbalized bullshit, I try to avoid it, you know, walk around it – even if it tempts a sort of morbid curiosity on my part.

I went through enough – too many – of these little gatherings called ‘meetings’ with the same tired forms – the pro forma ‘formal attire,’ the group of “leaders” elevated in a ‘superior position’ on the dais above and staring down at the small flock gathered together in the name of…… the topics, the words, even the talking heads may change but the subjects remain the same…. the subjects being the ‘laity’ itself – whether they know it or not, they are the subjects of this project.

The social matrix of the FOF, from the earliest days, has always been based on subjugation and exploitation… adherence of laity to a belief system, thereby aiding, abetting, supporting their own exploitation, complying with their own subjugation…. all hidden behind notions of ‘refinery’ – ‘fine dining,’ ‘good manners,’ ‘nice’ clothing, – while utilizing mental /emotional chains in place of metal chains.

I only needed a brief look at the video clips – and even without listening to the bullshit issuing from mouths, the body language speaks volumes about a very grim state of affairs indeed.

16. Tim Campion – November 19, 2018

The San Francisco Chronicle’s excellent April 20, 1981 report on The Fellowship of Friends stated:

And of Jones and his suicide colony in Guyana, Burton says confidently: “Mr. Jones was close to the gates of hell. We would hope we are close to the gates of heaven.”

Echoing Ames’ comment #12 above, we in the Fellowship could simultaneously express sympathy for, and dismiss, those poor deluded souls who became entrapped in groups such as The People’s Temple, the Hare Krishnas, Rajneeshpuram, and Scientology. After all, we knew the Fellowship was not a cult.

A few months after the Chronicle article was published, I wrote to my “life family”:

The Fellowship has been receiving a bit of attention lately after appearing in an article on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle recently. It seems that a few former members found that they could capitalize on suspicions that have been cast upon “cults” in the last two years or so. Now we find certain people and some of the media referring to us as a cult, and immediately there are the preconceived notions and the fears that are directed towards such groups. I think though that it will be the people who know us, the merchants, the local citizens that will prove to be our strongest support. As for the rest, they will imagine what they wish – there is not much we can do for that, except maybe try to explain our goals to those who are willing to listen.

31. Cult Survivor – November 22, 2018

29. Ames Gilbert

I have a friend that was in Asaf Braverman’s “school” and he told me how his “BE Community” works. Members pay 50 US Dollars a month for a weekly “online workshop” with Asaf Braverman, participation in a WhatsApp “discussion group” and a subscription to the BePeriod.com website with a repository of 20+ “video tutorials” by Asaf Braverman on topics like “Consciousness”, “Identification”, “The Four Lower Centers”, etc. My friend also told me that when he left there were approximately 100 members in the “Be Community”, so that would be 5,000 USD per month. Not bad, isn’t it? Wait, there is more… A number of members (my friend estimated between 15 and 20) do a private Skype session with Asaf Braverman every month for 100 USD, so that’s another 1,500 to 2,000 USD per month going to Asaf Braverman’s pocket. And here comes the juicy information: Asaf Braverman organizes two “worldwide gatherings” plus a couple of “regional gatherings” per year at the cost of 2,000 USD per person. That cost includes visits to museums and historical places and accommodation in a cheap Airbnb apartment (airfare and food are not included). I estimate that the Airbnb will cost around 300 USD per person for the 5 days that the events usually last and my friend estimates that 15-20 people go to those events (the same that do the private sessions), so we are talking 102,000 to 136,000 USD per year or 8,500 to 11,300 USD per month going to Asaf Braverman’s bank account.

So here is the final amount that Asaf is pocketing every month (are you ready?):

Membership: 5,000 USD
Private sessions: 1,500 to 2,000 USD
Events: 8,500 to 11,300 USD
TOTAL: 15,000 to 18,300 USD PER MONTH

Not bad, right? As the membership grows, so will Asaf Braverman’s “salary”. We can see how the 18 years that Asaf Braverman spent with Robert Earl Burton trained him very well on how to organize groups and take peoples’ money, but I’ll dare to say that Asaf Braverman took the whole concept to another level.

32. Ames Gilbert – November 22, 2018

Well, in honor of Girard Haven, who once wrote about the importance of verification in a Fourth Way school on page 576 of his book, “Creating a Soul” in these terms:

“In particular, if he [Robert Earl Burton] knows what he is doing and we don’t, we have no basis for judging or doubting him. Instead, we simply have to trust him, as a child trusts his parents, or dog trusts its master. If he asks us to do things which seem to have no connection to awakening – or even to be ‘wrong’ — we have no choice but to do them anyway.”

… I’m posting this very pertinent recording, made with cunningly hidden cameras, of Thanksgiving Dinner with Burton in the Wordsworth Room, November 22, 2018. It shows what happens when followers take Girard’s dog analogy as seriously as he and Burton do:

youtube-nocookie.com/embed/vhg7Xm4FXAY?controls=0

I’m sure alert readers will be able to recognize Burton himself, and those followers who were able to purchase tickets to dine with him.

Have a great Thanksgiving, all! I am especially grateful that I escaped relatively unscathed, and I hope healing and benediction attend all those less fortunate, those who have escaped and those yet to escape.

35. Jess – November 23, 2018

“You or I might think that at least one would show courage and put up a fight. But neither you nor I have suffered as they, and even we have borne witness in silence to lesser ills under less dire threat. Yet, in the face of evil, to sit silent is an even greater evil. Complacency is ever the enabler of darkest deeds.” Robert Fanney

36. Insider – November 24, 2018

35. Jess

In the fairy tale bubble mind of the typical Fellowship member, the immutable law of cause-and-effect, Karma, or whatever other name it goes by, is suspended as long as the member has not “lost” Robert Burton, the Fellowship, or “Influence C.” One no longer has to worry about nuisances like taking responsibility for one’s actions, or failures to act. “The play is written,” endlessly intones Burton and his enablers. Thus a member in good standing never has to face the consequences of anything they do or think (as the rest of humanity does), because after all, “Influence C wanted me to do this.”

8. Robert P. – December 18, 2018

Asaf Braverman is spewing his pseudo Fourth Way/Gurdjieffian nonsense on a Facebook page called “Let’s Talk About The Gurdjieff Work”. A Braverman follower by the name of Cristi Ungureanu is posting advertisements for BePeriod “courses”. The advertisements feature a painting together with a video of Braverman giving his take on the esoteric significance of what is shown in the painting. He tries to bolster his vacuous ideas by sprinkling in quotes from Gurdjieff. I invite any of you to visit the Page, post the information set out in your recent posts and help put a stop to Asaf Braverman.

9. Cult Survivor – December 18, 2018 (excerpt)

I visited the Facebook page that Robert P. mentioned and, to be honest, I was shocked: Asaf manages to be pontificating and boring at the same time. Robert Burton pontificates but he was not boring until “the Sequence” was introduced in 2006 and he abandoned the Fourth Way to start a “crazy teaching”, as the notable Nick Spaulding calls it. Now I understand what my friend that left Asaf’s group meant by “Asaf’s meetings were too intellectual and monotonous”. An image is indeed a thousand words.

Here is Asaf’s new Facebook page:
facebook.com/groups/realself/

Happy new year to all! Winter for me is a time of going inward and reflection – with that, feelings of nostalgia naturally arise along with realization of the relentless, irrevocable passage of time… “the merciless heropass” as it’s been called. Surfing the net this morning somehow this popped up:

robertearlburton.blogspot.com/1980/

Thanks again to Tim for this resource!

73. Solartype – January 27, 2019

I am a current FoF member here to tell you that regardless of the Teacher’s private life, the system as laid out by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky which is and always has been the backbone of the teaching, works. There are now several men and women in the school that have awakened to the level of 5 or 6. Each of us keeps a low profile, serving life and the school as assigned.

A key understanding for anyone wishing to take the spiritual path is to always remember: the Teacher is never the Teaching.

75. Insider – January 27, 2019

73. Solartype

Nice try, but had you remembered a certain basic principle, you might have worded your post a little differently, and not revealed your true motive.

So, for the next time, remember this: The more a person “awakens,” or becomes more “spiritually advanced,” or however you want to describe whatever, the less they have any need or wish to label themselves as “level 5 or 6,” “conscious being,” “teacher,” “awakened,” etc. etc. Labels are for people who are pretending to be something they are not.

By the use of these labels, you have revealed the true level of yourself, your (awakened) friends in the Fellowship, and your “teacher.”

Hope this helps.

47. Golden Veil – February 1, 2019

Big Fish Teaches Students to Deep Dive in a Small Pond

Apparently a former member of the Gurdjieff Foundation, William Patrick Patterson, is satisfying the thirst of some teacher seekers and monetizing his knowledge of the Fourth Way in a seminar next month in Tucson, Arizona.

Love the photo!

gurdjiefflegacy.org/20announce/events.php?page=2#seminar1

49. ton2u – February 1, 2019

GV @ 47
Back in the ‘good old days’ when there were still book stores around – I think it was ’92 – I went to a Patterson lecture given at Barnes and Noble in Emeryville, Ca. Essentially a sales pitch followed by a book signing for “Eating the I” – I did not buy the book, was not impressed by the man or the pedantic presentation… but that’s just me – after the FOF I quit the “teacher seeker” game.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2019

The Fellowship of Friends Global Recruiting Network

4. Just the Facts Ma’am – February 18, 2019

If I may be so bold as to give a Fellowship of Friends meeting style angle, bear with me, as you may appreciate the ending:

In: Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching
of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky
by Maurice Nicoll, Volume 3, p. 1089, it says:

“‘The action of the Moon’ Gurdjieff said, in so many words, ‘is like a weight. It controls Organic Life, which covers the surface of the Earth as a sensitive film. It is like a weight on a pendulum. Its influence is to keep everything where and as it is. It uses Organic Life as its food. From this point of view life on Earth is a pain-factory.’”

The Fellowship of Friends, and particularly Robert Earl Burton, has seen to it that he has done everything he possibly can do to be sure that Life on Earth has been, and will continue to be, “a pain-factory.”

However, if you wake up, all bets are off.

11. truthorconsequences44 – February 18, 2019

4. Just the Facts Ma’am

Regarding Mr. G’s theory that organic life on earth is food for the moon: One wonders what Mr. G would have to say about this idea today, with humanity now having so much more scientific knowledge about the universe and the multitudinous galaxies, suns, planets and moons, dark matter, black holes, etc? His theory doesn’t intellectually resonate for me given the vast number of moons orbiting the even vaster number of planets within just our Milky Way, particularly when almost no planets (thus far seen) appear to have the elements necessary to support organic life in a form that we can imagine.

I also find this theory to be disturbingly similar to the Christian concepts of heaven, purgatory and hell, and the whole Zoroastrian, dualistic cosmology, with its orders of spiritual hierarchies and fear-based control mechanisms. Much of the unnecessary suffering of the world is the result of tribal allegiances to these types of religious beliefs.

At the very least, the theory that ‘organic life on earth is food for the moon’ remains totally theoretical for me, as I see no method for verifying this while still being within this life form on planet earth. Thus, IMO this is a useless and probably harmful construct of the mind, so why not just throw it in the trash or spam folder and then delete it!

12. rich – February 18, 2019

Interesting page, including FOF comments:

john-shirley.com/blog/?p=2073

13. Four Days of the Fourth State – February 18, 2019

12. rich

John Shirley is a lifelong Gurdjieff Foundation member (is my understanding) which I can personally assure you from direct experience is a deranged cult. They are as cult weird and cult sneaky as anyone else.

In my opinion.

***

4. Just the Facts Ma’am

“Moreover, in relation to organic life the moon is a huge electromagnet. If the action of the electromagnet were suddenly to stop, organic life would crumble to nothing.” – Gurdjieff (ISOTM)

The moon is not an electromagnet. It has almost no magnetic field at all. Gurdjieff is based on pseudo-science.

72. WonderingWhosWatching – February 25, 2019

Deadly Cults on Oxygen Media
oxygen.com/deadly-cults/crime-time/deadly-cults-oxygen

98. Ames Gilbert – February 27, 2019

Solartype, as the spokesperson for one of the competing groups of ‘conscious beings’ in the Fellowship of Friends, could you tell us, was Burton lying then, or lying now? I refer to his prediction that Dorian Mattei would ‘become conscious’ in 2018:

fofdiscussion.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/fellowship-of-friendsfourth-way-schoolliving-presence-discussion-page-160/#comment-81601

Please, Solartype, I am breathless with anticipation and about to conk out: what is the state of Dorian Mattei’s ‘consciousness’ nowadays, and, either way—how do you know?

Thank you in advance for your consideration, you can be sure that you have somewhat relieved a fellow human’s suffering, even if it is of the unnecessary kind.

Thinking about claims of consciousness that I have come across…
There are the four that ‘William’ referenced, above, the ‘Fab Twelve’ that Solartype represents and advertised on several recent pages, and then the sorry bunch that Cult Survivor has just dug up and published for our benefit—which Solartype says is incorrect, except for two that overlap.

And there is ‘Patricia’, who announced her arrival as a Man #6

fofdiscussion.wordpress.com/2018/01/27/fellowship-of-friends-fourth-way-school-living-presence-discussion-page-161/#comment-81671

And there is Charles Sharp, of course, claiming his rather peculiar brand of ‘consciousness’—the consciousness of the wealthy man, constantly surrounded by fawning idiots desirous of crumbs from his table, perhaps? …

…and Nicolas Walker, who told me personally that he was ‘conscious’ and that C–Influence communicated with him on an individual basis, what, in 1992 or so? At the time, I just took that as further evidence of his kookiness and made sure I was never alone in the same room with him, even though he was, at that point, my brother–in–law. Gads!

But now I’m wondering, vague rumors are reaching me that Walker has a long–time operation going, a ‘school–within–a–school’ (acolytes composed only of women), in the manner of Asaf Braverman with his BePeriod.com.

Of course, I would be remiss to leave out Benjamin Yudin, who has long been fooling around the edges, not quite as bold or ready to take the plunge, as he conducts his classes in ‘Keying Esoteric Bible Symbols’ and such.

Maybe alert readers can remind me of others, there must be many over the last 48 years, apart from those who actually left and went on to form their own debased versions of Fourth Way ‘schools’, like Randazzo or Braverman.

I can understand, it must be mighty tempting to grab a chunk of the action while the going is good and Burton demonstrates his senility and ever more tenuous grasp of reality on a daily basis. The old order is disintegrating, time takes its toll, everything must change, even fossils—or belief systems—become further compressed, or exposed to the weather.

It doesn’t take much to imagine a whole seething mass of power plays going on right now: who is going to inherit the mess when Burton finally descends into the well–deserved hell of his own making, which he calls, “Paradise”?

19. Four Days of the Fourth State – March 17, 2019

One of the first set of cult psyops maneuvers the Gurdjieff Foundation fanatics use to establish in the mind of the new person that he or she is the insignificant applicant while the cult handler is the indifferent VIP that you are trying to make contact with is they arrange a meeting at a cafe or some such public place and then fail to show up. The interested applicant naturally reasons there must be some kind of mistake and after 40 minutes or so calls the cult handler who then pretends to not remember anything about the appointment, even though he or she set the meeting time and date. If you don’t show irritation over the phone then the handler casually asks if you’re still interested in meeting. If you do show irritation then they suggest perhaps some other time would be better.

Right away this establishes that the cult is in charge and the interested party is the beggar and that the begging requires persistence.

They are so pleased with themselves over these traditional tricks that they can’t help but inform you of the ruse later, just so you’ll know how clever they are and how susceptible you are in your state of sleep.

20. Robert P. – March 17, 2019

Response to #19 (FDFS):

I have been in two different (though related) groups associated with the Gurdjieff Foundation for 10 + years. I have never heard of the “psyops maneuvers” that are described in FDFS’ post. My experience contacting the groups, being interviewed (so to speak), becoming part of an initiatory group and, ultimately, being invited into the main groups was nothing remotely like what FDFS describes. The Foundation groups operate independently of one another. As such, the protocol for admitting new members also varies from group to group and can even vary within each group depending on who is responsible at any given time for meeting with interested persons. In most cases, interested persons will meet in an initiatory group separate from the main body of members. The initiatory groups are headed up by a few senior group members. The initiatory groups can last many months, sometimes more than one year. Those that stick out that process may then be invited to join the main group.

84. ton2u – April 9, 2019

Re: ‘sex slaves’

The morning newspaper had a short article about a court case involving Allison Mack who recruited human “fodder” for yet another “garden variety” cult…

vice.com/en_us/topic/keith-raniere

58. WhaleRider – April 24, 2019

Interesting NY Times article relative to burton’s fraudulent use of “c-influence” and rape of his followers.

“…there is a clear distinction between consent and assent. “Consent means ‘freely given, knowledgeable and informed agreement.’ Assent means ‘agreement on the face of it.’ So, when someone tells you a lie, you can be agreeing on the face of it but you’re not knowledgeable or informed. You can assent and agree, but that doesn’t mean you’re consenting.”

google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/well/mind/is-sex-by-deception-a-form-of-rape.amp.html

60. 44th Way – April 25, 2019

Hello,
I have recently left the Fellowship after 27 years and am putting my thoughts together mostly for my own purposes, but they might be useful to others. I am at 44thway.blogspot.com and comments are welcome. Please do not publish my identity which is not hard to figure out.

In friendship (is it still ok to write that?),

44th Way

90. John Harmer – April 27, 2019

In the discussion about the extent to which Burton has distorted the teachings of the 4th way, I find myself concluding that the most dangerous ideas/practices are the two most fundamental to the 4th way. Self remembering and the non expression of negative emotions. The technique advised in the FoF to separate from events that might usually provoke negative feelings led in my case to a strange state.

At first I was pleased, because after all, we joined a cult to get results, and this was a change. But in the end I realised it was unhealthy. It resulted in my not feeling emotions at all in a reactive way. I “allowed” myself to feel the approved emotions of awe and silent wonder, but interposed a mental block if events threatened to make me feel bad. My preferred technique was to contemplate the extreme age of the universe and my tiny position in it, in the light of which the personal event would pale into insignificance. Seems OK at first. But in the end it meant I could “choose” how to feel about everything, which meant I had lost touch with my body’s reactions. I believe it is called “depersonalistion” in the psychology literature. “Dividing attention”, the way in to self remembering promoted in the FoF, compounded this effect, by encouraging a distance between our embodied reality, and a part that can stand back and observe oneself as “an interesting stranger”.

I personally found it very helpful to expunge all “work language” from my internal dialogue and speech for years after I left the FoF. There is usually a natural language way of expressing the same idea, and that little effort helped me step out of the mind set that a fourth way student imposes on himself. It took some years before I could feel anger and just let it happen without trying to “separate” from it. Some of that anger was directed back at Burton, though now, decades later, I try not to focus too much on him, he is not worth spending too much time on.

93. WhaleRider – April 29, 2019

It dawned on me today that one of the reasons the fourth way works so well not only to recruit followers, but to funnel unsuspecting victims who join the cult directly into burton’s predatory orbit is that Ouspensky’s books focus on both the “efforts” required in the so-called, pseudo-scientific “system” and also a great deal upon Ouspensky’s close relationship with his teacher, Gurdjieff.

To my recollection, Ouspensky doesn’t mention anyone else in his writings in such vivid detail.

It was all about Mr O. and Mr G., with musical accompaniment provided by Saltzman.

(Toward the end of Gurdjieff’s life, apparently it was all about the Benjamins…determining who could pay the most to have direct contact with him, of course after he disavowed any connection with Nicoll’s American extension of his cult. All roads led to Gurdjieff, just like all roads lead to burton, there are no others.)

So as a result of my intense study of Ouspensky’s three main books (required reading according to my center director) that’s what I was led to expect when I joined the so-called “fourth way school” called the Fellowship of Friends…that I eventually needed to have as close a relationship with my “teacher” as Ouspensky did with his – sans the “expression of negative emotions” – in order to “evolve”.

And in order to be a member and be “photographed” in the fourth way tradition or shown just how “asleep” I was, payment was necessary, the perfect setup for burton’s (or other’s) predatory sexual, emotional, and financial exploitation.

IMO, that’s what makes the fourth way and supporting “work language” so incredibly toxic.

The more depersonalized I grew through the practice of “self-observation” of “the machine”, the more compliant I became. Any resistance to burton’s agenda was negatively labeled as “willfulness” or succumbing to “feminine dominance”.

Fourth way ideas are also used by the cult as a self-destructive weapon to turn a person against themself…hence the evolution of “false personality versus true personality” into the FOF’s splitting of a person’s psyche into the “upper self versus lower self”.

Modern Psychology, on the other hand, teaches one to have a more constructive, nuanced, and inclusive relationship with a person’s unconscious parts, generally in an empathetic setting, without mystifying spiritual and delusional superstitious beliefs.

Bear in mind that the language of psychology, i.e. terms like cognitive dissonance, magical thinking, ideas of reference, thought reform, narcissism, ego, personality, sociopathic behavior, etc., are the lens through which the public at large can safely comprehend the cult experience (and many here regularly use to describe and understand our cult experience) without having to join a cult and learn first hand or reduce our cult experiences into a simplistic battle between good and evil.

For example, we look to the work of Margaret Singer, PhD, a Clinical Psychologist, who was a leading expert in the topic, to articulate the underpinning of cult behavior for us.

In other words, psychological language can help a person understand that in order for a pathologically narcissistic personality to thrive as in a cult situation, he or she must be surrounded by people with pathologically accommodating personalities who lack healthy narcissism, myself included at the time…the cult milieu functioning as the arena for the interplay between the selfish and the selfless in all of us, without becoming self derogatory about having joined or simply pointing the finger (or giving the finger in my case) at burton.

And one of the proven methods to deprogram a person from cult indoctrination such as the fourth way is to strongly suggest they “ABANDON THE SYSTEM”…ironically Ouspensky’s famous last words)…and the language associated with it.

(And on the off chance that anyone still in the cult is reading this, that’s your c-influence for today.)

34. Linda Jo – May 6, 2019

Gurdieff and the Fourth Way: A Critical Appraisal

gurdjiefffourthway.org

35. Associated Press – May 7, 2019

Digging further found:

A project of:
Learning Institute for Growth, Healing and Transformation (LIGHT)

lightwinnipeg.org

36. Golden Veil – May 7, 2019

35. Associated Press – May 7, 2019

I found it, too. Fellowship of Friends former member Joel Friedlander is quoted [in the part below] footnoted (22) and William Patterson (24) in “Gurdieff and the Fourth Way: A Critical Appraisal” in the section Contemporary Status of the Work, pages 6 – 17, which I have excerpted below. In footnote (24), the Fellowship of Friends is specifically mentioned.

~ ~ ~

The techniques used by some “teachers” to transmit Work ideas can have a powerful and potentially negative effect on students if not properly employed:

“It has been reported that in an effort to provide the ‘friction’ or difficulties that are deemed necessary to the Work, ‘teachers’ have made their unwitting students endure extreme periods of sleeplessness, fasting, silence, irrational and sudden demands, extraordinary physical efforts, and so on.” (22)

A more extreme distortion of the Gurdjieff group dynamic occurs in the case where the leader manipulates students for ego satisfaction or personal gain.(23) Some of these groups have all the characteristics of a cult. (24) Psychologist Charles Tart warns of the dangers of becoming involved in such groups:

Gurdjieff’s ideas readily lend themselves to authoritarian interpretations that turn work based on them into cults (in the worst sense of the term), giving great power to a charismatic leader. Some of these leaders are deluded about their level of development but are very good at influencing others. Some are just plain charlatans who appreciate the services and money available from devoted followers. It is dangerous to get involved with any group teaching Gurdjieff’s ideas. It may be led by a charlatan, it may be only a social group with no real teaching effect, it may be riddled with pathological group dynamics that hurt its members. (25)

FOOTNOTES for the above:

(22) Joel Friedlander “The Work Today” Gnosis No. 20, Summer 1991, p. 40.

(23) Frank Sinclair, a past president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York, with many years experience observing various Work groups, writes in Without Benefit of Clergy (Xlibris, 2005, p. 15) that many group leaders are “subject to weaknesses and sins, not to speak of downright ignorance, appalling self-conceit, unexamined arrogance, and presumptuous elitism: how many there are who profess to have been ‘specially prepared’ and singled out (often only by themselves) to carry the torch.”

(24) An example of a cult masking as a Fourth Way group is the Gurdjieff Ouspensky Center, also known as the Fellowship of Friends. The organization refers to its studies as a Gurdjieff/Ouspensky teaching (although Ouspensky is clearly their major inspiration) and claims that it has expanded the scope of these teachings by introducing cultural and philosophical material from the world’s great spiritual traditions and thinkers. This organization differs from most Gurdjieff groups in their active recruitment of followers; and there have been a number of serious allegations about the organization and in particular the leader of the movement, Robert Burton. See James Moore “Gurdjieffian Groups in Britain” (Religion Today, Volume 3(2), 1986, pp. 1-4), Theodore Nottingham “The Fourth Way and Inner Transformation” (Gnosis No. 20, Summer 1991, p. 22) and William Patterson Taking With the Left Hand (Fairfax, California: Arete Communications, 1998).

(25) Charles Tart Waking Up: (Boston: Shambhala, 1986), pp. 288-289.

~ ~ ~

Word about the Fellowship of Friends does get around! At times, former members even broadcast their own experiences and raise awareness about “The School” without revealing that they, too, were once members.

Dissemination of the Work During Gurdjieff’s Lifetime

P. D. Ouspensky in England and America
A. R. Orage in America
Jean Toomer in New York and Chicago
The Taliesin Fellowship of Wisconsin
John G. Bennett in England

Gurdjieff’s Successors and Teaching Lines

Jeanne de Salzmann and the Gurdjieff Foundation
The Work in England
The Work in America

Contemporary Status of the Work

Current Gurdjieff Groups and Organizations
The Enneagram Phenomenon
Challenges Facing the Work

62. Golden Veil – June 5, 2019

Down the rabbit hole…

A serendipitous search of “Law of Accidents” brought up a link to FourthWaySchool.org which has an inactive forum and may have been created by former Fellowship of Friends students, if the authors of the advertised book are connected to the website.

Under the Community button there is an inactive Forum (where this Discussion is described) and under the Tools button, a page devoted to how one can identify “False Teachers, Fake Schools, and Sham Religions.”

fourthwayschool.org/accident1.html

ex-cult Resource Center

100. Insider – June 10, 2019

Focusing only on sex is missing the much larger picture. Yes, for those who were forced into having sex with Burton, i.e. were raped by him, that aspect of Burton and the Fellowship may always be the most important with the deepest scars.

For me the bigger picture is Burton as the lying, manipulating, opportunistic cult leader who, at some point in his cult career (whether from before the FF was founded, as I believe, or during the early years of the FF) understood how great, easy, risk-free, and lucrative this cult/religious business would be, and how much fun, in a sick way, it is to lie.

How easy? In those days (early 70s), with “a Guru on every corner” (from Thomas Farber’s Tales for the Son of My Unborn Child), anyone lacking conscience, and with an ounce of “stage presence,” could organize a meeting, and tell the most outrageous lies about him/herself (“conscious being,” “Man No. 5,” whatever), and see how many in the audience bought it. There’s always a small percentage (think Bonita and Linda Kaplan, for example), who would hopefully form the nucleus of a “conscious school.” But no worries, even if no one bites, nothing is lost, except the cost of a few flyers, and the guru-scammer can try again somewhere else. How many people did Burton try to scam before he hooked Bonita?

Not only is Burton not, and never was, anything he has always claimed about himself, it is highly likely that many of the key concepts of the 4th Way itself are erroneous and impossible, such as “becoming a conscious being,” i.e. creating consciousness out of matter. (Not to open a can of worms here. Just sharing a personal belief/understanding that Burton is, at best, a novice in matters he professes to be the highest, greatest expert in.)

Tales for the Son of My Unborn Child

Berkeley, 1966-1969

By Thomas Farber

Getting Religion

23. Just the Facts Ma’am – June 18, 2019

Reposting this. Did anyone read the article?
See an additional quote at bottom.

Unmasking the Guru

Our new digital world has made it impossible to believe in infallible teachers. What comes next is up to us.

Interview with Bernhard Pörksen by Ursula Richard
SUMMER 2019 [Tricycle]

Changing cultural attitudes are not the only. . .reason that public revelations of institutionalized sexual abuse have been at the forefront of mainstream consciousness. Abuse is nothing new. What is new is the way it is being revealed to the public—and what the public is doing with the information.

Bernhard Pörksen is a professor of media studies at the University of Tübingen in southwest Germany, with particular research interest in the new media age. His writing regularly appears in both scholarly and popular science publications, and two of his books have been on the bestseller list in Germany. He has written or co-authored books on topics such as journalism, constructivism, and communications and systems theories, and he has received accolades for his direct and engaged appearances as a speaker, talk show guest, interview moderator, and discussion partner on radio and television as well as at conventions and public events.

In the following interview, Ursula Richard of the German magazine Buddhismus aktuell discusses with Pörksen the exposure and aftermath of scandals in Buddhist communities today and how we can understand the emerging role played by digital media.

—The Editors

tricycle.org/magazine/bernhard-porksen/

Or, in print, at a newsstand near you.

Another quote:

“To sum it up: the holy man has become a broken shell, the guru is a sad or pathetic or—worst-case scenario—even criminal figure. And the image of the exalted being has to compete for attention with our personal experience and the online documentation of the guru’s disgrace.”

24. WhaleRider – June 18, 2019

Just the Facts Ma’am:
Excellent article, thanks for reposting. It brings up an important issue touched upon by Cult Survivor:

“In conclusion, is there also a maxim relating to abuse issues? Yes. However difficult and painful it may be, at some point we have to accept the unthinkable as thinkable, in spite of our own experience of beauty, tranquility, and kindness. “See what is different from you, in all its strange-ness and fearfulness” might be the relevant categorical imperative to guide perception. And then investigate carefully and impartially, and act immediately to empower victims and prevent further suffering.”

Since burton’s current harem were trafficked presumably from a social, economic or political environment far worse than the opulent environment they are currently living in, and although they have been groomed and manipulated into being burton’s sex slaves and probably living with the fear of deportation and therefore may not complain as a result…has this accommodation of burton’s fraud and sexual mania cleansed the conscience of his followers and alleviated the suffering of his victims?

IMO, only once the guru is unmasked and demystified, so too is the suffering his victims endured unmasked and demystified.

81. Nancy Gilbert – July 21, 2019

npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/21/743408637/how-microexpressions-can-make-moods-contagious

This article summarizes research on the phenomena of group feel and group think, which are shown to be part and parcel of human and other animals’ inherent neurological wiring. Very interesting in view of how friends, cults and other groups affect and convert our thoughts, feelings, POV, etc. A bit like the discovery that trees and other plants in an ecosystem are all interconnected by complex pathways with mycorrhizae in the soil.

84. Artemis44 – July 21, 2019

I contacted Cult Survivor and he says he has no connection with Patterson whatsoever confirming that Patterson reads this blog.

I downloaded a complimentary issue of Patterson’s ‘Gurdjieff Journal’, (the link is at the end).

I noticed that the free issue was no. 29. Since the current issue with REB on the cover is 79 and it’s a quarterly publication the complimentary issue is from 2009 or before. The first article is ‘Rosie, Sharon, Alex, Robert & The Work’ what indicates that Patterson has been in a crusade against REB for a while, probably to avoid competition to his online school as WR suggested.

https://drive.google.com

92. Tim Campion – July 21, 2019

A short excerpt about Robert Burton from Patterson’s 1998 book, Taking With the Left Hand and another anecdote about close encounters with Patterson’s group can be found here.

95. WhaleRider – July 22, 2019

Nancy Gilbert:
Thanks for the link. Here’s another aspect of FOF groupthink that can cause a follower to remain a loyal follower, waste years of their lives serving burton’s narcissism and continue to recruit others to join the cult despite burton’s history of collateral damage and failed predictions: the Dunning-Kruger effect.

“In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

People perceive confident individuals as competent and, as a result, promote individuals with higher self-confidence.” ~Wikipedia

“We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead…they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine.”

semanticscholar.org/paper/Unskilled-and-unaware-of-it

Direct lineage to Gurdjieff is neither a measure of intelligence nor competence.

Narcissistic, overconfident individuals who claim to be more “conscious” than others continue promoting the delusional ideas of the fourth way due to their own incompetence in the field of psychology and to compensate for their own lack of self-awareness, IMO.

96. Insider – July 22, 2019

Here is the link to #79 of The Gurdjieff Journal:

dropbox.com

76. Cult Survivor – January 20, 2020

I found today an interesting article from a former member named Vaillant Gicqueau titled “The Use of Anchors in Cults.” The article is from October 12th, 2018.

Here is the definition of “anchor” from the article: “In NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), ‘anchoring’ refers to the process of associating an internal response with some external or internal trigger so that the response may be quickly, and sometimes covertly, reassessed.” Some examples of FOF “anchors” are license plates, the number 44, etc.

I know from my personal experience that “anchors” are very powerful: I left the FOF more than 3 years ago and I still catch myself noticing coincidences on license plates, outdoor signs, music lyrics, etc. This phenomenon is decreasing with time but is still fairly frequent.

I have a question for the blog: How long does it take for the so-called “anchors” to stop working? Do people who left decades ago still feel their action sporadically?

Back to our friend Vaillant’s interesting analysis, this is the part of the article that mentions the FOF:

“(…) I was in a cult called the Fellowship of Friends from age 20 and 23. According to its leader Robert Burton, there were 44 angels, or ‘conscious beings’ directly working with his ‘conscious school’. He claims to be personally guided by Leonardo da Vinci. According to Burton, these disembodied beings were the ‘Higher Forces’, or ‘C Influence’ supporting him in his mission and helping all cult members to awaken.

Any of you reading this, may think that people joining this cult would be simple-minded and foolish. This was not the case. The Fellowship of Friends had many members that had a high IQ and who would be regarded as very intelligent by the rest of society. There were engineers, entrepreneurs, teachers, business executives and many of them had university degrees. As people, we typically hold as truth what other people we trust believe, even if we have no direct experience of it. For example, we adopt the Big Bang theory as absolute truth while it is just that, a theory, plus most of us have not studied all the hypotheses that come with it.

Silly beliefs like the 44 angels of Burton get propagated not only for peer pressure but because they meet important emotional needs in followers:

1 – The need for significance.

If I have angels working directly with me to wake-up, I am suddenly someone very important. If the cult has 5,000 members, it means I am one out of a million to be selected by higher powers. If I am connected to someone who says he is even higher than Jesus, that makes me that much more important. If Leonardo Da Vinci works with me, then I must be a very special person. In this way, we develop the cult personality to suppress our hurt inner child that sees itself as worthless.

2 – The need for belonging.

Now I belong to a special group of people so this means that I am not alone anymore. I finally have a family and I have friends. I have people that I love and love me in return (not knowing yet consciously this is conditional love dependent upon my membership to the cult). I belong to a community that is guided by another community of supernatural angels guiding the earth. The cult personality is then a way to suppress the hurt inner child that sees itself as unlovable and miserably lonely.

3 – The need for meaning.

If I am supposed to build an ark to save the earth, then my life has suddenly become meaningful. I have a mission on this earth to fulfill. I have a purpose and I am out of confusion as a result. I can finally make sense of life complexity by understanding the cult dogmas. The cult personality to gain meaning is a way to suppress the hurt inner child that sees itself as irrelevant, confused, meaningless and lost.

Being part of a cult is a coping mechanism not to face some deeply and painful feelings from the inner child. The cult is able to provide beliefs and experiences that repress these aspects of us we are so afraid to bring to conscious awareness. All these fears are the incentives for creating within ourselves the cult personality.

Anchors created by the cult then reinforce these beliefs. In NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), ‘anchoring’ refers to the process of associating an internal response with some external or internal trigger so that the response may be quickly, and sometimes covertly, reassessed.

Any time we would inadvertently see the number 44 whether it was on a license plate, a street address or any other impression, we would think ‘Influence C’ was speaking to us, reinforcing the belief we were special, on the right track and that we belonged. These emotions are very addictive especially as we feel the exact opposite deep within us in our hurt inner child. Furthermore, when we would see 44, we would mention it to other cult members as it gave us a sense of superiority. In order not to face these painful repressed feelings, some people get addicted to alcohol, legal and illegal drugs, porn, video games or food. Other people like me join a cult.

This is another reason why it is so difficult to leave cults. Leaving the cult means losing the 44 angels that were there before to protect you. There is no bigger fear in the human psyche than being abandoned by God. Leaving the cult means stopping feeling special and significant. It means losing your friends and family. You are now back in the mass of regular people that you used to despise and feel superior towards. As you leave the group, the anchor now acts in reverse reflecting your own loneliness, purposelessness and nothingness. (…)”

Here is the link to the article (reading recommended):
elephantjournal.com/now/the-use-of-anchors-in-cults-3/

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020

Trump’s Acquittal Shows The GOP Senate Acts Like A Cult

1. & 2. WhaleRider – May 11, 2020

“…he is actually testing people’s loyalty to the ‘laws’ of his mind over the laws of nature, or even impulse for survival. The more he abuses them, the greater their devotion grows, since the psychological cost of admitting their mistake is ever higher — and so it becomes easier to dig a well of unreality than to see the obvious truth.

Mental symptoms do not discriminate between levels of intelligence. What we are seeing is what mental health experts warned would happen if we left a severely impaired person in an influential position without treatment, and what others have described as a cult.

But what I find most insidious is the contagion of symptoms: prolonged exposure…causes you to “catch” his worldview, and even the healthiest, soundest people turn “crazy,” as if afflicted with the same condition.

This is a known phenomenon I have encountered a great deal from working in underserved settings. It is interchangeably called “shared psychosis,” “folie à plusieurs” or “induced delusional disorder.” The cure is removal. Then, quite dramatically, an entire afflicted family, street gang or prison cell-block that seemed almost “possessed” returns to normal.

When experts call out abnormal signs, it is not a diagnosis but important information… It is not up to mental health experts to say how it is to be done, but it is our responsibility to say what must be done, based on our best assessment. Our prescription is removal.”

~ Dr Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine on testing loyalty in the cult of Trump.

5. ton2u – May 13, 2020

newrepublic.com/article/152638/escape-trump-cult

19. Tim Campion – June 1, 2020

We Tried Wine Made By A “Cult”

32. Insider – June 27, 2020

No doubt, everyone is aware of the significance of today’s date. Six years ago on June 27, 2014, The Absolute paid His first noticeable visit to Apollo and Robert Burton. The following is a transcript from a meeting Burton led 800 days later, when She (having changed its gender) came a 2nd time, and when details of the visit were finally made public, including a never-before-seen photograph of Burton spontaneously taking a knee (actually 2 knees).

‘This is a photograph of me kneeling and bowing, kissing the ground during the first visit of the Absolute. It occurred right in the front of the Gallery at the beginning of the rose arbor, after you walk through the four cypress trees and turn left. Petrarch said, “I bless the place, the time, and the hour of the day/that my eyes aimed their sight at such a height.” Here we see that. Then we walked straight ahead, beyond the path on the right, and our dog Apollo was doing his business — number two — on the lawn. It was the third state. Nicky [J*hns*n] was with Him. Nicky is now in drug rehab.

Afterwards Sasha and I went into the house. (Dorian came later.) He then did an act of humility for me. All I could think of was to get down and kiss Sasha’s feet as an act of humility too. Who are we that He should do an act of humility for us? But that was the only response I could think of. We are in the same Pavilion with Him right now. Even in your ninth life, you will probably not receive this exceedingly special experience. All I can do is speak for our school. One reason that He is visiting us is because the first angel visited us and we are at the end of the sequence of civilizations. We are the thirty-third expression of schools in different galaxies.’

The Gurdjieff Foundation has about two dozen centers, mostly in north America.

There are Gurdjieff-Ouspensky Centers in over 30 countries around the world; they are operated by the Fellowship of Friends and are not associated with the Gurdjieff Foundation but with Robert Earl Burton.

See also enneagram and Ouspensky.

In Search of P. D. Ouspensky

The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff

By Gary Lachman

The Harmonious Circle

The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff,

P. D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers

By James Webb

THE OCCULT WEBB

An Appreciation of the Life and Work of James Webb

Compiled by John Robert Colombo

PART I II III

A Cult Survivor's Handbook

FPT-3

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