When I was a starry-eyed believer, I silently accepted “school” rules and traditions as wisdom passed down from “secret esoteric schools” through the ages. Recently “disgruntled ex-students” from “school” past, debunked some of these “ancient esoteric teachings”, revealing them as past “school” morph-ing.
The next few posts depict and link these past revelations with the new millennium “school”. Let’s begin with “school’s traditional Christmas Party” — brought to us by the eighties, the era of Madonna’s proud declaration, “I am a Material Girl”:
One December, during “school’s” annual usurpation of my holiday season, I sought “help” from King Robert for the perennial marital tensions. A “school education”ensures that its students have zero time for personal holidays; “only life things” — i.e. family, friends, work, colleagues — must be secondary to the big party if one wants to “evolve”.
Among other things, Robert told me, ” … it’s during the holiday season that you benefit the most from ‘school’.” His brow wrinkled, he wondered how could my husband have any complaints? Didn’t he sense my evolution? Didn’t he get how he benefits from my “work”?
… never mind that I was rarely home; when I was home, I was exhausted and distracted; that the top secret calling devoured my time and energy while intentionally excluding him, as well as bleeding into our time at home with top-secret-holiday-party-tasks (I recall unsuccessfully trying to secretly cut out invisible snowflakes in our living room, only to leave a trail of tiny white paper snippets in my path, which he — of course — called me out on); never mind that our family holiday had to wait until the shindig was over (of course, a more evolved woman would have bought presents and decorated the house after Christmas party prep, between the hours of 3-6 a.m, after which I would go to work).
I was puzzled, too… was I missing something? I mean … this wasn’t rocket science: my husband was lonely. I was neglecting him for the “higher calling”. How do I explain the top secret nature of my critical snowflake-making without leaking??? How do I tell him, “I really don’t want to neglect you during the holiday season; but these demands from the invisible world are critical to my evolution and only benefit you, too!” Even in my “school” coma, I realized that any sane person, left in the dark to wonder why those snowflakes were more important then him/her, would have been saying to his/her spouse, “WTF?”
Nonetheless, my evolved leader appeared stumped by my husband’s complaints, as though no other “un-schooled” spouse had complained before. Of course, I didn’t know then that all three of Robert’s marriages were “school” arranged. As was typical, I started thinking, “There must be something I don’t understand — something only Robert can understand. Maybe, if I tried harder, if my vibrations were finer, I could enlighten my husband into a state of bliss and turn his emotion dial to the happily accepting setting. He would then, of course, say, ‘I understand that your annual disappearing act is an ancient esoteric tradition necessary for your evolution and our betterment! Thank you for doing THE WORK!‘ and benefiting me invisibly.’ ”
Recently “ex-students”, circa 1985, revealed the Christmas Party tradition as an outgrowth of the eighties. One of them told me,“We saw the inaugural Christmas extravaganza that has since caused so much horror to the participants.”
I would love to learn more about its inception, so please consider this post an invitation to share! Since “The Christmas Party” is not an ancient tradition, seeded in esoteric schools of yore, how it did come about?
Morph 2: The Non Fraternization Policy
Morph 3: Drug Use
Morph 4: Recruitment, or “Making New Friends”
Someone else who was also there is going to have to help fill in the details, because memory’s a fickle bitch. In the early-ish to mid-1980s, the Christmas Party wasn’t the soul-sucking extravaganza it became in later years. I remember being asked to dress up as a favorite character from history or fiction, something that was meant to express an aspect of my “essence.” There were no decorations, no elaborate preparations, just a bunch of mediocre potluck dishes under the usual lights of the usual space (which at that period must have been in Somerville). There were only occasional visits from Sharon and Alex in those days, and not much interchange between the NYC and Boston branches outside of summer retreats in Montana.
One year, the Boston group decided to host a Christmas class to which Alex and Sharon were meant to come. Or maybe we were instructed to do so, I can’t remember which. In any case, it was a small-ish group of “students” who did everything themselves. There were a lot of christmas trees set up in the space with some lights.
The “party” was a disaster. Some weird stuff was going on between Alex and Robert — Alex was on Robert every second about his “manifestations.” This was the first time I ever saw Robert on the receiving end of “school”s authoritarian and abusive behavior. Alex and Sharon ripped everybody there new a-holes for the “low level of vibrations” in the room. I remember Alex saying something to the effect that if a dog walked into the room, everybody would immediately focus on the dog, because the dog would be putting more energy into the room than us abominable “students.” That class went on and on, bludgeoningly, until 3 or 4 in the morning.
It may have been this event that sparked the “instruction” about yearly Christmas parties. Maybe there was a break of a couple of years, because I think Alex had already been forced out by this time — somebody more clear on the chronology should chime in here — but we were very definitely instructed, by Sharon via Robert, to “transform the space” with hand-made decorations and special lighting, to serve a carefully planned gourmet feast, to work up a program of musical and other performances for which students had to audition and practice, and to start buying special (i.e. expensive and unusual) gifts for Sharon. Over the years, as older students started getting promoted to the status of “younger teachers” and teaching in both NYC and Boston, the gift-giving extended to special gifts for *all* teachers in attendance — yet another expense that the “students” had to shoulder (not to mention the expense of the party itself). The whole thing was presented, naturally, as a great “opportunity” to “work on being” and to “pay teachers back” for the extraordinary “privilege” of being in “school,” blah blah blah bitty blah.
The parties themselves were sometimes amazingly fun, I have to say. But of *course* they were: you focus the talents of several dozen very intelligent, very talented people and make them prepare for weeks on end for a single event, and you’re liable to get interesting results. Sharon was sometimes quite happy with the parties and sometimes not. If not, there was hell to pay for several classes afterwards where people’s shortcomings and “falures of being” were extracted with surgical knives and examined under microscopes. I could never tell why Sharon was sometimes happy and sometimes not. I believe it was essentially arbitrary. Either that, or she’s just batshit crazy.
In any case, the Christmas party became a fixed feature of “school”s annual calendar, and it assumed greater importance and complexity as the years wore on. Eventually, Robert excused himself from the preparations, leaving the responsibility to the “younger teachers,” although I remember him swooping in sometimes mid-prep to chew people out and generally make everybody nervous. Maybe it’s still this way, but I remember that initial talks about “themes” and how to do last year’s party one better began as early as September. The preparations lasted for weeks and no one ever had a valid excuse for not showing up — not ill health, not the death of a family member or friend, not the threat of a dissolving marriage or being fired from a job.
So no, “school”s annual Christmas torture has no connection whatsoever with “an ancient esoteric tradition necessary for your evolution and our betterment.” Rather, it’s a recent totally fabricated tradition necessary for the annual glorification of Sharon’s unappeasable grandiosity and vanity.
Hi Warren Peace,
Thank you for your comment. I so want “school” past to be exposed for those seeking information — either those who’ve suddenly found themselves in the slowly heating “school” stew and are wondering “what is this group, really???”, spouses and loved ones who are seeking info, or people who’ve left and are still struggling with that decision. I want those readers to recognize the group and see enough evidence told from a variety of voices to realize that “school” is simply another cult – lift the pretty curtain, and you will see all the ugly inner workings — in “school’s” case, a group of “teachers” and “inner circle participants” tripping over themselves to prop up the queen.
Couple of responses to what you wrote …
“… you focus the talents of several dozen very intelligent, very talented people and make them prepare for weeks on end for a single event, and you’re liable to get interesting results.”
In the spring, I spoke with a man who had a parallel situation to mine. He’d been sucked into a cult called “The Gentle Wind” (you gotta love that name), eventually left, posted a blog after leaving and the aforementioned cult (of course) tried — unsuccessfully– to sue him. Someone had referred me to him after I was served court papers this spring — another story for another day. Anyway, in the course of our conversation, I’d made a comment about garnering strength from my “school” experience and that I guess I could thank the cult for that. He interrupted me saying essentially, “All of us ex-cult ninnies give credit where it’s not due. Take credit for your positive experiences and the gifts you’ve garnered. Don’t give it to the group.” All to say, thank you for giving credit to youself and your cohorts for the parties that were successful. I suppose all of us “school” ninnies (the word ninnies just makes me laugh) can glean strength from the fact that — despite the fact that “school” did everything to make our insignificant lives hell during the holiday season — we still managed to combine our intelligence and talents and throw some great parties.
“I could never tell why Sharon was sometimes happy and sometimes not. I believe it was essentially arbitrary. Either that, or she’s just batshit crazy.”
I was chatting with another “disgruntled” fairly recently who asked me what my impression of Sharon was … during my tenure, she only appeared twice. During her two visits, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up … a feeling I get around those who are “batshit crazy”. I was always relieved to see this mean bitch from hell make her grand exit, both times escorted by a glowing Robert, who transformed from illustrious “teacher” to groveling child. All things considered, I think your experience of feedback from the queen was arbitrary praise or punishment from a woman who is, batshit crazy.
The first “Christmas Class” (CC) I ever went to was in NY in the old old space on West Broadway – the one on the SE corner of Franklin Street where you had to take the rickety elevator up four flights. Everyone was encouraged to participate. Whatever you could do was considered to be a gift. I sang a song with a friend. This is in contrast to a later class where I was in a chorus with a number of other people (for either one of those infamous “tableaux” or the Dante project). At the last rehearsal, the woman who was directing it told me that I could remain in the chorus if I didn’t sing at all but just moved my lips so that it would appear that I was singing. Clearly, she considered that what ever I had to give was just not worthy enough…
Sharon didn’t attend that first CC and as a matter of fact I don’t think that I had even met her at that point. The first time I met Sharon was at that same space at a baby shower on a Saturday afternoon (women only). They had asked for quilts beforehand and had covered the bleachers with quilts and it was lovely. When we were all seated and Sharon entered and M stood up and introduced her by saying “This is my teacher and yours…” OMG, I should have turned around and ran then.
There was one CC where we all cooked different things at our individual homes and an “older student” came around and told us what to do. She told me that my mashed potatoes were disgusting.
Another time, I was on the “cooking committee” and the woman who “organized” it had no idea what she was doing. We got to the space that evening and she had a typed list of things to do and told us to do them. Everyone was going in ten different directions at the same time. Sharon was displeased with how it had gone and the organizer paid for that for a long time.
The next one, after they assigned the “head” of the cooking committee, I was told that I was going to be the assistant. I asked why and I was told it was because L had loved a chocolate cake that I had made. I didn’t even remember the cake at all. In any case, the head of the cooking committee promptly left town and came back two days before the party. I had to do the best I could on my own.
More later…
My first Christmas party was in NYC in the late 80’s, and it was definitely more on the potluck side of things. And it was the most fun one I ever experienced, too. Of course as a new student, I only had to show up and there were no extra fees. We were also told to bring a “beautiful place setting for ourselves” This was to include plate, silverware, glass, and…cloth napkin. (Oh those napkins! They later became another project and opportunity to batter the women!)
The big deal was that the women had made table cloths out of sheets and the men had made trestle tables. One artistic student had spent the whole night chalking a forest onto the walls (the theme, such as it was, being ‘Narnia’) All of the older students got yelled at for this later, of course, although it looked very pretty. We were all told to have presentations and everyone wanted to give one. by about 2 or 3 in the morning, the teachers were bored with them and told us they were stopping them, but there were literally about 50 of them. No auditions – yet. The students had a great time presenting. We danced to a boom box til dawn.Sharon and Robert were not there. It was a lot of fun. Of course, the lead teacher had notes on the party and yelled at everyone – there wasn’t special food for the teachers, the space wasn’t ‘transformed’, there weren’t any presents for the teachers, the dance music sucked (no way!) on and on. The next year was the beginning of hell and we were all drafted. In NY themes must’ve been decided up top – . things that worked (like how to cook a meal for a hundred people) were always being shifted around, so once it worked, someone would change it. I remember one older student who was running the party sent people running around for weeks looking for a kitchen because he thought the food should be cooked in manhattan instead of brooklyn, where the kitchen we had been using was located. There was no good reason for this, he just had some fantasy about ‘vibrations’. Sometimes Sharon was angry at the party, sometimes she was “under the influence”, sometimes she seemed happy (whew!), we never knew. It got more elaborate, expensive, difficult to produce, tortured, anxiety -producing. By party day, work was still frantically going on. Many people didn’t even get home to shower, but quickly changed in the other room. Most people then had to work during the party – serving food, cleaaning up, taking coats, working the kitchen, serving the teachers (there were about four people assigned to every teacher). Almost no onee was there to just have a good time. Several people would just fall asleep once the long ritual of the now intensely rehearsed presentations were finished and Sharon had opened her presents and departed. It wass best to depart during the dancing so you could go home and get some rest and dind’t get stuck cleaning up too. Some angels signed up for clean up crew bless them. I helped clean for about four years and decided I was being a sucker because most people took off.
And then there was the “impressions” class – the following class, everyonne would be expected to stand and basically give a review of thee Christmas class – this was great, this was off, I loved this, etc. At soome point there would be a phone call, or whatever – it was definitely a gotcha – the teacher would say “Here is what your teacher thought” or “here are some notes from Sharon” and start tearing people apart. Theree was usually some general spanking “The vibration was terrible”, aand some specific “the decorations/the food/the music” and whoever was responsible for that area would get it, but there was always one person in particular who would get creamed – totalled. you would sit and think “oh thank god it’s not me – thank god thank god thank god”. There would also be some praise for a few people, usually one or two people singled out “The only person who I really felt welcomed by was so and so” or “The only part of the evening that was of the fine level we expect was (fill in the blank of whoever we are pumping up)”. We learneed to give vague, nebulous critiques until we found out how they were going to go – with a few exceptions (and usually this was from the ssame people who knew they would not get ‘punished’) who said exactly what they thought, we all tried to see which way the wind was blowing so as not to get killed in the storm.
Talk about Process of Crime – the person who recruited me told me they had great parties – this was what decided me to come to school. Yea, the first couple of years the few parties were fun – and then they became literally the subject of nightmares. Christmas class – boat trip, square dance, overnight camping trip, and finally, horrifyingly, the “Riverboat Gambling Night” – Whether it was a class outside of class, or a class inside of class – what you learned was to keep your head down and follow orders.
Hi TTWU & Cassandra,
I want to reiterate what I said to Warren Peace. Thank you for contributing. The more I read stories from “disgruntled(s)” past, the more important I believe it is to have multiple voices out here, on the web, in real time, whenever, where-ever, however, exposing all the lies, all the deceptions, all the convenient omissions …
As I learn about the “older student Christmas Party experience”, I can’t help but feel we “younger students” were simply being groomed for future bludgeoning. The process of party, plotting, planning and implementing grew a touch more elaborate each year and our “impressions classes” were mostly praise, but the critiques were slowly making their way into the shared reflection … mostly from our “teachers”.
During the process we would have moments of teacher reaming … every year you could count on teacher Jeanine really losing it in the middle of some work sessions sending us all scrambling in different directions, starting and stopping projects … “NO! That’s not what I wanted you to do” … or “You’re not doing that the right way” … or “I changed my mind” … triggering off annual chaos. Even in my stupor, I started wondering whether she would purposely lose it like that, testing us, how much can you plebs stand from a higher being, because (like Sharon) I found that I could never understand what set her off and suddenly she would transform from helpful teacher, to crazy making, chaos inducing, nutter. To be fair, she was probably anticipating a reaming from the higher ups, should this “younger class” be unsuccessful in our illustrious party-making “efforts”. I could see how that stress would tip her mental scale into hysteria every year.
“…and…cloth napkin. (Oh those napkins! They later became another project and opportunity to batter the women!)”
I do remember bringing a pile of those napkins home to be washed and “pressed”. Even in my stupor, I remember thinking “pressed”? Are you fucking kidding me. I don’t think I even own an iron. As you can imagine, the results weren’t so stellar and I did get a disdainful look from those above me … not a reaming yet … but grooming for the future. It was a moment in which I didn’t care enough … I did care, of course, the hairy eyeball did bruise, but the inner rebels were waking up, b/c I was aware of them saying to me “I can’t think of a bigger waste of time then ‘pressing’ cloth napkins”, so I blew off that part of the instruction and hoped they wouldn’t notice (they did, of course).
“Many people didn’t even get home to shower, but quickly changed in the other room. Most people then had to work during the party – serving food, cleaaning up, taking coats, working the kitchen, serving the teachers (there were about four people assigned to every teacher). Almost no onee was there to just have a good time.”
Yep, this sounds very familiar. We all were supposed to stay behind to clean up. Sometimes, though, that was almost the best part of the night/morning. We were all beyond exhausted. So we would crank our own tunes and dance and sing our way through the clean up. The “teachers” generally disappeared at that point. Teacher Paul would generally go find a place to nap. We’d wake him up at inspection time.
Cassadra, I am not familiar with this little ditty: “Process of Crime” … will you elaborate?
I am also not familiar with any shindig beyond the Christmas class, care to share?
“Christmas class – boat trip, square dance, overnight camping trip, and finally, horrifyingly, the “Riverboat Gambling Night” – Whether it was a class outside of class, or a class inside of class – what you learned was to keep your head down and follow orders.”
Yes, folks, that’s is what our illustrious “school” experience teaches us …
“Keep your head down and follow orders”
“Students” exist to prop up the leadership, pay tuition and provide free labor for whatever shindig is in the works, or be sent out on recruitment missions … mo’ students, mo’ money.
Warren Peace wrote:
“Someone else who was also there is going to have to help fill in the details, because memory’s a fickle bitch. In the early-ish to mid-1980s, the Christmas Party wasn’t the soul-sucking extravaganza it became in later years. I remember being asked to dress up as a favorite character from history or fiction, something that was meant to express an aspect of my “essence.” There were no decorations, no elaborate preparations, just a bunch of mediocre potluck dishes under the usual lights of the usual space (which at that period must have been in Somerville).”
I started in late 1983 when the group was meeting in a temporary space on Beacon St in Brookline. My memory is fuzzy, but it seemed like we were there for two or three months before moving to the Somerville studio with the peach colored walls. My memory is fickle, too, but I am fairly sure we didn’t have Christmas parties at all for at least two or three years I was with the group. What I do remember though, were yearly New Year’s parties with much drinking and toasting. I remember sitting around tables, and each of us making a toast to the New Year. It was simple, fun, and boisterous, with no elaborate preparations and plenty of free flowng alcohol.. As I recall, Sharon and Alex would attend these New Years parties. For some reason they were discontinued, I have the vague recollection reason given was the group was too big and there wasn’t enough space, and the party had gotten “mechanical”.
I believe it was toward the end of our time in Somerville that the Christmas party tradition started, which would put it around 1987 or 1988. I’m fairly sure that Sharon had suggested we have a Christmas party to honor the birth of Christ. The party was a very low key affair, and I’m not sure if Sharon even attended. It was a potluck dinner on a class night, I remember bringing green beans. The Somerville space had no oven or stove, so people had to cook food individually in their homes and bring it in. The challenge was how to heat up the food and keep it warm. Also, some people were better cooks than others, so the quality and quantity of the dishes was uneven. In later years we’d cook food as a group to so it could be tasted ahead of time and seasoned. Decorations were a minimum, and the emphasis was on the entertainment. We had many talented singers, actors and comedians to perform.
In 1988 or 1989 we had to leave the Somerville space suddenly due to a student having a psychotic breakdown, and we spent several months as a displaced group. Around the holidays, we were meeting in a church hall in Newton, and we had the Christmas party there that year. I recall there was some sort of issue related to the Christmas party that caused us to lose that temporary meeting place, possibly too much noise, or too many cars in a residential neighborhood. I remember meeting in another church hall by the lake in Wakefield for several months. If asked, we were to say we were with a Writers Group. I’m not sure why that was emphasized so much, but I recall we lost more than one temporary space because the minister was too snoopy, and would try to listen in on classes. Security was always an issue in those temporary spaces, no doubt because our cover stories always seemed a bit flaky. We had somewhere around 80 to 100 people that would meet twice a week, broken up into an early class and a late class. This was hardly a struggling writers group to a casual observer.
When we got the space in Woburn, a kitchen was installed as part of the remodel. We were finally able to cook food in the new space, both for parties, and for teachers before class. I believe it was in 1990 that we moved to Woburn, maybe someone else can confirm this. I’m fairly certain that Sharon came as a surprise special guest at the first Christmas party in the new space. It became a tradition for her to attend for many years after that. Jordan would always accompany her, since Alex had been expelled from the group at this point. Every year the Christmas party became more elaborate than the last, in terms of food, decorations and entertainment.
The Christmas party was put on by the older class and the younger class were our guests as was Sharon. At first the menu was the same traditional turkey dinner year after year, but eventually Sharon asked us to make it a several course meal, including sit down appetizers and sorbet. Decorations started simple, and over the years got more and more involved. We would literally make miles and miles of evergreen boughs, and every year we’d have an individual art and craft project to make as part of the decorations. During this time period, the older class formed a choir and a band as part of the night’s entertainment. One year, the choir sang several songs from Handel’s Messiah, and Sharon was so struck by the performance, she had them practice year round, and line up a number of performances in public places. She saw it has a B influence being sent out into the world.
By the time we left the space in Woburn in 1998, the Christmas party tradition had reached its zenith. (side note: we left Woburn because the building was sold to a new owners who didn’t want to rent out the space). The tradition carried over to the Billerica space, and for several years the older students would put on an increasingly more elaborate party than the year before.
All that changed the year it was decided that the roles would reverse, and the younger class would put on the Christmas party for the older class. This was decided by the younger teachers during a time when Robert was not attending or teaching classes in Boston. I think all of us older students had done the Christmas party for so many years, and had stayed up for so, so many late nights that we were eager to pas the work to someone else. I‘m fuzzy on what year this was, I think it was 2003, and the party got postponed until January 2004. Much has been written on other threads about this party. I thought it was very good party, especially considering it was the first really big party that the younger class put on. However, the teachers totally trashed it. In my opinion, the teachers were totally off base with their over blown criticisms. In any case, this was the last Christmas party for the combined groups in Boston. In the subsequent years, most of the students attended one of the NYC parties, and the youngest students would have a simple Christmas party for themselves.
Hi,
Thanks for commenting and filling in some blanks. My tenure began in 2006, so I only experienced the “younger students” putting on the party for ourselves and some honored guests — the teachers, our sustainers, a few of the “youngest students”. My “class” began in the Belmont Lion’s Club and I wasn’t aware of the Billerica space until something happened in Belmont (the Lions must have started catching on) We floated to various depressing hotel conference rooms, briefly landed The Griffin Photography Museum in Winchester and finally migrated to Billerica, after one rebellious student one day announced that he was leaving, turned to the rest of us and said something to the effect of you all need to start thinking for yourselves and exited grandly — outside in the parking lot he (or someone else) started putting flyers on cars, I guess. I never did see the flyer. Only when we got to Billerica did I see the two classes and that during the holiday season, the older class would be frantically running around making preparations for it’s own party — which (I think) meant creating decor, meals, and whatever else and transporting it all to NY, as a gift for the queen. Maybe someone else can clarify … after I left and started this blog I started hearing about the “Christmas Party from Hell”.
Since I suddenly could see the “older class” making their own preparations, I woke up to the fact “school” was grooming us “younger students” for bigger and better things … thank God I left before experiencing those bigger and better parties.
Yes, it’s true that the clean-up, whether for Christmas, or for Saturday Night dinner at CR, could often be a really wonderful time when you and a few other truly dedicated people could accomplish a necessary task and bond over, and really get to “complete the octave”. I experienced that, but I was also often aware (and this happens all over the place in life, too) that usually the same few people did most of the work (and a lot of people had conflicts with family and children, I know, but there were also many others who did not). So I got angry at seeing the same faces doing the unpopular jobs all of the time. I also saw people who played at being holier than everyone disappearing whenever menial labor was up for grabs. In life I have the freedom to say something about it. In school it would just bring about more nastiness, to someone. Probably me.
One of the more interesting ‘work books’ was Rodney Collin’s Theory of Celestial Influence. He wrote this during WWII at Ouspensky’s request and considered it his major opus. The class happened to be studying it when I was recruited and happened to be reading the chapter on ‘The Cycle of Sex’ so you know that was a hook! This book explores Collin’s theories on physics and planetary influence, etc. WARNING: I am definitely not a scientist but apparently the book is filled with errors – not just things that are disproven now, but just bad science. This is where you can find the theories about ‘types’. All I remember from the sex chapter is that Collin believed that models of sexual attraction go in cycles of 80 years, so the robust women of the 1880’s give way to the skinny flappers who eventually give way to ? well, he didn’t live long enough to meet Twiggy. Collin liked to have everything very neat and tidy. He read the historian Arnold Toynbee, whose history of Civilization was translater by Collin into Civilizations being in cycles of 800 years, and each Civ was actually a living being – an interesting theaory, although a bastardization and extreme oversimplification of Toynbee. But WTF. Long story short – one of the most interesting, and to me, most durable of his ideas in the book was the Six Processes (lessee if I can get this) – there are four ordinary processes and two super-dee-duper extraordinary transcendental processes. They are growth, digestion, elimination, corruption, healing and regeneration. Collin explains them through how each process enacts itself using form,matter, and life in different combinations. Corruption is crime, and we were told that crime and regeneration were ‘sup[ernatural’ processes, although collin doesn’t say that. All six processes exist in any living thing at the same time and are necessary. He also managed to put them onto an octave. Sorry – I used to know this stuff so much better, worked very hard to forget it! The book is available in pdf form online for free, but I would skip the chapters on the cosmos as they are REALLY boring. All I can say is that once again, although people were very interested in these ideas, school told us that we couldn’t understand them, we didn’t get them, and they didn’t mean whatever we thought they did anyway. But some people used to wonder (at least I did) when I hated school or lied or wanted out, whether I was “the process of crime” in school. Hope so.
“Corruption is crime, and we were told that crime and regeneration were ‘sup[ernatural’ processes, although collin doesn’t say that…”
Interesting interpretation considering recent creative interpretations of certain legal filings … since I never “evolved” to the point of learning about Collin’s and the Six Processes, perhaps one of you could tell me whether “school” justified corruption, or crime, in the same way it justifies blatant lies — conveniently naming them “clever insincerity”, necessary for the betterment of humanity and the proliferation of a secret “esoteric school” [cough] cult.
For all of you contributing to this string, I thank you so much for helping me to expose the lies, which range from ridiculous to destructive.
Let’s hope there won’t be any Cult Christmas “Parties” in Beverly MA. The Cabot Cinema, owned by the head of the other Gurdjieffy cult in MA, is about to be purchased by a buyer who, at this point at least, wishes to remain anonymous. Let’s keep an eye on it. Anyone hear anything?http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/north/2014/08/20/cabot-street-cinema-sold-mystery-buyer/iJjx7GHJNJ12VMMzl2L48M/story.html
Hi Gentle Soul,
What happened to the guest posts? and the archives? I find now that when I search for your site it is hard to find in search results, and I can only get to it through Survivor’s Handbook (even when I search directly for cultconfessions). Alas.
Hi Gerda,
Thanks for asking. I’ve had several inquiries, actually. The guest posts disappeared — unfortunately — because “school’s” lawyer served up a Cease and Desist letter. I took the posts down — for now — and I will address all of this in more detail in the near future.
The archives … I’m gonna have to poke around and figure that out. I’m not sure what’s up with that. I appreciate your inquiry and your ongoing readership and will be back with some more explanation soon.
Archive problem solved. I wish the other problem were that easy. 😉