Asaf Braverman quietly buries decades-long service to Robert Earl Burton

From an ex-Fellowship member's archive, this photo of Asaf Braverman and Robert Burton in headier days
may have been taken in Vienna, Austria, circa 2004.

[ed. - It appears "Fourth Way teacher" Asaf Braverman now recognizes a liability in his roughly 20 years of devotion and service to Robert Earl Burton and The Fellowship of Friends. As Ames Gilbert writes below, Braverman's newly-polished résumé omits some "inconvenient truths."

Braverman faces a dilemma, just as Robert Burton faced when he departed Alex Horn's "school" in the late 1960s. The Fourth Way teaches that an essential element of esoteric schools is an unbroken lineage of direct transmission from "conscious teacher" to student. Thus, Braverman is bound by tradition to acknowledge his sole link to that sacred lineage, his "conscious teacher" and mentor Robert Earl Burton.

Prior to his departure from the Fellowship, Asaf Braverman's Gurdjieff website (accessed September 12, 2016) included Robert Earl Burton in his presentation of the Fourth Way lineage. From his "Backstage" post (bolds added):]

Asaf Braverman

"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. I traveled to all the major ancient sites of the world, spanning Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Central and South America."

Asaf Braverman (pre-2020 autobiography)

[ed. - Bolds added]

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.

Upon encountering the writings of George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky, during his late-teens, Asaf Braverman’s interest in practical self-knowledge was kindled. The Fourth Way – the name of the teaching that these two teachers had coined – its source extending as far back into antiquity as pre-history, was a perfected system for the evolution of consciousness in man. [ed. - Many would challenge this assertion!] In the late nineteenth century, during his varied travels and sojourns in Central Asia, George Gurdjieff gathered the scattered fragments of ancient wisdom. Peter Ouspensky then documented Gurdjieff’s exposition into a systematic presentation.

During his national service in the Israeli Army, Asaf joined the Tel-Aviv center of Fellowship of Friends, a Fourth Way school. After completing his military service, Asaf moved to the school’s headquarters in Northern California. Under the guidance of his teacher, Robert Burton, Asaf incorporated more ancient sources into the Fourth Way teaching, in effect, expanding the legacies of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and engaging in a continuation of their search, paving the Fourth Way into the 21st century.

When he turned thirty years old, Asaf Braverman embarked on a journey throughout Europe, Asia, South America and the Orient in search of the alleged ancient origins of the Fourth Way. He based himself in Europe and ventured from there to most of the major ancient sites of the world, using the Fourth Way principles as a touchstone to assay the cultures and traditions of Ancient Egypt, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and more. Like pieces of a great mystic puzzle, one of awe-inspiring breadth and depth, Asaf began to comprehend the timeless scale and striking similarities of these cultures, thus confirming Gurdjieff’s claim that the Fourth Way, indeed, encompasses all the known ancient teachings of mankind.

Asaf Braverman was also given to understand why these connections were not obvious: time inevitably distorted each expression of the teaching, giving form (traditions, rituals and rites) precedence over life. In each age, wherever upon the Earth that schools appeared, they had to revive their message of truth into new expressions so that man could pursue conscious development. Asaf likened this phenomenon to an ‘Ark in Time’: the spirit of truth is represented by the dove; its physical expression by the vessel of the ark; and its threatening degeneration by the floods of time.

Asaf Braverman (2020 autobiography)

[ed. - Bolds added. Ever the opportunist, Braverman here portrays himself as victim. A "quality" most notably witnessed in America's 45th President.]

Early in life, I was overcome by a paralyzing aimlessness. The prospect of graduating from high school and being drafted to the military, then college, career, family, and so on, made me feel like I was entering a production line that wouldn’t stop till I’d die. Yet who was I? Where was I? And why was I here? My elders dismissed these questions as inconsequential, though I could see they didn’t have a clue; they were only further down the production line than I was. I resolved to either find a deeper meaning to life, or die searching for one.

I began reading a wide range of literature. At first, my search bore no fruit. Western psychology seemed impossibly complex, Eastern spirituality suspiciously simplistic. There were a few exceptions that inspired without instructing. They did little in paving a way forward. My difficulty was compounded by my not knowing exactly what I was searching for, although I navigated by an intuition that the truth should be practical and measurable. I eventually found a genre of psychology called The Fourth Way that answered many of my questions in an unique and unflattering way. It claimed its origins were ancient, while only hinting vaguely at what these origins might be. I was intrigued. Had the answers to the deepest questions been known to past ages? And if so, why were they hidden?

The same teaching insisted that one could not practice its principles on one’s own, that one had to learn from others. So in 1995, at the age of eighteen, I joined a local branch of an international Fourth Way school. [ed. - Here, Braverman avoids directly mentioning Robert Earl Burton and The Fellowship of Friends and instead links to his own website. However, a reference to Burton and the Fellowship can be found "buried" in a subsequent "About" link. But it is clearly important that Braverman displace from top search results these references to his past affiliations.]

Members were of a mixed crowd. Not all were like-minded, nor did all share my enthusiasm toward self-study. Some of the more experienced students, however, who had been practicing this teaching for years, exhibited a sincerity and depth that attracted me. They could see right through me and advise me in a way the written word never could.

At the time of my joining, the organization had been functioning for 25 years and had accumulated in its wake the debris of cult and scandal. The founder was controversial. When I eventually met him in the year 2000, I saw the reasons for the controversy, but I also recognized a method in his madness. Sensing an opportunity, and knowing I had nothing to lose, I put myself at his service and gradually became his right hand man, handling issues that ranged from teaching to human relations and from logistics to finances. I often fulfilled the delicate position of intermediary between him and his students. This brought me in intimate contact with almost all the members of his school and exposed me to their difficulties, challenges, and successes.

Our collaboration peaked in 2004, by which time my position became very specified. The frequency of his teaching events had increased and I was entrusted with giving them content and structure. Teaching requires repetition and repetition is always threatened by dogma. How could we repeat our lessons without allowing them to lose their vitality? We tackled this challenge by expanding our sources beyond the Fourth Way to the historical traditions of the world. We were learning and teaching simultaneously, and this infused our presentation with the thrill of discovery. It forced me to dig up the hidden roots that the Fourth Way had claimed it had, but had never explicitly exposed. We worked intensively during this period, sometimes hosting three teaching events per day. The volume of knowledge I had to sift through was considerable.

Our connection ended abruptly. [ed. - In 2016, not in 2007.] In 2007, the organization came under the scrutiny of the US immigration [ed. - See INS story.] department and the foreigners in my position were forced to promptly leave the country. After seven years of complete dedication, of having all but died to my former life, I was exiled from my friends, commitments, and belongings. There was a good deal of panic and mishandling on the organization’s part, and it left those sent away with feelings of betrayal. On my part, along with the hard feelings was also an auspicious air around this unlikely turn of events, as if it were so bizarre that it had to be meaningful.

Rumors of my exile spread and members around the world invited me over while the storm abated. For a while I was on an open ended trip. Cut asunder from my past obligations, I had ample time to visit Notre Dame of Paris, or San Marco of Venice, or the Taj Mahal of Agra. So as this interim of uncertainty turned from days to weeks and from weeks to months, I became exposed to major historic monuments of the world. Having delved so deeply into inner work in the preceding years, and having researched ancient cultures so thoroughly, I began perceiving these monuments differently. Their architecture, sculpture, and painting assumed a new meaning, entirely nonreligious, surprisingly practical.

My perceptions were doubtlessly influenced by the psychological pressure of exile, by grappling with betrayal and injustice, and by the vast and daunting unknown that lay before me. And yet, it was this very pressure that enabled me to look with unprecedented clarity. The thread of exile runs straight through the tapestry of human history. I could see Adam exiled from Paradise, or Odysseus exiled from Ithaca, or Rama exiled from Ayodhya, at eye level. Time and distance availed not; they were with me, those mythical men of ever so many generations past. The more I encountered them in a stained glass window, or a relief of a temple pillar, or a mosaic in a museum, I could see them from their own standpoint, and understand their story. Something significant was at play through this fateful synchronicity, and its propitiousness lightened my burden.

I would spend the next two years scouring the museums and monuments of the world, and would find the same unorthodox meaning everywhere: Egypt, Greece, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam all taught a lesson essentially the same, rendered different by the veil of religious misinterpretation. Indeed, the deepest questions of life had been answered in past ages — and answered well. Why did none regard these truths, hidden in such plain sight? There had to be others that would be as touched by them as I was. So along with my exploration grew a sense of responsibility that urged me to record my findings methodically. The end and crowning episode of my travels was the revelation of a calendrical system that lay at the base of all ancient teachings. This would become the foundation of BePeriod.

"amesgilbert1"wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, January 11, 2020:

John Harmer, you so rightly say, “But then fakery is a big part of the story of the FoF”.

The fact is, Burton the Arch–Liar infects the thinking of everyone who has ever entered his fantasy, and one dangerous meme is, “The ends justify the means”. The form I encountered right from the start was, nothing, but nothing should get in the way of achieving “consciousness”.

This is exactly the same operating procedure that governs the modus operandi of the Fellowship of Friends as an organization when it interacts with the outside world. Most especially in the recruitment of new followers, but also in business interactions with the local community, and relations with government agencies such as the IRS. Much has been said this, and about the use of tools such as ‘intentional insincerity’ on previous pages.

An alert reader has pointed out another specific example, this one pertaining to Asaf Braverman and his BePeriod ‘school’. Anyone who has followed along knows that Asaf was one of Robert Burton’s most loyal followers for twenty years and became a central pillar of the whole con, so central a star that Burton was grooming him to take over the organization after he passes. On former versions of Braverman’s BePeriod website, he acknowledged this connection in rather vague terms, but did include a portrait of Burton and stated the center of the Fellowship is in Oregon House, California 95962.

But now, Braverman has altered his biography rather significantly. The ends justify the means.

Read the full autobiographical note [ed. - See text above] by Asaf Braverman for yourself.

In this new, improved version, there is no mention whatsoever of the Fellowship, or Robert Earl Burton, or Alex Horn, or Gurdjieff (though G. is mentioned on other pages), or anything related to lineage, a highly significant departure from his earlier autobiography.

There is also no mention of Apollo, the headquarters of the Fellowship of Friends, or its location, only that he eventually met the ‘founder’ in 2000. No mention of ‘The Sequence’, the ridiculous and superstitious numerology he co–invented with Burton, and that was the central teaching of the Fellowship religion for a dozen years.

He fabricates out of whole cloth an explanation of why he was forced to leave (Apollo) in 2007, but says nothing about his return 2 years later, and his subsequent final parting [ed. - Link added] from Burton in 2016.

Sigh! Those who have followed along will know that the actual truth about this absence is, according to reports, that he [was] revealed as a bigamist. The first marriage was ordered by Burton so Asaf Braverman could get a ‘green card’, as mentioned in the famous letter [ed. - Link added] to the FoF Board from the lawyer, David Springfield. Time passed, and then he entered another Burton–sponsored marriage with his present wife without dissolving the first. Upon exiting Israel after their honeymoon visit, the authorities noted his concurrent marriages, and the U.S. quite rightly denied him re–entry. Hence the ‘exile’ he milks in this latest version of an ‘autobiographical note’. Such a victim of the U.S. authorities! It is safe to assume that his wealthy family and of course, Burton with all the resources of the Fellowship, moved heaven and earth with said authorities to smooth things over. We know, because two years later, they were able to return to Oregon House. So, Diddums’ so–called ‘exile’ consisted of being flown to exotic locations around the planet at FoF expense for two years! All the while absorbing ‘ancient knowledge’ and discovering the heretofore hidden ‘calendrical system’ he currently advertises.

I can well understand Asaf Braverman’s aversion to admitting his connection to the Robert Earl Burton and the Fellowship of Friends. Who would not want to shuck off this sordid and inconvenient history? Particularly when setting out to gull fresh recruits? Yet this dishonesty speaks for itself. And lies of omission are still lies. I suspect he is attempting to put part of Plato’s philosophy, whereby the prevailing authorities are permitted their Noble Lies for the ‘greater good’, into practice. Certainly, Asaf leaves no doubt that he is on an important mission, and he learned from Burton over two decades that ‘intentional insincerity’ is necessary, and that big lies go over better than small lies. From the page linked above:

So along with my exploration grew a sense of responsibility that urged me to record my findings methodically. The end and crowning episode of my travels was the revelation of a calendrical system that lay at the base of all ancient teachings. This would become the foundation of BePeriod.

One has to read the whole ‘autobiographical note’ to get the extent of these Big Lies of commission and omission. Like I said, Braverman obviously believes the ends justifies the means, and in his particular case, such Noble Ends justify frontal assaults on a host of Inconvenient Truths.

I say all this because it shows, once and for all, that Braverman is a fake. He does not understand that the means shape the ends. And that not only do lies multiply into a tangled web faster than mere human minds can keep up with, but by their very nature, they poison the whole enterprise. Asaf has no chance of keeping up with his cover–ups, explanations and obfuscations—unless he can somehow take control of the search engine algorithms and fool anyone doing due diligence. That he does not understand such basic facts, a misunderstanding demonstrated daily by Burton and his followers in the Fellowship of Friends for over fifty years, is just one of many illustrations that Asaf Braverman is not fit to teach anyone anything.

[ed. - This February 16, 2020 video highlights Braverman's complete dissociation from Robert Earl Burton, The Fellowship of Friends, and the inconvenient elements of Braverman's own personal history. Asaf Braverman's rapidly-evolving autobiography has forced poor Ames Gilbert back to the keyboard, again and again (see below).]

"amesgilbert1" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, February 18, 2020:

Alert readers have pointed out that Asaf Braverman, founder and leader of BePeriod.com, has a new come–on for seekers on YouTube, titled, “What is BePeriod?”

In the spirit of purest altruism, as a service to readers and seekers, I put on my best waterproof clothing and galoshes, and waded in, regardless of the risk to my mental health.

After the introduction:

BePeriod is an active learning community for the study of oneself. It gives its members the tools and structure by which to embark on a comprehensive journey of self-observation. Its teaching breaks down human psychology into the building blocks that form who we are — our habits, illusions, weaknesses and strengths — and shows how these same blocks can be reconstructed to create a real Self.

… Braverman divides the rest of the video into the following parts:

• What is BePeriod?
• Why join BePeriod?
• What is our guiding principle?
• Who Am I?
• How do we operate?

I don’t have time to write it all down, but I have transcribed Asaf’s own words where he answers the question, “Who Am I?”, above. Here they are:

My name is Asaf Braverman. My own personal journey began when I was overcome by a paralyzing lack of purpose. For many years I traveled the world studying ancient psychology and philosophy in search of answers to the burning questions: Who am I? Where am I? And, Why am I here?

I discovered many interesting answers quite different than those offered by mainstream philosophy and spirituality. I felt my discoveries were radical and significant. I decided to share them with others. This was the foundation of Beperiod.

Readers will quickly realize that Asaf (as always way, way ahead of my ability to keep up) has abbreviated his esoteric history even more since I last wrote about the subject on the last page (185, #56, January 11th [see above]). Now the lies of omission are even more blatant. Not only does he skip over the two decades he spent learning how to operate spiritual scams directly from his teacher, Robert Earl Burton, leader of the Fellowship of Friends, but now omits any mention of the Fourth Way, Gurdjieff or Ouspensky entirely! Look at that last paragraph above, again.

Asaf Braverman certainly learned everything he knows about sheer chutzpah and arrogance from the Grand Charlatan, Robert Earl Burton, the God–Emperor of Oregon House and Best Buddy of the Absolute™!

"unoanimo" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 22, 2007:

This worry of being two is rampant in and out of the school; how do you ‘think’ Robert Burton makes his money on Sundays? ~

upon the worry of ‘one self’ going to heaven or hell; yet, has not anyone seen what this implies?

It implies that your ‘one self’ (could) decide to be another, thus, going to the moon, not paradise… so, that’s that or is it?

Here’s a good example of FoF – Think, compliments of Asaf, our ever smiling in the face of spiritual conspiracy and crime momma’s boy ~ (this is from the Galleria Meeting, April 29, 2007) ~

“It has been a very productive and precious hour, and I wish all of us more success in gaining control and focusing on recovery. Inevitably we fall into chaos internally, but we can try to recover as fast as we can and build our temple anew. When I met Robert, it struck me from the very beginning that he would fall into chaos, but he would recover very quickly. To ‘recover’ meant not having I’s that blamed him for falling into chaos, but simply leaving them behind and beginning to rebuild the temple of the sequence. Hopefully, this meeting will help in speeding our recovery and having it recur more often…”

Does this sound like someone you’d leave your ‘soul child’ with on a dark, rainy, cold night?

Look at the structure of this ‘wheel of pain’ and continued capitalizing on the automatic drama taking place in everyone, regardless of their ‘path’ ~

Key words in cult-programing are ~ (first set up a extreme contradiction so to create self-loathing and ‘I am not good enough yet’ automatic thoughts, hence, heaven and hell struggles with no end in sight but to build, build, build ~

“Productive and precious” (heaven)

“control and focusing” (heaven)

“recovery” (heaven-assuming there is a ‘real self’ that defines its (self) as a (something) only based on gaining and loosing concepts and percepts of an ever changing value system based on thought forms and material circumstances)

“build our temple anew” (heaven based on hell having done something destructive)

(Asaf, at this rate you’ll never get the foundation poured with all this “recovery” from having the temple torn down and building it back up, to have it torn down again; does this sound like a school for graduates? Yet, this is not your aim is it; to simply keep the temple standing, to get to the root of the earthquakes?)

“he would fall into chaos”
“he would recover very quickly”

(Ah, which ‘he’? Which is the ‘chaos’, the falling or the recovery?)

“not having I’s that would blame him…”

(Is the ‘him’ that would believe the I’s that would blame, the same ‘him’ that fell or the ‘him’ that recovered? I mean, if you decide not to believe the I’s that would blame oneself for something, does that not infer that there’s a choice to be either this or that? That you even have to make a choice, implies what? Confusion?)

“simply leaving them behind and beginning to rebuild the temple of the sequence”

(Whose rebuilding? If the ‘temple of the sequence’ is a conscious ‘work’, then who is interpreting it as something that’s able to be torn down by the lower?

Do not those temples ‘able to be torn down by lower centers’ belong to lower centers?)

“Hopefully…. speed our recovery…”

(Hope indeed Asaf; I guess that’s what keeps you smiling or is it just practice?… Hope, that’s pretty much all you’ve set peoples automatic psyches up for, in your perpetual rebuilding of the esoteric fellowship ant hill.)

Note: the ~ “leaving them behind…”

(It is this self-calming abandonment of denying force that has undermined (one aspect of many) the truer depths of The Work taking place in this ‘School of Relative Awakening’…

Leaving this ‘tension’, the very force that keeps tearing down the temple, by using a mental exercise to be with what, in context to what? To what? To leaving behind that which denies you prolonged and deeper conscious existence, for short, sporadic states, resulting in very little focused attention on the ’cause’ and allot of self-loathing and hope for the ‘effect’ to simply take care of itself in the next lifetime…?)

The enduring of this phenomenon of division is also partly illusion, for it too can create even a third self, the self that is addicted to the tennis match, to the arguments between good student and bad student…

Somewhere ‘confused’ is You, without thought, without labels and worry, without self connected to other selves basing their sense of self through even more connectedness’s…

I used to ‘think’ that leaves are green because the sky is predominantly blue and the sun is yellow; yet, perhaps leaves are green because they just are…

Like you, here you are, right here; if you were pregnant with a soul-child (not earthly) how would you school that ‘child’, how would you tuck it in at night, what sense would you will such a being to have in its heart of your actions and reactions?

Would you knock on the galleria door and hand that child to, say, Dorian or Robert Burton himself? Then, turn your back, say goodnight and walk away?

If the answer is ‘No’ from the very top of your heart, your gut, then you must move on, there’s nothing left there for you; for that matter, you’ve grown up and it’s time to give birth to the 500 lb chick that’s getting a bit cramp in that 1 lb egg shell.

__________________________

Love to you all

 

"amesgilbert1" added this caution on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, November 14, 2020:

BTW, if anyone who is doing due diligence concerning Asaf Braverman and his BePeriod pseudo–Fourth Way scam has arrived on this page, and is wondering what the hell the connection is, wonder no more. Despite Braverman having now cleansed his biography and his various websites of any inconvenient connections (gross lies of omission), the fact is, Asaf Braverman was formerly the most devoted of students of Robert Earl Burton, lifetime dictator of the Fellowship of Friends. Yes indeed, he was a member for two decades, and was appointed by Burton to be a “future conscious being” and also groomed to take over Burton’s place in the hierarchy, in due course.

Dig back through these pages, it will be worth your time if it helps you avoid falling for his version of the same scam. And keep asking yourself, what kind of an (admittedly well–spoken) idiot would stick around for so long and absorb this kind of shit like this night and day?

Braverman, if you ask him, may prevaricate (lie) and earnestly tell you that it was an “unhappy marriage”, and further make the thought–terminating claim that “one doesn’t talk about unhappy marriages”. Don’t accept being cut off like that. The fact is, until shortly between the relatively recent and acrimonious parting of the ways, it was a very happy marriage. Asaf actually had a lot of fun for most of the time. He led meetings and fundraisers for years, his considerable vanity was being stroked day and night, he enjoyed a generous salary plus expenses, had sex with a succession of star–struck women (not to mention Burton himself), travelled the world, and received the adoration and worship due the anointed heir apparent to the God–Emperor of Oregon House—for year after year after year! He is clearly addicted to controlling people and groups, and to selling his ‘insights’ to gullible recruits—for your own mental and financial health, don’t be one of them!