Robert Earl Burton and The Fellowship of Friends: October 2000

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.

Sunday, October 1, 2000

Ten Years of Daily Cards is published

[ed. - Contrary to the description below, the Fellowship of Friends practice of distributing "daily cards" containing aphorisms similar, if not identical, to those quoted throughout this blog, dates back to the 1970s. Ulysses Books is associated with Fellowship member Carlos Labbate, and is the publisher of such so-called "Faux Fourth Way" gems as Girard Havens' Thoughts: Based on the Teachings of Robert Burton, Creating a Soul: Insights from a Fourth Way School, and The Prize Is Eternity: Foundations of Inner Work in the Fourth Way.]

Ten Years of Daily Cards by Robert Earl Burton

ISBN10:0964578239
ISBN13:978-0964578234
List Price: $29.00
Hardcover: 393 pages
Ulysses Books

Since February 1988 Robert Burton has provided in the form of small cards distributed to his students, daily suggestions for inner work and angles of thought related to the Fourth Way System. This publication presents all of them as given between 1988 and 1997 in one handsome volume. With an introduction by Girard Haven on the right use of Mr. Burton's angles and a comprehensive Index.