This post is intended to provide an overview of “school” for identification purposes. If you’ve had a strange encounter and are wondering whether it was a “school” encounter; if you have a spouse, or friend, or sibling who disappears on Tuesday and Thursday nights and has been reading books with makeshift, newsprint covers, read on — maybe some other things will ring familiar:

Two Main Recruitment Tactics
1) “Casual conversations” in Starbucks, grocery stores, bars, on trains, etc. Often recruiters initiate with questions about books, or claiming things like, “I’m working on a project about leadership. Which leaders do you admire?” If you’ve exchanged contact information after such an encounter and you notice a patient, yet persistent, string of phone calls from this person, yet when you call him or her back, you reach only voice mail, it is likely a “school” encounter.

If you’ve met with this person and the conversation feels oddly one-sided, as though he or she is drawing information out of you, but revealing as little as possible about him or herself, heed the red lights. If you have attended five meetings and at the last meeting he or she introduced you to a “friend” and if he or she has said something like, “Are you interested in meeting others who share your passions, interests, concerns, etc … oh and by the way … it’s very important you tell no one about this — it’s private, just for you” — it is officially a “school” encounter. And if he or she tells you that the first five or eight weeks is a “free experiment”, after which a monthly tuition will be determined, you’ve been “schooled”. For more details regarding this recruitment tactic, read How to Join a Cult.

2) “Presentations” formerly known as “lectures” — if someone invites you to a “presentation” with a vague topic, no title, and date and location to be determined, beware. If you go to this “presentation” and the presenters don’t share last names, or professional affiliations, or website to peruse; if there’s a post-presentation Q&A orchestrated by a guy named Robert with a beard and a John Boehner-like tan, you’ve hit the cult jackpot. If you filled out a “feedback form” and provided your phone number, never fear, one of “school’s” recruitment team will call.

By the way, cult expert Steven Hassan’s book Combating Cult Mind Control provides a list of clear and concrete questions to ask if you suspect you’ve been approached by a recruiter. I will provide those tips in a future post.

Recognizing The Cast & Crew
The cult known as “school” presents itself as though it is one in a long line of secret esoteric schools. Attendees are classified as “younger students” and “older students” and separated into the “younger” and the “older” classes. Robert leads the charge, while other “teachers” include Josh, Carol, Jeanine, Paul (who leads “body work”) and Michael (who “teaches Tai Chi”).

Location
Last I knew “school’s” “classes” met at the The Faulkner Mills building in Billerica, Ma. “School” has been known to move around or create satellite “classrooms”. The Belmont Lion’s Club, in Belmont Center, housed my first two years of “school”.

Regular “Classes”
Last I knew, “classes” met every Tuesday and Thursday night. In New York City, under the auspices of Queen Sharon, apparently there was — or is — a Monday and Wednesday class. However the “classes” fall, they happen twice a week. The longer you are *in*, the more critical your stellar and unquestioning attendance becomes.

Ideas/ i.e. “Teachings”
The ideas that “school” pontificates come from the studies of G.I. Gurdjieff. However, “school” neglects to mention its source. “School” will tell you that “the work” is an “oral tradition”, insinuating that there are no published materials and that “you won’t find these ideas any where else”. It will neglect to mention publications by both Gurdjieff and some of his students, as well as the many Gurdjieff societies around the world, including one in Boston. In fact, if you want a wee handbook, order Jacob Needleman’s Introduction to The Gurdjieff Work, in which you will find outlines of the following ideas:

Aim, Self remembering; Self Observations; Three Centers — Intellectual, Moving, and Emotional; Man is Asleep; “The Work”, Multiplicity or Multiple “Is”;  Essence, Personality, False Personality; Man as Machine; The Morning Prayer; Identification; Internal and External Considering; The Law of Three; Aim and Five-Week Aim; The Ray of Creation; The “Work Octave”; Necessary and Unnecessary Suffering; The Food Diagram, etc.

“Sustainers” – “School” assigns “sustainers” to meet with its newest recruits — known as “youngest students”– outside the hallowed halls, allegedly to help them navigate this new adventure. In truth, the “sustainers” main objective or “aim” is to retain the newer students. After telling the sustainees that their conversations are private, sustainers pass on pertinent information to “teachers”.

Beginning Required Reading: Hans Christian Anderson’s The Shadow,  Robert Lewis Stevenson Dr Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, Ralph Waldo Emerson essays, a series of mysterious photocopied “lectures” that I believe were delivered by a Gurdjieff student named P.D. Ouspensky, but “school” will neglect to mention him.

Those are the nuts and bolts that I recall. I invite readers to contribute to this list of identifying factors. I’m sure I haven’t covered them all. Thanks for reading!

Caterpillar consumption

Dear Readers,

Recently I had what I have come to call a run of “caterpillar days” — my to-do list was thwarted by the universe: a client refused a session; my computer’s hard drive died; my one day off was spent at the North Shore Mall’s Apple Store; family challenges rose to the surface and my inner responses followed (anger, blame, frustration, guilt, sadness — all unspoken and distracting).

My psyche defaulted to the “I cut myself off from the source” mode, followed by the “my life will now turn to crap” mode — punishment for “breaking school rules”. Fortunately, I caught myself and saw those days for what they were — caterpillar days in a striving towards butterfly-hood.

Truthfully, before my “school” tenure similar days would have triggered a similar response. But my sin would have been nebulous and the “greater/higher power” would have been un-definable. “School” provides me clarity for the crimes: leaving  “the source”; researching “school” on the evil internet; breaking the “code of silence”; reaching out to others AND (most egregious) writing and posting my super-secret esoteric “school” — i.e. cult – experience for all that care to read it.

Now that I know the insane context (history, lineage, or lack thereof) that “school” desperately scrambles to hide, I can recognize the insanity of these damning thoughts — punishment for the crimes of independent thinking and inquiry. In reality, my caterpillar days simply point to some life things that need tending  — things having nothing to do with “school’s” wrath and hell fire.  They beg the questions:  why so distracted and what do I need to address? They say to me, “Hey, you need a day at the beach.”

How many of us ex-students experience the sense that “school”, in it’s highly evolved capacity, can lurk above judging caterpillar days? How many of us hear “school” voices saying, “I told you this would happen”– damning us to meaningless lives of scrambling, crawling and consuming until death.

In my last conversation with Robert, he told me essentially that my husband would continue trying to “control” me in the future. “These things don’t happen in isolation,” he promised me. Of course, the obvious irony here is that this is a standard line, fed to students whose spouses have started to whittle away at the induced “school” stupor. It is an attempt to control via fear.

When that didn’t work, he changed his tactic. “I am trying to put myself in your husband’s shoes,” he said. I remember – at the time – having the thought, “Well how hard can it be to understand my husband’s legitimate worries about my emotional morass and our dwindling finances? ” But, again, I was to intimidated to voice this question.

I was furious when learning later that Robert’s three marriages were all arranged via “school”. This knowledge did throw light on his utter lack of empathy. He has never had to explain the unexplainable to his wives – the ever-growing time commitment and expenses. He has never had to lie to the person who has been lying next to him night after night.  I finally understood that his lack of compassion for my husband, extended to my marriage, which was inconvenient for “school”.

In reality, my departure only strengthened my marriage and vastly improved my life. My husband has not tried to control my time as promised. And I have come to honor and trust my own judgment and make my own decisions – ultimately reclaiming responsibility for my life. Since then, doors have opened for me without the frantic and exhausting scramble prescribed by “school” in “principle”. Most notably, my struggle with employment and money is over.

After almost two years of following “school’s help” in finding work, I decided to take the opposite tack. I relaxed, regrouped and focused on  work that felt meaningful and right; positions that call on my natural aptitude. Within two months after leaving school I found work that I love. I now earn a decent salary and was recently nominated and awarded a prize for my efforts. I can honestly say that my days feel joyful, meaningful and purposeful.

School often paints departing infidels as angry and disgruntled “ex-students”, who somehow “failed” the program. Again, my experience has proven exactly the opposite to be true. Angry, yes! I am wrathful at the deception and manipulation of this fake “school”. Disgruntled, no. I have never been clearer in my life about what I want and who I am.  I am filled with gratitude for having my life back — mostly to my husband for pushing me to see the truth of the mysterious Tuesday/Thursday thing. My decision to leave school is proving to be one of my most successful and important decisions. I am a stronger woman, now, and my well-honed bullshit detector quickly sounds sirens when encountering the “cleverly insincere”.

I have spoken with many former “students” and they do miss their friends. But if King Robert himself, called us each personally and invited any of us back, I feel certain that none would accept. In fact, fairly recently, eleven of the “angry and disgruntled” reunited at the Cheesecake factory. We shared stories, complained, gossiped, laughed our asses off, showed pictures of new babies, talked about babies to come, discussed books, movies, new esoteric and spiritual explorations, compared ludicrous stories from our “school” days, talked about new jobs and (God forbid!) exchanged emails and phone numbers in unadulterated, unmonitored and chaotic conversation.

We toasted to our real freedom. Without school, the “disgruntled” are living joyful and meaningful lives. We have more money, energy and time and we own our thoughts, emotions and actions. We decide when to change a job, see our spouses, take our children to the playground, etc. We are awake to the value innate in each moment; the smallest things hold priceless meaning, after having given this time away to “school”.

For those of you who are still in and wondering what is this thing called “school”, I can tell you that it is not the institution hued to a higher calling in pursuit of truth that it claims to be; its roots are deeply entrenched and clinging to deception and greed. I want to implore you to reclaim your life. You will not learn the truth of “school” if you are in “school” for its evolved leaders take great pains to keep the truth from you. The gift of freedom that  “school” whispers came to me when I left. I learned the truth and experienced a stark contrast between letting an esoteric prison dictate my choices and the freedom that followed when I decided that if I was going to fuck up my life, I’d rather do it on my own terms, thank you very much. My striving towards butterfly-hood continues, always will, but now I am free to explore, stumble and bumble in my own perfectly imperfect way.

Sometimes – these days more often than not — I hit the mark.

Essence Friends, thanks for reading, and here’s to your freedom. Please share your stories in having left “school”. Perhaps some current students will find this blog and decide to set themselves free.

With sincerity,

GSR

P.S. Cult confessions will continue but not in this book/chapter format. Much more to say … I hope you will stay tuned and chime in.

The Third Line of Work for the Fake Fourth Way School

The Nuts and Bolts
In The Christmas Party and How to Join a Cult, I spoke of the “third line of work”. This series of posts explore how the “third line” devours “school’s” most stellar and devoted disciples.

Recently, blog-contributor, River of Joy, wrote:

“I have come to the conclusion that usefulness = being used … The students that are most ‘useful’ to “school” are the ones who are the most successful at recruiting and/or who give the most money to Sharon. They are the good students, the ones smiled upon and praised. In reality, they are the ones who are the most used by “school”. They give away all their spare time and energy to the recruiting effort, and/or all their cash goes to Sharon to buy red bathtubs and the like. The term ‘usefulness’ is more palatable and easier to swallow – who wouldn’t want to be ‘useful’? It sure beats its opposite, ‘useless’. We were all so cleverly manipulated, I’m sad to say.”

“Teachers” often bandied about the word “useful”, especially when “school” needed “students” for its super-secret missions. “School” equates those who contribute to its super-secret aims — and thus are “useful” — as those whose efforts feed that which “comes from above”; work towards that which is greater or higher. When teachers unveil third line of work”, the anointed learn that “work for school” is the link to evolution, to conscience.  Without it, evolution is not possible. To evolve, we need a vertical force, a higher purpose, to come down from above and intersect the horizontal trudge of the caterpillar. This “third line of work,” we are told, is the force that can transform us from caterpillars to butterflies and our lives from endless one-dimensional consumption into a colorful, three-dimensional existence of fully realized potential.   Efforts that are “useful” for school are paramount and will yield the supreme payback …of course, that’s if your efforts are “of the right kind.”

Lucky us! Most humans are not granted this grand opportunity. Sleeping humanity has twisted and convoluted religion to the point where it no longer qualifies as “higher and finer” in “school’s” view. But we have the bigger-than-we-are, super-secret, unspoken “higher aim” of keeping Sharon comfortably housed in Manhattan’s Park Plaza. We have access to true higher conscience and evolution through our efforts to keep her suitably drunk and medicated.   (Ironically, many newer “students” don’t know Sharon exists even though their efforts feed her financial coffers).

So, understand, Sincere Seeker, that everything else must step aside for this work, but do not be dismayed, because a “rightly ordered life” – with “third line” at the top – will inform and order other life things rightly  – like a trickle-down effect – onto work, family and friends.  Make the efforts, and you’ll see.

Allegedly, “school” grants the “third line of work” privilege after students have put in sufficient effort to awaken and evolve.   Of course, we don’t know who determines our “readiness” and why.  Call me skeptical, but I suspect it is driven by a sudden drop in student numbers or Sharon’s urgent need for a second red bathtub –rather than our spiritual growth. Many former students admit to handing over tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars after being treated to extra doses of attention and being singled out to participate in “something special” to help “school” survive and continue.

Privilege 1: Food & Beverage Prep and Service

So, now that we’ve discussed the first line of work, let’s touch on the second line of work: take the first line — work for the self — and the psychological ideas – i.e. observing yourself, recording your own mechanical-ness, multiplicity, etc. – and turn the focus outward to your “essence friends”. School adopted the term “essence friends” as a way to identify fellow students. It also indicates a more exclusive and precious relationships than your little “life” relationships; after all other “sleeping” people will not demand from you anti-mechanical efforts; your life relationships aren’t helping you to “evolve”.  Your “life” relationships keep you asleep.

Soon you see in others what you observe in yourself. Therefore when you reflect back to your “classmates” their “mechanical” qualities, you are doing the second line of work. You are “helping” your “essence friends” to awaken! You are demanding that they recognize and break free of their mechanical-ity/false personality/multiplicity for a moment, right? Or, the savvy seeker might say that you are adding your voice to the chorus — in deference to the voices of teachers – and contributing to the shaping of good “students” who will increasingly turn over their little, insignificant, cyclical lives to “school”. If we are all mechanical, then why not become machines that work for the greater good of “school”. At least then we have a chance at evolution.

In a typical scenario of “second line of work” one of your “essence friends” stands up in class and says something like, “I need some help with my boss.” Maybe his/her boss expects that person to stay late every night and keeps asking about the commitment on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You offer feedback, or advice, mainly using the “school” ideas of observation, false personality, multiple Is, etc., occasionally throwing in some common sense from “life” having had “known” this person for a while (albeit mainly on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and only in contrived and monitored “discussions” and environments orchestrated and controlled by “teachers”). In this case, of course, the “help” would begin with the “school” is “private”, “just for you” brand of “help” and then careen into the “maybe if you tried harder” brand – get to work early, be an exemplary employee, be in a state of “external considering” (which means, simply put, functioning through the lens of “what can I do for you?” as opposed to the “internal considering” lens of what can I get from this.)

Given some time school begins to marinate its students in an idea called radiations – my limited understanding of radiations is this: the energy we put out into the world reflects either fineness or coarseness. Fine radiations are those of thinking high and fine thoughts, feeling gratitude for your good fortune, etc. Coarse radiations might include stewing in complaints, feeling self-righteous, indignant, self-pity, etc. We were taught that the world reflects back to us the inner radiations we project out to the world. Thus another neurosis-induced prison begins to take root, as we begin to fear these “coarse” states of being and that we are projecting them out. If your boss is giving you a hard time, it is your fault for putting out the radiations that would elicit his unreasonable demands.

As you can imagine, second line of work can run the gamut from compassionate, loving and helpful, to annoying, infuriating and – at its worst – a feeding frenzy of humiliation; in my experience most times fellow students offered sincere and compassionate feedback to their “essence friends”, especially in the early days of school. But the feeding frenzy takes root when souls become increasingly desperate for approval and acceptance; like children aching to get a nod of approval from a parent figure.

I recall one scenario in which one “student’s” alcoholic mother was visiting; like a good “student” he had come to class, but he knew that she was back in his apartment drinking. He asked for help, understandably afraid that she might hurt herself or trash the apartment while he was in class. Never mind school’s do it or die insistence that all students attend class come hell or high water — alcoholic mother visiting, or not, you show up. Never mind that this good student, showed up understandably worried and asking for help. In return school reamed him out emotionally: how could you leave her alone in the apartment? That’s dangerous! Why didn’t you prepare for this before she showed up? Blah, blah, blah. Teachers, of course, initiated the verbal lashing, and, we, his “essence friends”, took the cue and picked up the ball chiming into a chorus of blame and disgrace.

I sat there mute, awake to the feeding frenzy and horrified by it. I imagined standing and saying, “This isn’t helpful. Don’t you think he knows that it’s dangerous to leave his drunk mother at home? Isn’t that why he stood and asked for the help? Why do you suppose he came to class?” I did not stand up against this chorus of soul-ripping freaks. In the moment, I recognized that the “help” was fucked and I was not completely hypnotized; but I have never stopped regretting that I lacked the courage to speak up. I also ignored the red light indicated by fear of speaking up. Instead, I watched as this student shrunk and apologize.

“I know, I know,” he would reply. “What should I do?”

“If you know then, why didn’t you (FILL IN WITH ACUSATION)” came the Greek chorus o’ shame, on and on and on and on.

This brand of help becomes increasingly typical the longer one is in school. I recall times when Robert would challenge us to be more confrontational with each other. His insistence would sometimes ring an almost combative tone to it. Now that I know more about school’s true history, it rings with distant echoes of the San Francisco branch, i.e. Alex Horn school of yore; the one in which its enlightened leadership encouraged the men to fight each other — for starters. If you can stomach the insanity of it, you can visit David Archer’s Supping with Alex to get a first-hand account of the Alex Horn days. Thanks to Archer’s snarky humor, it is a horrifyingly, ludicrous and hysterical read chronicling what I imagine to be California cult culture in the 1970s.

Fortunately, my class never devolved to the point of fist-i-cuffs, but I can remember moments in which I added some of my own “wisdom” into the mix when a fellow student was asking for help and getting that nod of approval from Robert. Nothing felt better than the moment where I got the approving teacher nod and especially from Robert. I felt as though I really must be getting somewhere. I can see things about this person that s/he cannot and Robert recognizes that. I remember noting, at a certain point, that most of the time when I stood to comment, the teachers would call on me, whereas others might stand a long time, increasingly agitated and anxious to say something. Sometimes the topic of discussion would be waved away before those others got to speak. I felt very special that the teachers often welcomed my comments, as though they saw in me some real potential, some wisdom, some leadership qualities – given some perspective, time and more knowledge I now wonder if this was really something to be proud of.

School paints its students a certain way, hanging labels like ” in self will” , “precious”, “vain”, etc. We responded. Then we felt pleased with ourselves for it.

Chapter 7, Third Line of Work — For “School” in Four Parts

Hurray for cults

Have you always wanted to lead your own cult, but didn’t know where to start? Never fear, “help” is here. Cultivate the following ingredients, and the aspiring cult-leader should be good to go: intelligence; charm; a convincing and articulate personality; and leadership skills.  Combine with large amounts of powerful spiritual ideas that attempt to explain the unexplainable and connect the personal to the universal.  Then add a handful of spiritual seekers.  Add more of those continually throughout the process to keep the momentum since you do lose some along the way.

Spiritual seekers are those for whom our typical day-to-day existence rings up the question, “Is this as good as it gets?” Seekers ache to understand the meaning and purpose of their lives and connect that to the meaning and purpose of humanity as a whole. Seekers wish to evolve into men and woman who can understand and spread healing, joy, beauty, truth, knowledge and wisdom. They want their lives to mean something. Seekers want to believe in a higher power, or God, if you will, a greater good; seekers are idealists who have not caved into skepticism and are clinging to hopes that greater good still exists, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

Aspiring cult leaders have to understand this psychology of longing (perhaps having once experienced it); they need to get off on the ability to manipulate it in others and justify taking advantage of the hopeful and idealistic. They must vindicate that odious practice for self-serving ends while convincing seekers that all that is preached to them and all that is demanded of them serves their evolution, which in turn, serves humanity’s evolution.

“School’s” brand of sculpting the malleable lies in its “three lines of work”:

1)    Work on the self is aimed at verifying that we do not know ourselves; using “school ideas” (which are really ideas gathered by George I. Gurdjieff) we set out to learn who we truly are – or who “school” paints us out to be.

2)    Work for others entails, among other things, helping fellow students to verify that they don’t know themselves and reflecting back who they truly are according to “school”.

3)    Work for “school”, the true test, can be any task that benefits “school” from cooking to creating presentations to building rooms and painting walls. Typically, for the younger student, the “third line of work” begins with the Christmas Party and then extends into recruitment. As time goes on, it will encompass construction, repair, decoration, and maintenance of homes owned by “teachers.”  It is work for “school” that – according to “school”– ensures one’s evolution.

Chapter 6, Part 2:  Work on the Self: Psychological ideas

First Line: Work on the Self

Think of your daily activities as a linear series of events: make three phone calls, wash the dishes, take Johnny to school, pay bills, commute to work, etc. You might begin to see yourself as a kind of human caterpillar, chomping and crawling through the tasks that make up your days, like a caterpillar chomps through leaves and grass, consuming the necessary fuel to keep consuming, often times to its death.  I have heard that many caterpillars never evolve into butterflies. Those of us who found ourselves in “school” are those who ache to become brightly colored beings flying above gardens, feasting on nectar and spreading seeds of beauty. We hope that our lives can spiral and evolve upwards, so that we do not simply traverse the same circle until we die, consuming and repeating the same activities, day after day; maintaining.

According to “school,” if one makes “sufficient efforts,” s/he will cultivate the ability to rise above and see her/his life as though an impartial observer watching a play.

In its initial classes, school introduces the following psychological ideas. Initially, the ideas and the accompanying “help” can feel like keys to evolution and eventual freedom:

Essence, personality and false personality:

Once upon a time, every human began as an essence floating in the starry world. Every essence, though, has a fatal flaw that can only be addressed by descending to earth and manifesting as human. This essence chooses the perfect set of parents to address its “flaw” and journeys to earth to be born as a boy or girl. There’s one major problem with this process: over time this young essence develops a shield called the personality. It is meant to protect this vulnerable essence, but as years pass, essence forgets that personality is merely a shield. It falls asleep to its journey and purpose, its true nature.  Personality grows out of control, takes over, and begins to crystallize into “false personality,” that part of ourselves we create for others to see.  Essence recedes further into the background. “School” tells its “students” we come here to reclaim that buried essence. We come here to “remember ourselves”.

Multiplicity as opposed to unity:

In the process of developing false personality, we become psychologically splintered –we develop an internal cast of characters who have their own reactive thoughts, emotional responses and physical responses. “School” calls this having “multiple I’s”. The “I’s” who compose the internal cast of characters compete for the wheel.  Moreover, these characters compete without any awareness of each other. Each one calls itself “I”, believing itself to be one unified “I”.  One “I” says it will wake up early; another “I” presses the snooze button in the morning.  One “I” begins a diet; another reaches for dessert.  With this constant cycle of changing captains, we have no hope of consistently steering the ship toward our destination unless we get “help.” We are a multiplicity.

Liars as opposed to sincere seekers:
Most people believe themselves to be unified, unaware of their internal and constantly changing cast of characters. We are unaware that, in any given moment, any one of these characters could be making decisions that will only be contradicted by another. Therefore, when we speak as though unified – i.e. any time we begin a sentence with the word “I” (like, “I want a relationship.”) – “school” teaches that we are lying: do we really want a relationship? If so, why do some of the I’s in us push relationships away? See? Without the “help” we don’t even know we are lying.  “School” tells us only “truth can unbury and grow essence” and only “school” can tell us what the truth is.

Asleep as opposed to awake:
Since we are unaware of our multiplicity, we do not have the knowledge necessary to understand that we are bumbling bundles of skin and bone and emotional, intellectual and physical reaction and contradiction (or as Joni Mitchell once said in an interview, “ I was all salt and skin.”) We are asleep to our multiplicity and our reactivity; therefore sleep-walking through our days.

“School” claims the ability to AWAKEN us! This based on the belief that we are rarely, if ever, truly awake.  The ideas as translated say that humans exist in four states of consciousness:

• Literal sleep (in bed, head on pillow, eyes closed)
• Waking sleep (moving through one’s day without any awareness of our true nature, essence, personality, false personality, multiplicity, etc)
• Consciousness (living and working with awareness of truth and one’s multiplicity)
• Objective consciousness (separate and able to observe our programmed responses, as though floating above, able to choose thoughts, emotions and actions that exist in a higher plane)

“School” taught its devotees that, at best, when out of bed and chomping through the day’s events, most live in the state of “waking sleep”.

Mechanical humans as opposed to autonomous individuals:
As humans embodying waking sleep, “school” teaches that we are merely empty machines, programmed to react to events by those messages and experiences we consumed from birth onwards. Put another way,  “Man cannot do,” because man has no real free will to choose action, thought or feeling in any given moment. Man simply reacts. But with “school” man may have access to certain tools/ideas that empower his/her ability to do. “School” promises to reveal lost knowledge that will provide true direction, especially through one idea that will constitutes it own chapter in the near future: AIM.

Imprisoned as opposed to free and autonomous:
In one of my initial classes, Robert recounted the story of Plato’s Cave: prisoners who are chained to the wall of a cave, unable to turn their heads. Behind them, a fire on a raised platform throws shadows on the wall. All they know of life are these shadows; they believe these shadows to be reality. We are, according to “school”, like these prisoners only seeing shadows and believing the shadows real. “School” claims it can show us the difference.

Self-Observations and Three “Centers” or Three Brains:
“School” tells its seekers to approach this work with a “healthy skepticism” and to question these ideas until we have developed our own understanding. Those of us who entered the cave in Billerica heard our “teachers” say, “Verify these ideas for yourself.”   One of the ways to verify this idea of our own mechanical-ity is through a tool called self-observations.

“School” teaches that humans have at least three brains or “centers”: intellectual, emotional and moving/instinctive. Each center has its own intelligence and set of reactions to external events. In attempts to verify the ideas above, each student gets a little notebook and begins to record his/her observations throughout the day, in the very specific format below:

“I observe the thought [FILL IN THOUGHT] as a function of the intellectual center, when [FILL IN EVENT].”

“I observe the feeling [FILL IN EMOTION] as a function of the emotional center when [FILL IN EVENT]”

“I observe the sensation [FILL IN SENSATION] as a function of the moving/instinctive center when [FILL IN EVENT”]

In my initial experiences with self-observations I saw my “multiple Is”, my mechanical-ity, and my automated responses to events. I even began to name and categorize my characters. For example, if any of my classmates was presenting as a perfect student, the cast of the film, Clueless, would appear on my internal stage and think things like, “Well, it must be nice to be so perfect.” (insert snotty-teenage girl voice). I began to see that I could separate myself from those petty and jealous girls. If I was having a shitty day and feeling sorry for myself, I could see the self-pity as a “function of the emotional center”. I could say to myself, “This self-pity is not ‘I’.” Self-observations stripped judgment away from any number of things, depersonalizing emotions, thoughts, reactions, allowing one to watch oneself and learn how this “human machine” operates.  On occasion, I could separate enough to choose different and new responses.  Imagine the wonderful possibilities with this idea!

The Bait and Switch

Bait and Switch

At the same time, some part of me could see the set-up in accepting that which “school” preached in its hallowed halls: “I do not know myself; I am mechanical; I cannot do; I am not I, just a bumbling cast of characters reacting to external events; I am asleep, blah, blah, blah.” Self observations, i.e. my constant verification of “This woman as mechanical being”, started becoming its own neurosis-induced prison that reinforced the question, “How do I live?” It fed and grew my lifelong self-doubts and lack of confidence and fears. Instead of “remembering myself”, I felt myself slipping farther and farther away. I clearly recall the repetitive thought, “My life is no longer mine” that would plague me every morning during my commute to the job I hated. But instead of listening to my truth and seeing this thought as a siren screaming, “Step away from the cult, ma’am.” I believed that I wasn’t trying hard enough.  “If I try a little harder,” I thought, “I will “remember myself.” That’s what they told me.

Thus began the reliance on “teachers” for guidance on how to live.  “Thank God,” I thought, “I have access to ‘teachers’ who are more evolved, have been working on themselves, have more wisdom, a higher perspective, more understanding of human psychology than I do.   They see me more clearly than I do. They understand and hold the keys to my freedom, my connection to that which is beyond my understanding, perhaps the path to the life for which I’d always longed.” I grew to trust those who had been “working on themselves” longer; I assigned them all of those attributes, as they dangled those keys to freedom before me, but beyond my reach. And this is where the trouble really begins. Over time, I abdicated responsibility to them, not trusting my own instinctive responses to life events and therefore turning more and more to teachers for “help” on how to respond.

After leaving, I recognized how “school” co-opts powerful and real ideas and – instead of empowering its “students” to learn how to trust the truth that lies beneath their mechanical-ity – it programs “students” to constantly turn to the “more enlightened” for “help”. After a while the “help” becomes pat and mechanical responses that “teachers” have been programmed to provide. (Or as Robert is so fond of saying “out of the empty into the void.”) Soon, the “help” falls flat, or worse, backfires, often causing terrible trouble in the “student’s” personal or professional life. At that point, the “maybe you’re not trying hard enough” brand of “help” comes into play. We feel more vulnerable, more lost, more dependent on outside guidance from empty and mechanical beings, who are turning to other empty mechanical beings for guidance – with Sharon at the top of the food chain instructing her minions who to marry, when to divorce and when to have children, or worse, when to give up their children.

With everyone involved turning to empty vessels for “help”, the truth of the matter – that evolution is an inside job – is washed away. If one cannot learn to reach into and trust and live from the truth in oneself, and is always seeking enlightenment from external sources (i.e. “teachers”), one will eventually need to constantly seek approval from others. This leads to emptiness and fear. After leaving “school”, one of my co-horts called “school’s” recruitment process a “vast bait and switch operation.” “School” plants the bait-and-switch seed and nurtures it patiently throughout the indoctrination – it bakes that seed into each student and it grows and expands into all aspects of their lives.  So insidious and destructive, yet so simple.

A Poem for My “Teachers”

Out of the empty into the void
you ingested
Irony upon irony
Deception upon deception

Out of the empty into the void
you served
Irony upon irony
Deception upon deception

When the curtain falls
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Potential disappears on the wind
Forever gone
Your legacy: irony, deception, lives stolen
Long remembered

Chapter 6, Part 3: Work for Others – Second Line Feeding Frenzy

At 4:30 a.m. the decision awoke me: should I stay or should I go. Since my husband’s research led him to esotericfreedom.com, we had several talks. The website presented evidence that my precious “Tuesday/Thursday thing” (otherwise known simply as “school”) was, in fact, a cult and not the legitimate “fourth-way” school it presents to be.

We had been calling my bi-weekly disappearing act “Tuesday/Thursday Thing”. For five years, I dedicated almost every Tuesday and Thursday night to thing, where I joined others to practice “tai chi”, or “body work”  (a flailing free-for-all), discuss philosophy and ideas and get “help” from “teachers”.

School had presented as though rooted to the philosophical work of Russian mystic/teacher George Gurdjieff  (although neglecting to mention Gurdjieff). Chris’ research revealed that “school” grew from a cult sprouted out of San Francisco, during the seventies (the decade that brought us Jim Jones and “don’t drink the Kool Aid”). A sociopath named Alex Horn cleverly posed this cult as the “Theatre of all Possibilities”. In 1978, roughly a month after the Jim Jones tragedy, two newspapers — The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Progress —  published a series of articles exposing this “theater” as an abusive cult. Horn’s victims alleged rape, beatings and child abuse. The “theater” disappeared only to reappear some time later in New York, and branch out to Boston: planet academia. Click here to read one of these articles.

In attempts to be invisible, but simultaneously appeal to the studious seeker, the Boston branch juggled a variety of names over the years, including the Odyssey Study Group. Eventually it landed on simply “school”. My husband’s online investigation led him to my checkbook ledger where he found the initials O.S.G and the documented $350 monthly “tuition”. He confronted me: What is Odyssey Study Group? I didn’t know. I had never asked the simple question: what does O.S.G stand for? “Why not?” Chris persisted. I didn’t know.  He pointed out that I’d been depressed and losing faith in myself, and asked me, “Are you sure you are not being manipulated into staying?”

I had considered leaving before, but would inevitably conclude that I had never seen anything malevolent; school had helped me become a stronger and more capable woman, demanding more from me. I was convinced that I wouldn’t have my marriage and my home, if not for school. And although I had witnessed red-flag moments, I never saw physical or sexual violence. But I had become blind to a more insidious damage – a wearing away at one’s own ability to think, question and trust his/her thoughts, feelings and instinct; so I was also blind to the information he presented.

I told him that when broaching the topic of leaving — which I’d done a few times — our  leader, Robert, had responded, “You are a FREE woman; you can leave any time.” And it is true that the he had said exactly that; It is also true that over time school dismisses a student’s individual experience, ideas and opinions as though swatting away flies, presenting its “ideas” and “help” as “principle”. I was losing faith in myself as a woman who could function in the world without it. In essence, losing trust in oneself amounts to an invisible imprisonment.

I had joined school for selfish reasons, really. I was not wondering about universal truths; I was not thinking about spiritual evolution; I wanted a better life. I wished for a purposeful and meaningful existence. Besides that, I was single, brokenhearted, broke and lonely; I was 40 and “changing careers” — again. I was renting a room from a friend. I had nothing of my own, really. School promised new possibilities. School brought me hope.

Five years later, hope was waning, almost gone, really; but the emotional wearing down had set into my bones and I’d learned well not to trust myself – school tells its students repeatedly, “We don’t know ourselves.” And – as in everything “taught” in school — there is some truth to that claim. School co-opts and twists this truth to its own purposes – otherwise known as its “aim”, but when indoctrinated enough one becomes blind and deaf to the twisting, or believes it best.

During one of our several conversation, Chris had said, “It doesn’t matter what I say,” he was resigned that I was in for life. At the time, we were walking the path in the Ipswich River Park. “ I already know what your answer will be.”

I responded, “No. You don’t know what my answer will be.”

Neither did I.

I rose from under the covers – it was still dark; I threw on sweats, and walked to that same path. I circled it, watched the sunrise and consulted the sky, God, my deceased father and myself. Clarity dawned when the sun graced the horizon, hanging just above the trees:

1)    I was staying in school out of fear. My life might fall apart if I “cut myself off from source”. Robert had insidiously proliferated the idea of “school” as source. I had bought it. That morning, I said to myself, “I can’t continue to live out of fear. If my life spirals down into the abyss of hell, due to not being in school, so be it. At least the decision will be my own.”

2)    In that moment, I made my own decision for the first time in five years. During my tenure, I had started asking for “help” on almost everything.  But this decision had to be mine; there was no one to consult. “Teachers” clearly had an allegiance to “school”. School makes a distinction between it and “life”, placing school on a “higher order”, and if “life” things threaten the institution — believe me – teachers dole out a different variety of “help”.

No one but my husband knew about “school”. It would be time consuming and difficult to explain. Until he had found esotericfreedom.com, he knew little more than I would disappear on Tuesday and Thursday nights to attend “thing” and that every holiday season, I would be ridiculously busy with the “thing’s” Christmas Party. We would squeeze our holidays in at the last minute after “school’s” party was done.

My inner wisdom and my personal connection to God were also squeezed out. I abdicated my life decisions and responsibilities to “teachers”; in asking for “help” I was, in essence, asking their permission to live. Upon my initial encounter with this strange phenomenon, I had snapped on the shackles when asking my recruiter, Lisa, “How do I live?” In not so many words she responded: We will gladly tell you how to live. And they did. And it worked — until it didn’t.

As dawn broke, I had to turn the question inward: how do I want to live? Should I stay in this institution and continue to receive “instruction”? Or should I leave, make my own decisions, and risk more failure – all the knowledge, all the growth, the new life with family and house, etc, could disappear. I said to myself, “There is no one this earth that can tell you what is right for you. You have to decide alone.” In that moment, I reconnected to a source beyond anything constructed by humans. Ironically, the best gift I received from “school” came from my decision to leave.

3)  I asked myself, “If source is God, or universe, than is it not available to us everyday, everywhere and in everything? How dare Robert insinuate that “school” is source and play on our fears.”  I looked up to the sky, around at the trees, and said out loud, “Fuck Robert.” I awoke to the wrath I have towards that which is odious, manipulative and deceptive.

4)    The morning sun illuminated school as Plato’s Cave – the secret hideout in Billerica at the Old Faulkner Mills, shrouded in deception and secrecy. My “class” had discussed Plato’s cave. I realized that as Robert presented the story, and painted “life” as the cave, we slept through the fact that we were sitting in it. We lined up and faced the walls, watching shadows and believing them to be real; we followed the lead of the shadows, waiting for them to materialize into “evolution”.

And that is the way school operates; through pretty language, nodding to history, and the use of myth and metaphor our leader tells us, we will reshape you and your life into what “school” wants and needs – you – your energy and time – will be in service to school and its unrevealed “aim”. Robert’s presentation posits the external world as our jailor and “school” as our emancipator.  Believing him, as “freedom” sounded so appealing, we snapped on the shackles and awaited the evolution.

5)    Early in my school experience, Robert “taught” a parable: a shepherd hypnotizes his flock. He convinces them that the herding, sheering and slaughtering to follow will be for their own good. The sheep line up and putter to the slaughter – believing it best. We did follow him willingly, believing that we were being saved in the shearing. He lulled us to sleep while lecturing about “awakening”. Our spirits, open and trusting, played right into this deception. In the telling, he sheared, steered and prepared us for our “further evolution” into obedient, attendant and tuition-paying students.

6)    In that moment, the “help” I received from a “teacher” when confessing that my husband had read esotericfreedom.com revealed itself as a farce:

“Robert says you have to tell your husband to mind his own business.”

I finally woke up to the complete disregard for my husband, his experiences, school’s impact on him, my family and our relationship demonstrated by this piece of “help” — this “instruction”.

The late nights, and the lies (also known as “clever insincerity”) that students are instructed to tell their partners look like the behaviors of one having an affair.  Maybe that was the intent; after all, what secret “esoteric school” needs a pesky husband who would poke around on the Internet. Is that not too risky when school aims to be “the invisible world” of evolving and awakening men and women?

If one attends school long enough s/he will hear Robert say, “After all, if a man or woman is working on him/her self, any man (or woman) will do.” So the question loomed – what was the real intention behind the instruction, “Tell your husband to mind his own business.”? After leaving I learned about “school marriages” arranged by, and destroyed by, the New York branch, otherwise known as Queen Sharon, Robert’s “teacher”.  Ironically the best help I’d gotten to date from school was the instruction to “tell him to mind his own business.”; this clearly was his business.

7)    The decision to leave school led to another decision: No More Secrets .   “Schools” existence relies on a series of deceptions; it has created a moniker for the word lies:  “clever insincerity”. “Clever insincerity”, or lying, is justified by the teaching that all people lie most of the time. School does not point out that “clever insincerity” drives a wedge between the liar and his/her loved ones. I believed these “cleverly insincerties”  justified and my marriage magically immune from the wear and tear. Given years, relationships fall apart.  The morning sun revealed the present damage and potential for future damage. I woke up.

8)    Finally, it dawned on me that this “exclusive society” in which one is studying “sacred ideas” and “evolving” fed my vanity.  Yes, here I am – a woman struggling to AWAKEN amidst “sleeping humanity”. I am in the world, but not of the world, like Jesus, yes? The only problem is this: a “cleverly insincere” shepherd has hypnotized me and convinced me that this secret “esoteric school” is the “source” of freedom and the only way to manufacture a soul. If one is not “in school” one has not any possibility to evolve and embody a “soul”. Yes, folks, without “school” you are soul-less, empty, void and asleep.

Ironically, in order to be hypnotized this way, I embodied a special brand of sleep – a superior brand, apparently. Those poor soulless slobs who weren’t in school (the majority of humanity). In “school” this superiority is discouraged as “pride”. But – like so many other things about “school” – the subtext of feeling of superior is underscored and encouraged: we are – after all – men and women who are “working on themselves”, “awakening in a sleeping world” and, through our efforts, manufacturing souls.

So I freed myself from the silly charade and, in the words of Dar Williams, songstress, decided to:

“…go out and join the others; I am the others. And that’s not easy. As cool as I am, I want somebody who sees me.”

Chapter 2: How To Join a Cult