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And to convince themselves that the abuse they suffered had not been abuse but was a special privilege.

I meant to say, To recognize that the specialness felt during the time with Cohen was concealment of abuse, and the specialness was invoked to justify denying ones actual and real experience of suffering which was instead split off from conscious awareness, then feared and despised as weakness.

To cope with the tension, one had to recruit new members and spread the revolution not only to serve Cohen, but to convince oneself that the misery was actually worthwhile.

That was a great post Corboy. It really resonated with me.

“One cannot just walk away from a setting so intense that , by Martin Gifford's description a guru has psycholocially impregnated the personality of his or her targets.”

He does it by using the most basic technique - reward and punishment. If you say or do things he likes he praises you, otherwise he punishes you. Of course, you have to be susceptible to that kind of thing. The susceptibility comes in the form of idealism. Idealism works as both the lure and the stick:

THE LURE: Join me in the goal of creating an ideal future for humankind and to help God fully manifest on Earth.

THE STICK: You are not living up to your ideals. Your ideals (i.e. Cohen’s ideals) are the most important thing about you, so if you don’t live up to them, then your life is meaningless. And since I (Andrew Cohen) am the very embodiment of your ideals, you have to do what I say.

“One may have walked away from Cohen, but if one tries to teach the Cohenian material apart from Cohen, if that evolutionary material has been composed to insert Cohens harsh critical voice and priorities into oneself, it may not be evolutionary at all--it may just cause the instructor and students to devolve into and re-trigger emotional states and stances promoted by Cohen himself.”

That’s partly true. I would put it that Cohen embodies the superego, and that is the states of consciousness they experience. It is valid as one experience, but not when it is interpreted as being The Whole Point Of Human Existence. The other side of the coin is that while Cohenites might be brainwashed, they still instinctively realise that too much brashness will turn the punters off, so, subconsciously, they tone it down and make Cohenism look quite respectable when presenting to the general public. This is the same as Cohen’s respectful approach to the dodgy gurus he interviews for his magazine.

“What is noteworthy is that it has taken most of Cohen's former students (except for Luna Tarlo) at least 10 years before they could begin to speak out publicly.”

Yes. I think that’s because of the way Cohen and his followers get you to merge your own idealism with the personality of Cohen. When you leave, it feels like you have betrayed your very self. It’s weird. I was only involved for 1 year - I can’t imagine how hard it is for long-termers.

“In the early shares on What Enlightenment? blog, many described dreadful treatment yet at the same time revealed tremendous lingering loyalty and real concern for Cohens welfare--a concern Cohen never reciprocated for those of his many students whom he either rejected or who departed into the night.”

Yes. They are more conscious than him. He is blindly on a mission. He believes in himself because he heard a voice when he was 16 saying something like “Devote everything to me and you will be safe.” Yet at the same time, it would only take a few to publicly expose him to see him crack. Otherwise, he is in a protective bubble created by his disciples, Wilber, other gurus, lawyers, etc.

“(This is nothing more than a re-enactment of the role of the parental 'special' child who is drafted into taking care of the emotional needs of disturbed parents and is used as an object to soothe and comfort the parent, losing both childhood and selfhood in the process. The used child is conned to think that he or she is 'special' and that the specialness compensates for the revulsion, confusion and fear the child denies feeling. If one is in this role in childhood and has not examined this, it is easy to be recruited into that same role of parenting a tantrum producing guru and to believe this suffering is necessary, evolutionary, and that the specialness makes it all worth it. This re-enacts the miserable past and is not an evolutionary step at all.)”

Ouch. Nail on the head stuff there. That’s what’s so funny/sad about Cohen complaining that he has tried everything to fix his disciples. It’s a weird cycle. The disciples parent Cohen and Cohen parents his disciples. And don’t you think it’s funny that his guru was called “Papaji” i.e. Daddy-ji? Cohen kept calling Papaji his “spiritual father”. Then Cohen tried to get his mum involved with Cohenism. Then they both rejected him. All very weird parental stuff going on. His dad died when he was young and his mum sent him to a psychiatrist when he was too young, so I think he has many unresolved issues around that. Indeed, I do feel sorry for him in that regard. Actually, everybody is ultimately innocent, imo.

But none of what we say will get through to the disciples. For them to even hear you, you have to create a better vision than Cohen's vision. But that is kind of impossible. I am writing a book that paints a great picture of the potential for humankind, but I can’t spice it up with all the romance, heroism, idealism, and rhetoric about God’s will that Cohen deploys. The naked truth is good, but not as alluring as Cohen's story.

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For them to even hear you, you have to create a better vision than Cohen's vision.

Somewhere in the Zen canon it is said, 'One cannot find liberation by replacing one illusion with another illusion.'

The other night, at a 12 step meeting, one person mused, 'I may never know the meaning of my life. And..thats now all right.'

Along with what Martin Gifford calls idealism, there's something else, the sense of mission.

We have been in a war for over ten years. Think of all the accounts by soldiers of how they insist on going back to war, when they could stay safely at home--because they cant stand to leave their comrades in danger. Because they miss them.

And because, after the tension, and heightened experience of being in warzones, civilian life seems insipid, mediocre.

I might suggest that the chronic tension reported by those who have spent years living under Cohen's tutelage may also give them a neurological reactivity similar to that of combat soldiers.

Their nervous systems may be so keyed up that any transition to outside life seems dreary and inferior. This is where mere idealism mutates into actual damage to the body and mind, damage done by Cohen's harsh methods.

Many join the service for idealistic reasons, but the damage done by being in a war zone--the PTSD, the trauma of witnessing and doing terrible things in order to survive--that forms an overlay to the idealism, making it very much more difficult Ever to Go Home Again.

And that there is a culture of rationalized sadism and abuse in the Integralist social scene makes it all the worse.

At least some of our Special Ops trainers stepped forward to tell Congress that waterboarding is torture. Because they'd had it done to them in their training and had done it to trainees later on to prepare them for possible capture and torture.

But no active member of the Integralist scene has stepped forward to state 'What we do is cruel.'

'Not evolutionary. Cruel.'

'Next door' on the Destini discussion thread, a correspondant named Sandman has drawn our attention to a new article.

It will be worth reading for those following this thread.

(Corboy note: The article is from the 1970s. It lists schizophrenia as a likely precipitant of crisis. Today, with the benefit of greater knowledge of what states can bring inner crisis, it is understood that one can be threatened with a sense of inner crisis due to overwhelming narcissitic threat to fragile ego structure. (Len Oakes, Prophetic Charisma)

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During such an episode, the individual invents a new package of compensators to meet his own needs.

Material from honorable traditions such as Buddhadharma or various forms of Hindu practice or other such traditions will be used by the person in crisis to repair an unstable self.

The great problem of discernment for seekers is how to tell when a teacher is teaching material for the benefit of others or is using that same material in order to use others in an ongoing project of self-repair.

The same words from (say) Dogen Zenji or (say) Ramana Maharshi can be used by a healed and balanced teacher who has no need to use students for self repair, or those same words can be used by a desperate individual with self marketing and PR hype to attract others to self repair the still fragile self of the person uttering those words.

It can be the same text, but one person teaches and the other person uses it for self repair.

And it has to be repeated the process is unconscious.

A person who needs self repair is incessantly on the move, requiring increasing doses of affirmation from students. As he or she wears out the students and they fall away, new recruits must be found to assist the fragile pseudo teacher in regulating and soothing his or her fragile self and fluctuating moods.

An addiction model may apply.

[forum.culteducation.com]

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An article called 'Cult Formation: Three Compatible Models' from Sociological Analysis 1979 by William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark describes


The Psychopathology Model of Cult Innovation

The psychopathology model has been used by many anthropologists and ethnopsychiatrists,
and it is related closely to deprivation theories of revolutions and social movements
(Smelser, 1962; Gurr, 1970). It describes cult innovation as the result of individual
psychopathology that finds successful social expression. Because of its popularity among
social scientists, this model exists in many variants, but the main ideas are the following.

1. Cults are novel cultural responses to personal and societal crisis.

2. New cults are invented by individuals suffering from certain forms of mental illness

3. These individuals typically achieve their novel visions during psychotic episodes.

4. During such an episode, the individual invents a new package of compensators to meet his own needs.

5. The individual's illness commits him to to his new vision, either because his hallucinations appear to demonstrate its truth, or because his compelling needs demand immediate satisfaction.

6. Afler the episode, the individual will be most likely to succeed in forming a cult around his vision if the society contains many other persons suffering from problems similar to those originally faced by the cult founder, to whose solution, therefore, they are likely to respond.

7. Therefore, such cults most often succeed during times of societal crisis, when large
numbers of persons suffer from similar unresolved problems.

8. If the cult does succeed in attracting many followers, the individual founder may achieve at least a partial cure of his illness*, because his self-generated compensators are legitimated by other persons, and because he now receives true rewards from his followers

* Corboy note. I would recommend a different choice of words. This is not even a partial cure. The cult leader's self is still fragile. All that has happened is that he or she is getting a steady source of emotional supplies from recruits and from colleagues in the guru scene who also need self repair and are quite happy to legitimate each other's careers. This is like saying an unhappy person is partially cured because he or she has found a reliable and clean supply of heroin. Thats not a 'partial cure.'

All the original troubles are merely put on hold.

And years of living coddled by an entourage tend to erode what social skills and politeness and patience the leader did possess prior to entering the guru business.

If the person becomes famous there is a growing chasm between his or her public persona and the fragile private chlid self. A the more the leader becomes dependent on the self soothing from followers the more resentful he or she may become at being so very dependent.

The carefully selected special' entourage members earn admission to the inner circle by an ability, perhaps practiced in childhood, by being willing to rationalize any amount of strange behavior, end up being the ones who who are selected for the special duty witness the actual wounded child side of the leader, and behind closed doors suffer the brunt of the fear, the rage and shame the guru feels and dare not display in public.

This is similar to what many of us learn to do as children if our parents demand that the children soothe them, parent them, and give up childhood for the booby prize of feeling special by being selected as a wounded parents surrogate spouse or confidante.

If we carry unconscious formatting from such a childhood, we may be easily recruitable into soothing erractic abusive moods in other adults--whether in bad relationships, abusive bosses, or crabby gurus.

This is not evoluation. This is regression and re-enactment of an earlier stage of life of which one has not yet become conscious.

And in bad groups, one risks being pressured to witness and do things that dig the shame still deeper, making healing that much more difficult.

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Future of God

A dialogue with Rabbi Michael Lerner and Andrew Cohen

Who is God and what does it mean to realize the power of Spirit within yourself? For millennia, traditional mystics have talked about transcending the world as the ultimate aim of spiritual awakening. Others, like Tikkun magazine founder Rabbi Michael Lerner and EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen, have emphasized the power of God realization to transform the world for the better.

One is a progressive Rabbi and social activist who is an innovative leader in the Jewish renewal movement. The other is a 21st century spiritual teacher who is defining voice in the emerging field of evolutionary spirituality. Between them, Lerner and Cohen have developed two distinct yet complimentary perspectives on how spiritual awakening can help to shape the future direction of contemporary culture.


Rabbi Lerner’s philosophy is based upon the Judaic principle of “Tikkun Olam,” which states that humanity has a God-given obligation “to heal or repair the world.”

Deeply influenced by his mentor, the great theologian and Civil Rights activist Rabbi Abraham Heschel, he started the spiritual and political magazine Tikkun to open up a dialogue about how Judaism could serve as a foundation to address the social inequalities of the late 20th century. Lerner has since become a well-known humanitarian, political pundit, and spiritual leader, acting as Rabbi for the progressive Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco, serving on the Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and being featured on major media outlets from CNN to Newsweek for his unique blend of social and spiritual commentary.


Andrew Cohen’s original teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment redefines spiritual awakening within the context of cosmic evolution and highlights a new understanding of God or Spirit as the creative impulse toward change in both self and culture.

After a transformative meeting with the renowned Advaita Vedanta master H.W.L. Poonja in 1986, Cohen began teaching internationally and almost immediately started reshaping the larger cultural conversation about the purpose and significance of enlightenment in our time. He founded the award-winning magazine EnlightenNext almost twenty years ago as a forum for serious spiritual and philosophical inquiry, and has since become known for his unique capacity to foster culture-changing dialogues among leading thinkers from a wide array of traditions and disciplines.

In their first-ever public dialogue, Cohen and Lerner will bring their own unique perspectives to bear on “The Future of God.” Please join them on June 23rd in San Francisco for a compelling exploration into the future of spirituality in our fast-changing world.

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]

For additional context on this, read here

[americanguru.net]

and here

[www.geoffreyfalk.com]

Looks like Lerner is another enabler and protector of Cohen, the fact that he condenms those who critize Cohen is really telling - the man has no moral or ethical compass. Mr. Lerner is no friend of the truth nor a protector of people no matter how he promotes himself in such roles.

He should be considered a liar and con-artist.

As far as the mutual admiration society of so-called spiritual luminaries that Wilber and Cohen have surrounded themselves with, listed in corboy's americanguru.net link. Well, they are anything but that, many of these "luminaries" are a veritable hit parade of cult leaders, stooges, bozos and emotional vampires.

Here's a list of them

[www.spiritsnextmove.com]

Avoid these people if you value your sanity and health. I'm serious.

Follow them and they will lead you into hell.

'That’s partly true. I would put it that Cohen embodies the superego, and that is the states of consciousness they experience. It is valid as one experience, but not when it is interpreted as being The Whole Point Of Human Existence.'

Something that may help non-professionals to come to grips with the often confusing terms 'superego', 'id' etc are the very clear, visual models used in Transactional Analysis--which were intended to give laypeople a mental framework to think about the relational dynamics at work here and so lift them from unconscious working to a possibility of a more conscious examination.
A simple explanation of the basic model is here:

[www.carolsolomonphd.com]

and some basic explanation here:

[www.businessballs.com]

It should be emphasised that these are models, frameworks to enable clear thinking about these ideas--the superego, id etc does not exist in any sense as a stand alone, concrete artifact.

A good, in depth book on this whole business of why we behave, relationally in certain ways--using the TA model as a framework---is this one, 'Scripts people Live' by Claude Steiner:

[www.amazon.co.uk]

'Script Theory' is helpful as it has practical application by the lay person to their own situation, the goal of all TA.

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corboy
…after the tension, and heightened experience of being in warzones, civilian life seems insipid, mediocre.

Yes, ordinary life seems mediocre compared to the drama. Cohen's favourite movie is The Last Temptation of Christ. He likes it because the Christ character sees how his life could become more comfortable if he turns down his goal and steps away from the cross. But the character resists that temptation and thus becomes a hero. Cohen is always talking about heroism and recommends becoming the next messiah. Becoming his disciple is a way to become a part player in the great drama too.

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corboy
Along with what Martin Gifford calls idealism, there's something else, the sense of mission...

They have a gigantic sense of mission - creating a revolution in human consciousness and helping God manifest on Earth. As missions go, you can't get bigger than that! That's why the disciples treat Cohen as a VIP. Of course, the disciples become VIPs by association and by being part of the mission. (And by rising up the ranks of the organisation.) How important would you feel if you really believed you were helping God manifest on Earth? You have become God's helper - you are parenting God!

Also, the way that the disciples treat Cohen as a VIP subconsciously conveys the message to others that Cohen is a VIP and that The Mission is important. That's how submission to Cohen and his mission begins (Bandura calls it learning through social modelling). They are all like the rebels in The Matrix. And Cohen? He is The One! Follow him!

You might become involved with Cohen by having a similar intention of improving the world or creating a revolution in global human consciousness. But then it soon becomes apparent that you are in an organisation that has a very particular worldview. That worldview includes ideas such as:

1. morality is more important than thoughts, feelings, and states of consciousness,
2. integrity means behaving like Cohen,
3. the ego is poison and must be killed or at least controlled, and
4. the state of consciousness emphasised by Cohen is the most important state of consciousness.

The problem, of course, is that not everybody will agree with that worldview. So how can the revolution be global? It will necessarily exclude everyone who disagrees with Cohenism. Then, of course, those who disagree are seen as egoistic, evil, weak, lazy, immoral, cowardly, inferior, losers, drags on the revolution, etc. If you are not on the side of the guy who is helping God manifest on Earth, then whose side are you on? You must be living a shadow existence out of God’s light and out of Cohen’s light.

It seems to me highly unlikely that one worldview fits all people, but the idea that one worldview fits all is implied in cults (and in religions). Sure, one or two things might turn out to be universal truths - as Penelope mentioned earlier - but can the whole package be true? Not likely. So what happens when missions collide?

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corboy
The carefully selected special' entourage members earn admission to the inner circle by an ability, perhaps practiced in childhood, by being willing to rationalize any amount of strange behavior, end up being the ones who who are selected for the special duty witness the actual wounded child side of the leader, and behind closed doors suffer the brunt of the fear, the rage and shame the guru feels and dare not display in public.

You see this come out when some of Cohen’s defenders talk about seeing Cohen’s private suffering as he struggled to enlighten his students. They say that he cared about them more than they cared about themselves. All kinds of ridiculous interpretations, rather than just confronting the fact that Cohen is a loon.

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After a transformative meeting with the renowned Advaita Vedanta master H.W.L. Poonja in 1986, Cohen began teaching internationally and almost immediately started reshaping the larger cultural conversation about the purpose and significance of enlightenment in our time.

That’s a lie. Cohen was teaching Poonja’s version of advaita for 2 years. It was only when Poonja upset Andrew by criticising him that Cohen worked on a new interpretation of enlightenment. Of course, that new interpretation of enlightenment included the implication that Poonja was dodgy and that Cohen was the real deal.

As commentary on what Martin Gifford has just written, readers are invited to look at this article by Umberto Eco.

[www.themodernword.com]

This runs counter to any stance in which all that matters is the inherant dignity and worth of the ordinary, untransformed, unrevolutionary human person.

Here's my personal definition of mensch--what in Yiddish it is to be a decent human being:

Its someone you hope your son or daughter will fall in love with.

I ran with someone who was into Nikos Kazantzakis, author of The Last Temptation of Christ, and also author of Zorba the Greek.

Katzantakis can be considered a great author, but he was trapped in Middle Eastern thar mentality/aka machismo.

Masculinity could be lost and was under perpetual threat. Women were temptation.

Not balanced.

In actual Christianity, God works through human relationships and humanity.

Last Temptation of Christ is anti human Gnosticism and thats Cohen and Wilber