Introduction


Robert Earl Burton founded The Fellowship of Friends in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1970. Burton modeled his own group after that of Alex Horn, loosely borrowing from the Fourth Way teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. In recent years, the Fellowship has cast its net more broadly, embracing any spiritual tradition that includes (or can be interpreted to include) the notion of "presence."

The Fellowship of Friends exhibits the hallmarks of a "doomsday religious cult," wherein Burton exercises absolute authority, and demands loyalty and obedience. He warns that his is the only path to consciousness and eternal life. Invoking his gift of prophecy, he has over the years prepared his flock for great calamities (e.g. a depression in 1984, the fall of California in 1998, nuclear holocaust in 2006, and most recently the October 2018 "Fall of California Redux.")

According to Burton, Armageddon still looms in our future and when it finally arrives, non-believers shall perish while, through the direct intervention and guidance from 44 angels (recently expanded to 81 angels, including himself and his divine father, Leonardo da Vinci), Burton and his followers shall be spared, founding a new and more perfect civilization. Read more about the blog.

Presented in a reverse chronology, the Fellowship's history may be navigated via the "Blog Archive" located in the sidebar below.

Saturday, July 27, 1996

Apollo Opera troupe performs "Don Giovanni"

From The Sacramento Bee [Complete article can be downloaded for a fee at this link.]
NEVADA COUNTY TROUPE CAPTURES MORAL FORCE OF "DON GIOVANNI"

Published on July 27, 1996, Page G7.

"Grand opera" and "Grass Valley" may alliterate, but what else do they have common?

Well, tonight, one of the grandest operas of them all, Mozart's "Don Giovanni." It's being put on by a small but highly competent company, Apollo Opera, in the Don Baggett Theatre at Nevada Union High School. Having seen the only other public performance Thursday, I strongly recommend seeing it, even if...