"outsidelookingin" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 7, 2021:
My first post.
I want to thank the contributors to the robertearlburton blogspot and
this discussion. The blogspot has the best description of the history
of the FoF I could find on the internet.
I look at the FoF description of itself as a narrative, and I look at
the blogspot and discussion as a counter-narrative. It is only by
looking at the FoF history, the narrative, and the counter-narrative as a
whole that I have a chance of understanding what I was involved in.
Without the blog and discussion I wouldn’t have access to the history
and the personal experiences of all kinds of people. Thanks again to
all that made a wholistic understanding of the FoF possible.
It isn’t hard to see that the fellowship is religious in nature. A
basic overview of primitive religion from the perspective of
anthropology shows that the FoF is a religious organization. But I was
explicitly looking for a fourth way school and had been reading fourth
way material for a few years before joining the FoF. I liked the way
the fourth way emphasized verification and warned against blind belief.
When I now look at both narrative and counter-narrative, it seems
like the FoF was a strange source of permanent vacation funding and sex
for one person, wrapped in the outward appearance of a religion which
can be called “Burtonism”. All this was wrapped in the outward
appearance of a fourth way school.
That is quite a burrito!
Now it appears the FoF has come out of the closet when it shed its
outer fourth way skin altogether and revealed itself openly as a type of
religion. To me it seems to have become something that I would be
embarrassed to admit I ever joined. It really looks like some kind of
joke.
So when I look back at my experiences in the FoF I ask myself how I ended up in what is essentially a religious cult?
When I recall my earliest experiences in the FoF (joined in Chicago)
the group presented itself as a fourth way school. It was just me and
many “older students”. The Muellers and the Goldmans and the Rudders
and the Thiels and Sarah and John Trezevant, Joseph and Genevieve
Granados were there. These people were very friendly and helpful. They
let me stay in their homes for the weekend. The perspective student
meetings presented the FoF as consisting of fourth way principles. It
appeared like a very serious group. From there I went to Renaissance.
What strikes me looking back is how nobody there presented the FoF in
religious terms. Nobody warned me or mentioned anything about what I
might be facing at Renaissance.
It seems I ended up joining a cult because it had a strong fourth way
veneer and presented itself completely as a fourth way school. They
even target fourth way books using bookmarks. I answered an
advertisement in a newspaper that said “fourth way school now accepting
students”. There can be no doubt that the FoF used the public
attraction to fourth way ideas as its key magnet.
If many other people were drawn for similar reasons, it means that
the early FoF “piggybacks” on fourth way literature. That is how it
drew the original organization together. That is how it attracted me.
And the story of the FoF is how a religious anti-intellectualism and a
total breakdown of healthy skepticism can emerge surrounded and
protected by a fourth way shell.
When looking at the early history of the FoF I can see how a
“c-influence” religious cult emerged directly from FoF application of
fourth way ideas. It appears Stella Wirk recognized this very early.
The FoF from the mid 1980s when I joined seemed to be actively trying
to hide the religious-vacation-sexual nature of “Burtonism” behind a
strong fourth way mask.
"WhaleRider" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 7, 2021:
Welcome outsidelookingin [above]. Thanks for your post.
Your narrative reminded me of the first meeting at Renaissance after
some kind of IRS audit was in play…that I was dimly aware was going on
behind the scenes…when the seating arrangement at the Town Hall was
abruptly changed sometime around 1984-5, I believe.
Instead of solid rows of chairs in the audience as was the seating
arrangement since forever, we followers arrived on that particular night
to find there were two columns of chairs in rows with a wide aisle down
the middle of the room, and from then on, that’s the way it was going
to be.
Looking back, the change might have been due to a fire code violation
which would have been fine by me, however, I remember specifically
being told at the time that the new seating arrangement was to make the
meetings appear to look more like a church service (rather than a town
hall community meeting) in order to secure the non-profit status of the
FOF as a religion.
At that moment a red flag went off in my head. That too, was not
what I had signed up for in joining a so-called “fourth way school”. I
certainly was not there to worship anything or anyone, and no way was I
going to volunteer to pretend to do so for tax purposes. I remember
having the thought (in cultspeak), “Is this the point when the school
becomes B-influence as a tax write-off?”
I left shortly after that, but for many other reasons.
"Phutatorius" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 7, 2021:
@86 outsidelookingin [above]: Your experience matches my own pretty well,
I, too, joined in Chicago, around the same time as Abe Goldman. We were
even room-mates, briefly, in Chicago. Rudder was there; (I believe he
is now deceased.) He always reminded me of Rasputin, the mad monk!
Springman was there too: he was a high end car salesman but I doubt that
“Springman” was his real name. He burned Baker on a used Mercedes,
pretty badly. She wasn’t happy. Baker, Lipson and Maddox were centre
directors when I was there I moved to northern California within about a
year. It appears that I left the FoF well before you joined. I had
wrestled with the cult aspect of “the school” for quite a while before I
finally pulled the plug. I didn’t know for certain about R’s
“predations,” but I really should have known by that time; I think I
suspected it but I continued giving him “the benefit of the doubt,”
until I began seeing reports of lawsuits brought by former students in
the NORCAL newspapers. Goldman’s defense of R, that it “was all
consensual” was enough of an admission of guilt to finally satisfy me.
But how naive I had been! I should have listened to my instincts!
(While visiting Renaissance, I had seen and heard a couple of things
that “didn’t look right,” but convinced myself to ignore them.)
Ironically, the last 80 page section of Robert Burton’s “Anatomy of
Melancholy” was a big factor in my actual decision to leave. That’s the
section on “religious melancholy.” I wonder how many other FoFers
have ever read that?! I joined a couple of “real” Gurdjieff groups in
the following years. I ran into a few other former “students” in those
groups. In the FoF I liked the music, the wine, the dinners, some
attractive women who appeared untouchable (as well as some who appeared
otherwise) — but at what a price! (As an aside, I made no progress with
“self-remembering.”) Looking back, I think/hope the main damage was
to my bank account. But that was repaired quickly enough after I got
out.
"outsidelookingin" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 8, 2021:
@88 [Phutatorius above] I’ll talk about Abe in a future post. My guess is he was
living a contradiction. I try to explain the nature of that
contradiction a bit farther down in this post.
Trying to figure out why the hell I joined what basically became a
religious cult led me to this general list of questions about the FoF:
What is it that originally attracts people to the FoF?
About what percentage of those joining are aware of the religious nature of the FoF?
What happens as a person becomes aware there is a religion embedded within the FoF which is distinct from fourth way concepts?
How do fourth way ideas based on personal verification and critique devolve into “c influence wants you to come in my mouth”?
(and quite frankly, that is a rather tacky pick-up line)
How can such a one-way power-sex relationship which manipulates
religious beliefs to induce submission from many people who are
heterosexual be understood as being based on “mutual consent”?
These questions suggest that there are two fundamental contradictions at the heart of the Fellowship of Friends. They are:
1) FoF conceptual architecture was based on a fourth way shell hiding a religious interior.
2) The illusion of “mutual consent”
Concerning the first, people were not allowed to openly question the
religious interior of the FoF in active discussion. They were not
allowed to openly, publicly distinguish fourth way concepts from a
strange, fuzzy religion forming in the interior of the FoF.
This will obviously lead to the collapse of critical thinking (as
witnessed). This kills the capacity to think and talk openly about a
wide range of issues, including the true nature of the FoF itself and
the true relationship of the FoF with the rest of the world.
The illusion of “mutual consent” allowed for a strange type of exploitation to happen almost in plain sight.
I agree with Abraham Goldman that a person has the right to privacy
concerning their sex life. But the situation around the Academy in the
FoF seemed to artistically walk a tightrope of what could sometimes
barely pass for mutual consent in any legal or ethical sense. The
stories on the blog demonstrate this beyond doubt. People were actively
pursued that did not wish to willingly participate – and it was that
“religious glue”, to not “perturb” influence “c”, to “please” the
guiding spirits, that contributed to the judgement to submit.
That is not mutual consent. It has nothing to do with any fourth way
concept. Many of these cases seem to be classic examples of religious
manipulation feeding on the weakness of another. It is the effect of
that strange, fuzzy religion at the heart of the FoF.
To keep this in historical perspective, Robert isn’t doing much more
than what the Catholic Church has been perfecting for more than 1,500
years. In fact, he probably uses some of their pick-up lines and moves
for young men and boys. Even the Boy Scouts have developed their own
system.
"amesgilbert" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 8, 2021:
I think Burton took ruthless advantage of the central Fourth Way
principle, “Give up your will to the Teacher”. Ouspensky stressed this
necessity. The student must temporarily place him/herself under the
power of the person who has already escaped and knows the way forward.
Sounds good in principle, but he neglected to define ‘temporarily’ and
state any limitations or precautions. I’m one of those who don’t think
Ouspensky really broke through into some other realm of consciousness,
just was given some temporary insights like we all are. But he sure
could talk up a storm…
Without those limitations, Burton can have free reign to do whatever
he wants with anyone who has ‘given up his will’. Giving up one’s will
obviously includes dispensing with plain old common sense. And when you
add his dismissal of the role of conscience (“Conscience is just a
collection of I’s”), then that leaves the hapless follower with no
defenses at all.
Since Burton has never graduated anyone from his organization in five
decades, the giving up of will becomes permanent. Any protests
withstanding emanate from the ‘lower self’. Neat.
All this backed up with the support and approval of the rest of the
flock. That is pretty powerful reinforcement, making it even harder to
go against the flow.
So, this is a basic, bedrock deficiency of what we have been told is
the ‘Fourth Way’. Defer to those in the authoritarian hierarchy who know
better, see further and more clearly. Who will tell you when you have
arrived. And, of course, who always have your best interests at heart.
"amesgilbert" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 8, 2021:
As to the references to “consensual”, that is purest baloney, mere
propaganda. Of course, this is overt in regard to the façade presented
to the outside world, but it also applies internally. I well remember
Burton claiming that all his relationships were consensual, even loving.
This was backed up by some who came forward publically to claim the
same, including in a special meeting devoted to just that one subject,
shortly before I left in 1994.
But this simply cannot be true, due to the grossly unequal power
between Burton and anyone he wanted. The requirement to “give up one’s
will to the teacher” coupled with the intense pressure from one’s peers
to conform, plus the active grooming by previous inductees to the harem
is practically irresistible. The grooming is particularly nauseating. In
my day, Burton told me and other potential victims to ‘have breakfast
with Shiela Grunwaldt’. I am told (I refused the opportunity, so I rely
on what others have told me) that this is where Shiela, a trusted ‘older
student’, with her perfectly coiffed silver hair and refined
deportment, would gently introduce the victim to the facts of the
situation, and wax eloquent about the amazing spiritual opportunities
that would invariably follow if the victim acquiesced to Burton’s
wishes. Lots of messaging along the lines of releasing the norms and
morality of mere sleeping machines, and the unique opportunities to go
against ‘mechanical inclinations’.
In later years, one could actually observe and overhear previous
victims grooming new recruits at La Cucina, using the same arguments. I
guess that there were some complex psychological currents within the
groomers, a mixture of adding another link to the ‘chain of pain’, plus
maybe a sort of advertisement of one’s closeness to Burton and trying to
impress the newbie, or sometimes a deep cynicism, I don’t know. And on
the part of the naïve victim, busy trying to find a path to the ‘highest
right’, confusion and dismay mixed with eagerness to “accelerate his
evolution” and the idea that no price would be too high. But the
unrelenting pressure from one’s “new best friends” and Burton himself,
combined with much flattery and gifts, is pretty damn compelling.
What a total fuckup!
"outsidelookingin" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 9, 2021:
My guess is the religion emerges from these fourth way terms:
Giving up will
c influence
willfulness
To research this I open a copy of “The Fourth Way” for the first time
in over 2 decades. I turn to the table of contents and I see literally
hundreds of fourth way expressions in 16 chapters. I immediately
remember why I liked this book when I first found it. It is raw, direct
and is completely void of appeals to religious faith.
Only the last chapter deals with a religious issue: Eternal
recurrence. But the first item in the chapter is, “The idea of
recurrence can only be regarded as a theory”. Also, readers of
Ouspensky will know that he was writing about this before he met
Gurdjeiff. It was his pet interest in an earlier book. He is careful
to separate it into the last chapter and clearly labels it as something
he cannot personally verify.
I am a bit relieved to see I wasn’t such a dip-shit after all for
ending up in a religious cult. I was actually tricked. I joined the
FoF because of my interest in looking deeper into these very
non-religious ideas based on human psychology with other people.
But the mystery does deepen. How does this book devolve into “c
influence wants you to come in my mouth”? The only doorway I can see
for an emerging religion is
Giving up will
c influence
willfulness
I read the table of contents over and over and I can’t find anything
that is religious rather than psychological. Can anyone find any dirt
in this book that leads to a religion being formed from these ideas?
"outsidelookingin" wrote on the Fellowship of Friends Discussion blog, July 9, 2021:
FoF concepts that lead to a fundamentally religious world-view:
c influence
44 helpers
predictions
Physical environment being altered by disembodied conscious beings in
order to communicate with you personally through symbolism on an hourly
basis
lifetimes
ladders
plays
Manichean concept of school vs life
Manichean, fundamentally religious concept of “former students” as rotting in a Dante type Hell
The concept of man number 1 through 7 is also used to establish a
sharp religious hierarchy. Pretty much everyone is seen as a #4 while
he is a #7, which is (by fourth way theory) 3 distinct levels of
development higher than his students.
This claim of a massive gap in development is used to make claims
with an air of certainty that clearly cannot be verified by anyone and
are religious in nature.
These seem to be the basic levers that are used in the FoF to turn application of fourth way ideas into a religious project.
