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Shambhala Sun (affliated with the part of the dharma scene begun by horndog drunkard Chogyam Trungpa) has stepped up and mentioned their involvement I’ll address that. Those who purchase Shambhala Sun, Tricycle and related magazines as well as the products advertised within them have a relatively high standard of living.

The average household income for Tricycle readers is $50,000 or more and $72, 000 for Shambhala Sun readers, with 50 percent having incomes between $60,000 and $90,000. Shambhala Sun furthermore notes that 35 percent of their readership are professionals in the “medical/alternative health care, legal, financial, or counseling fields.” As evidence of the assertion that we are, in some significant way, talking about people who might actually meditate, Shambhala Sun finds that 90 percent have “visited a contemplative center or retreat center in the past year.”

which is from the Shambhala Sun ad rate card, fall 1999, according to “Americans Need Something to Sit On,” or Zen Meditation Materials and Buddhist Diversity in North America By Douglas M. Padgett. I think it would be safe to say that those figures are considerably higher at this point in time. [Excellent article. Go read it.]

Now it is in keeping with business practice to organize events that will forward and expand the ideology, scope and particular viewpoint of that given business. It’s called cornering the market.

Drug manufacturers do it all the time.

They invite a bunch of doctors, particularly those that have been friendly to them in the past, for a conference, vacation or other sort of meet up and give their pitch while their cohorts in the audience help to provide an accepting ambiance.

Just because something is called non-profit doesn’t mean it is exempt from behaving just like a for profit organization. (Corboy's emphasis)

The postulates for raising money, profile, readership, sales, network connections and reach are exactly the same. Scientology is a non-profit registered entity and so are many art museums, cultural foundations and big charities like the Red Cross or the Gates Foundation.

I’m not saying that the Shambhala Sun and its affiliated foundations are greedy, only that they are not exempt from market forces and it is greatly in their interest to expand their brand of Elite Buddhism.

Elite Buddhism, from the Padgett article cited above, means a number of things. I am taking Padgett’s definition with it’s consumerist orientation. Here he explains his definition with respect to others:

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…Elite Buddhist are those privileged, well-educated Americans with time enough and money enough to devote themselves to some level of meditation and the study of Buddhist concepts.

For the purposes of this paper, however, Elite Buddhism is not wholly defined by actual meditation practice, but rather by a particular consumer orientation. I am interested in their consumption habits. In consumption anthropology, they might be known as “highbrow Buddhists.” They may be meditators; they may not. In either case, they have certainly adopted consumption habits indicating a minimal level of understanding and commitment to a Buddhist practice. I am adopting Nattier’s term because those whom I call Elite Buddhists are those who are making investments of one sort or another in meditation.

Thomas A. Tweed has referred to some of the people I am trying to identify as “night-stand” Buddhists—Buddhist sympathizers and seekers for whom the most regular “practice” is passive—reading Buddhist books, listening to “Buddhist” music, watching Buddhist videos, thinking about Buddhist concepts.(14)

Taken together, these night-stand Buddhists and Elite Buddhists, as well as Tweed’s other categories of Buddhist affiliates, “horse-shed Buddhists” (occasional practitioners), “Buddhist interpreters” (journalists and scholars), and “Dharma hoppers” (permanent seekers who move from community to community) constitute a coherent population of people with knowledge about and interest in Buddhism.

They appear to be affiliates of something like what Tweed has referred to, in the Victorian context, as a “community of discourse.”(15)

For my purposes, perhaps, most importantly, these are also the people who are buying things that, in some way are symbolically or culturally associated with Buddhism. Thus, this community of discourse might just as appropriately be referred to collectively as a “community of consumption.”(16)

The “community of discourse” in which the big Buddhist magazines flourish is indeed involved in consumption. And a great deal of what the community consumes comes from the pages of these magazines as well as the events they sponsor or offer advertisements to and the books they publish.

Considering the demographic of the readership these are not only Elites but very well off elites. This is what mainstream convert Buddhism is increasingly coming to look like.

We live in a time and a place where money talks. That includes in Buddhist social and institutional circles as well as Wall Street offices.

Not only do we have exclusions based on gender and race from the mainstream but increasing marginalization of the working classes and the poor, for whom the Buddhadharma (the teachings not the magazine) would be and is a great benefit.

And that certain lineages and teachers receive preferential treatment within the pages of those magazines is not surprising. The more they receive exposure the more they come to dominate Buddhist discourse in America and elsewhere. And more importantly the more readers will shell out for their particular brand.

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Authority
Authority these days often has little to do with knowledge, experience or ability and far more to do with media reach.

Whoever benefits by advertising dollars, favoritism within dominant media and participation in elitist meetings are those who will be deemed authoritative. [It also doesn’t hurt to have Christopher Hitchens endorse one’s theories]

Authority by celebrity is rapidly replacing actual knowledge and wisdom. Or celebrity must accompany such knowledge and wisdom in order for it to be heard.

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Authority
Authority these days often has little to do with knowledge, experience or ability and far more to do with media reach.

Whoever benefits by advertising dollars, favoritism within dominant media and participation in elitist meetings are those who will be deemed authoritative. [It also doesn’t hurt to have Christopher Hitchens endorse one’s theories]

Authority by celebrity is rapidly replacing actual knowledge and wisdom. Or celebrity must accompany such knowledge and wisdom in order for it to be heard

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Yet, “with great power comes great responsibility.” And if one is using one’s good name in any field to give credibility to others, one has a grave responsibility to ensure that the latter are actually some semblance of what they claim to be. Yet, one struggles to find any comprehension of that fact among Wilber and the rest of these “experts.” For, if they had understood that principle at all, they would be very humbled to realize the irreparable damage they have done in indefensibly encouraging others to throw their lives away in “surrendering completely” to the likes of Da and Cohen.

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As David Lane has often noted, we would not think of buying a used car—whether sold by Bhagavan Das, Werner Erhard or otherwise—without first “kicking the tires.” Yet, we do not think to equally properly question the assertions made by our world’s “god-men” before giving up our independence and willingly/blindly following them.

Further, we again do that too often on the “good advice” of the “geniuses” and elders in transpersonal and integral psychology.

For, we quite reasonably assume that they have done at least minimal research, and thus that they would be in a position to offer more intelligent and informed opinions than our own.

Big mistake.

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Stan Trout, a former decade-long swami follower of Muktananda, rightly observed:

Those who willingly put aside their own autonomy, their own moral judgment, to obey even a Christ, a Buddha, or a Krishna, do so at risk of losing a great deal more than they can hope to gain [italics added].
One might take comfort, then, in the fact that Ramana Maharshi himself not only accepted no disciples, but had no human guru: “Guru is God or the Self.” (At other times, however, Maharshi actually regarded Mount Arunachala—and presumably “all of the siddhas in it”—as his guru.) .

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If people were really well-informed, they would be immune to bad gurus (Robert Thurman, in [Watanabe, 1998]).
Well, you are now “really well-informed.” And being thus wise, knowing of the Dalai Lama’s admiration for Drukpa Kunley, and being cognizant of Richard Baker’s reported behaviors at the SF Zen Center ... you would not be surprised to learn that Thurman is still a loyal admirer of the homophobic Lama, after having been a friend of SFZC during Baker’s apocalyptic tenure there. Nor would you be taken aback to find that Thurman, in spite of his own “immunity to bad gurus” and foolish pandits after a lifetime of spiritual study and practice ... is a founding member of Wilber’s Integral Institute. Nor would you nearly fall off your chair in learning that he has released a recording of dialogs on Buddhism and politics between himself ... and alternative medicine’s Deepak Chopra.

Interestingly, both Thurman and the Dalai Lama endorsed Chopra’s (2000) book, How to Know God ... as did Ken Wilber and Uri Geller. Thurman called it the “most important book about God for our times.” Not to be outdone, the Mikhail Gorbachev elevated Chopra to the position of being “undoubtedly one of the most lucid and inspired philosophers of our times.”

And all of that, while Thurman was simultaneously being named as one of Time magazine’s twenty-five most influential people in 1997, and viewed as “America’s number one Buddhist” by the New York Times. The point being that, with no particular disrespect intended toward Dr. Thurman, even the best and most-esteemed figures in Buddhism and elsewhere demonstrably cannot be relied upon to do other than lead us directly to spiritual teachers whom we would do much better to avoid, should we make the mistake of following their “really well-informed” advice.

Even someone like the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield has again failed to do even minimally adequate research regarding the alleged unpunished breaking of rules in the East, before offering a confident, watertight opinion. That is, he has presented a superficially convincing, but ultimately utterly false theory, as if it were inarguable, researched fact. Further, he was still maintaining that indefensible opinion nearly two decades after his own days teaching at Trungpa’s Naropa during its most “wild and crazy” period. Those, too, were its most overtly “cult-like” times, as is painfully obvious for anyone with eyes even halfway open to see such things.

Few “experts” in Eastern spirituality are better informed, or more trustworthy or level-headed, than are Thurman and Kornfield. Yet, it is merely one small step from them and their “informed” opinions to find yourself following the likes of Trungpa, Richard Baker, or the “Tibetan Catholic” Dalai Lama.

Or, consider the work of Rabbi Michael Lerner—briefly dubbed the “guru of the White House” during the Clinton administration. (During a period of unpopularity, the Clintons also sought advice from the Muktananda-admiring, firewalking Tony Robbins. That self-help icon has guested on Wilber’s Integral Naked forum, and has also been an interviewee of Andrew Cohen [1999a].) Lerner is a close friend of Ken Wilber, and another founding member of the Integral Institute. And, while his political Tikkun organization, groups and magazine may well be “safe and nourishing” ones, he also considers Wilber to be a “great mind,” whose “brilliance pours out on every page” of his journals.

And then this from the same man—Lerner—blurbing for kw’s (2001b) A Theory of Everything:

Ken Wilber is one of the most creative spiritual thinkers alive today, and A Theory of Everything is an accessible taste of his brilliance. Like a masterful conductor, he brings everyone in, finds room for science and spirit, and creates music for the soul.
Suppose, then, that you, as a young but dedicated spiritual seeker and/or political activist, and an admirer of Lerner, were to attend one or another of the Tikkun functions. And suppose that you discovered the work of Ken Wilber through that, devouring his “brilliant” books in the following months. Not knowing any better, you would undoubtedly be impressed by the great man’s “genius” and “compassion” on such a wide range of subjects—as I myself was for two months, many naïve years ago—particularly given Lerner’s endorsement of that “brilliance.”

How long would it be, then, before you followed kw’s “good advice” in those writings? How long before you (perhaps not unlike Mr. Kowalczyk) found yourself “surrendered completely” as a non-celebrity to a “great Realizer,” whose every alleged “Rude Boy” abuse was being indulged in only for your own benefit, as a wise “Teaching”?

Lerner himself has not only endorsed Andrew Cohen’s Living Enlightenment (2002), but also been interviewed by Cohen (2001a) in What Is Enlightenment? magazine. Dr. Lerner has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology; Cohen, perhaps unique among human beings, has no psychological shadow (or so he claims). He would thus surely have made a fascinating case study for Lerner, had the latter’s eyes been open to that rare, breakthrough opportunity.

Interestingly, other enthusiastic endorsers of Cohen’s Living Enlightenment have included Jack Crittenden, Deepak Chopra, Lee Lozowick, Mariana Caplan, and the late Swami Satchidananda himself.

Exalted company, indeed.

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Professor Richard Delgado asserts that the legal status of [alleged] religious cults should be analyzed within the context of the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution—which forbids slavery—rather than within the First Amendment alone. He believes the conditions of some [so-called] cult members do in fact constitute a state of slavery (Rudin and Rudin, 1980).

U.S. courts have repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment provides only unqualified freedom of religious belief, not unlimited freedom to practice those beliefs in ways that may violate existing laws or pose a threat to the health and safety of individuals or society (Conway and Siegelman, 1982).

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Leaving Isn't Easy

Given the pervasiveness of physical and emotional abuse and financial exploitation in Andrew Cohen's community, it would be reasonable to ask (as some on this blog have) why students don't just leave. In fact, most of Andrew's students do leave. He has far more students who have left him over the years than who have remained with him. Few of his early students remain. I have learned from an inside source that there are currently less than 400 students and "practicing members" combined, worldwide. This is far from the "revolution" that Andrew has always claimed he is spearheading.

For many students, however, leaving Andrew is traumatic. This is due to a combination of factors. Some of these factors are psychological and entrained by Andrew. Students are told repeatedly that leaving Andrew and his community is the greatest betrayal. They are taught that it is tantamount to admitting that they do not "want to be free" and to giving up any chance of spiritual enlightenment. Andrew's close students have witnessed numerous times the way Andrew denigrates and demonizes those who leave him. Andrew frequently complains about a conspiracy of former students who only want to undermine him. Students are repeatedly told that if they leave they should have no contact with other students who left the community. This means that it is likely they will be alone and without emotional support if they leave Andrew and IEF. Close students have generally devoted years of their lives to Andrew, have derived their whole sense of meaning from the community, and have lost touch with other friends, interests and support systems. The prospect of facing a huge void in their lives makes the idea of leaving Andrew very intimidating. But sometimes leaving Andrew is difficult for another reason-Andrew and his community sometimes make it almost impossible to do.

It is generally not possible to openly talk about leaving the IEF community if one has been a close student. If one does leave, one is often hounded by the community. There have been many instances of this. Marvin, a student who left on the pretext of visiting family, was called repeatedly by community members, and asked to come back. He finally agreed to return briefly to discuss the matter. When challenged for leaving without telling anyone, he made the memorable comment, "Leaving is not a formal student topic." Many other students were hounded after they left. Jeff, the student who left after Andrew had Michelle, a physician student, pretend she was going to surgically remove his finger for failing in a writing project (See "Shame, Guilt and The Guru's Blood") was sent a series of e-mails, each with symbolic pictures of the cover of the video "The Picture of Dorian Gray," with the images becoming progressively more distorted and ugly.

Many students have run from the community during the night. A couple of examples of this follow. The female student who made the $60,000 contribution and pledged her future inheritance, whose story was told above, did so after secretly escaping Foxhollow one night. Before she left, Andrew knew she was in a delicate condition and there was a danger she might leave. She had left once before. One night after receiving serious "feed-back", Andrew's wife Alka came to her room, and asked her for her driver's license, passport, and credit cards. She said she could not find her passport, but handed over what she claimed was her only credit card and her driver's license. She had previously hidden, however, another copy of her license and another credit card. She took them, along with her passport, "borrowed" the community car, and drove to a car rental office in Lenox. There she rented a car, left a voicemail message at Foxhollow about the community car's whereabouts, and drove off into the night. She didn't know where she wanted to go, just that she wanted to get far away. Eventually, she drove the thousands of miles from Massachusetts to New Orleans. She figured no one would find her there. A few days after she arrived and got a room, she went to return the rented car. There, to her shock, she found Debbie, an IEF community member, waiting for her. Debbie had waited at the car rental's Lenox office until she overheard a phone conversation from which she learned the student would be returning her rented car in New Orleans. She flew there and waited in the New Orleans rental office until the escaped student showed up. Debbie eventually persuaded her to return.

One Dutch student, who was close to Andrew and who had been a leader in his communities in Europe, fell into disfavor. He was put in a community home in London, where Steve Brett was told to keep an eye on him and prevent him from leaving. Steve slept just outside the Dutch student's room, so that he could not leave in the night without being noticed. But one night Steve failed to do this. The Dutch student packed a bag and threw it out his bedroom window to the ground below. Then he sneaked silently out of the house. He retrieved his bag, and found a pay telephone a block or two away, from which he called a cab. A couple of weeks before this, Rob, a close community member and an old friend of the Dutch student, had warned him against leaving. Rob was highly trained in martial arts, having been a member of a special division of the Dutch military, roughly equivalent to the U.S. Navy Seals or Special Forces. Rob had told his friend that if he ever left, he would find him and break every bone in his body. After the student escaped, he chose to go as far away as he could imagine, settling in Costa Rica. A few weeks after getting there, he got an e-mail from Rob. All it said was, "I'm coming." Andrew himself had instructed Rob to send this e-mail.

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Dear Evolutionary,

I'm writing today with some important news about the magazine. Issue 47—"The Cosmic Dimensions of Love"—was our final edition. After nearly two decades, what has been a labor of love for all of us at EnlightenNext is officially out of print.

We deeply appreciate the passionate support from our readers over the years. Yet we found ourselves, as many magazines have recently, in a challenging financial situation. As a nonprofit, we could no longer subsidize the substantial deficit that producing an international magazine with such high-quality content requires.

To mark the end of one era and the birth of another, we're clearing out our warehouse—permanently—and have decided to make a collector's set available at a very significant discount.

Purchase Your Collector's Set Today »

Five issues have already sold out completely, and for many of them we have just over one hundred copies left. We expect this collector's set to sell out quickly. So I encourage you to buy your set of 42 issues of EnlightenNext magazine before they are gone for good.


I look forward to being in touch with you in the months and years to come—as we continue to build a powerful and dynamic movement of Evolutionaries through our annual retreats, training programs, and the publication of Andrew Cohen's new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to write to me at Evolutionaries@EnlightenNext.org.

Purchase Your Collector's Set Today »

Best regards,

Carter Phipps
Executive Editor
EnlightenNext