I live in Oregon House, California. I am posting regarding this "cult" [www.culteducation.com] I work with an office full of them. They are not bad people. They have always been very nice to me. But the things i have read are completely and utterlly disturbing. Their outlook is very twisted. The fact that they dont believe in God disturbs me VERY much. If anybody knows what I'm talking about or has any comment about my post, then please let me know.

According to many sources, Oregon House/FOF is not a legitimate Gurdjieff group.

I advise that you NOT sign any documents relating to money and that you get out of there just as soon as you can. If you have signed any documents relating to finances, get out, and consult an attorney--you dont want to be the scapegoat for any iffy financial transactions.

Just pack your bags and leave. You dont owe them any apologies or explanations. Its likely that you were recruited under false pretenses---recruitment into bogus Fourth Way groups is often done through the guise of friendship, and you were probably NOT given enough info to make a fully informed decision.

After you leave, you can get a copy of 'Taking With the Left Hand' by William Patrick Patterson, a Gurdjieff scholar. There is a big chapter on your group, and its leader Robert Burton.

[forum.culteducation.com]

OH takes great trouble to cultivate a collective appearance of elegance, high achievement, sophistication and 'niceness'.

[www.geocities.com]

(Some of this material may be out of date, but not too much of it)

You did not mention how you decided to live at Oregon House. If you did so for spiritual practice, you need to know that the 'self remembering' meditation taught by Robert Burton, leader of your group has produced trance reactions in some people. Years back I met a man who had been in Fellowship of Friends (the original name for your group--Burton went on to call it 'Renaissance' and 'The Ark')

Years ago, a friend of mine had a buddy in Alcoholics Anonymous who wanted to deepen his spiritual practice. Her friend got entangled with Fellowship of Friends. Much later, my pal got a phone call. Her buddy was in jail. He'd emerged from FOF penniless and disoriented, and under stress began drinking and using drugs again. He'd landed in jail and needed bail money.

Legitimate Gurdjieff partitioners have analysed Burton's method of Self Remembering and insist that it is not accurate--Patterson discusses this in his book. You cannot get reliable Fourth Way teaching at Oregon House.

The difficulty is that there are so very many dodgy Fourth Way groups out there that unless people have already researched the whole area, they're likely to be stumble into one.

If you still want to do Gurdjieff work, I advise that you take a breather, read James Webb's book 'The Harmonious Circle' and see just how much of Gurdjieff's material is not unique to him at all.

Two, ask whether the mystique & mysteriousness of it appealed to you and what you hope to get from it.

Its a path of power that has no end in view.

If you still want to do G work, contact the Gurdjeiff Foundation. There is one in SF and one in NYC.

This does not mean either organization is risk free, but at least they are transmitting G work through a legitimate lineage, not a line of hustlers.

No matter what you do, dont give up your financial goals, your health, your sanity, or your family and outside friendships.

I recommend that you read several books by Karlfried graf von Durckheim--starting with Hara:The Vital Centre of Man (hard to find but superb) and 'The Call For the Master'

Durckheim integrated body with spiritual practice in a manner ahead of his time. He got his insights from real Zen practice in Japan and had academic training as a psychologist and student of western mysticism. He was a lucid writer, no mystique, and many Gurdjieff practitioners make use of his writings--they may find Durckheim's kindness and clarity a huge relief compared to the opacity of Gurdjieff's material.

Dont let anyone con you into believing that you'll lose your capacity for spiritual progress if you leave them or their organization. Thats just a sleazy power trip.

Have a good, liberating new year.

[forum.culteducation.com]


Could be that Burton has moved on to a new obsession and the chilean wine palm trees are passe.

If you know any former members of the FOF who would like to talk to me about Robert Burton's practices.

The Fellowship advertises itself as Gurdjieff-Ouspensky Centers through bookmarks and in the internet. It is run since 1970 by Robert Burton (born 1939). He uses fragments of the knowledge you can find in Ouspensky's books. He claims to be a 'new christ' and he wants to start a new civilization after Armageddon, that he prophesied for 2006. The leader's lifestyle can be read about in a lawsuit that has been published on the web, (http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/f/fellowship/) along with several newspaper articles detailing his activities. The group has about 2000 members all around the world, who pay at least 10% of their gross income every month, plus many extra donation.

This link provides a lot of backround information
[wordpress.com]
[animamrecro.wordpress.com]

It is a blog with a few thousand posts of Ex-member and members of this organisation

See also fellowshipoffriends.wikispaces.com (an informational site by former members)

Update 2012 Fellowship of Friends is Recruiting

For more about this organization, read here. There is an extensive archive. You will save time and money and energy.

[www.culteducation.com]

Found a bookmark of theirs on a bulletin board.

On one side the bookmark has old fashioned cameo photos in oval frames of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky with "Self Remembering" and a Yin Yang symbol.

On the back of the bookmark

It reads "Self Remembering"

"A practical school in the Fourth Way tradition of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky"

"Centers Worldwide"

"Introductory Meetings held regularly

For infomormation call: 1-800 XXX-XXXX

Or visit www(dot)livingpresence(dot)com

"Schools exist only for those who need them, and know that they need them."

Ouspensky (copywright) 2012 Fellowship of Friends

Please note that shortly before Ouspensky died, he gathered his students and informed them that there was no system--leaving them in shock.

And when Gurdjieff died, he reportedly said, "I am leaving a fine mess". He also left several children of umarried mothers--and that was a heavy social burden to put upon the women and upon their children.

Update 2013

Fellowship of Friends 'People of the Bookmark' is recruiting.

Found over 4 books in one store with the characteristic bookmarks.

"Schools exist only for those who need them and who know that they need them."

For quotations from a recent discussion by persons who were in Fellowship of Friends and who left, go here.

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Some portions of that discussion are excerpted here.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Am not against free exercise of belief.

Am concerned when a group promises autonomy and leads away from it and into a narrowing circle.

And as a tax exempt religion, persons who do pay tax indirectly subsidize it--and its leader who lives in luxury.

[fofdiscussion.wordpress.com]

Quote

Knowing what I do now, I absolutely regret being in the cult.

In relation to my Fellowship of Friends membership, the emotion is unavoidable. I regret the decision to join the school. (If, in the first prospective student meeting, we had been told “and oh, by the way, our teacher is a narcissistic sociopath who preys upon young heterosexual males and his teaching is a sham”, would I have joined? What do you think?)

Do I reject everything that I experienced, all the people I knew in the Fellowship of Friends? Of course not.

An important aspect of this emotion is what you do with it

Quote

If you had never had your intense engagement with a book illicitly harvested by the placement of slick bookmarks with author portraits on them, bookmarks which led to staged propaganda events misleadingly called “prospective student meetings,” in which definite constraints were placed upon your behavior and your ability to think critically;

If you had never trusted someone who you later understood not to be trustworthy;

You can’t really imagine “the person you would have been now,” because that person would have had a different set of formative experiences. That person wouldn’t have been “you.”

Quote

32.
- February 16, 2012

17/Someone

no effective juridicial results whatsoever

If this is so, perhaps it is because the law itself is deficient. People who have been exploited because they relied upon “spiritual” assurances or inducements may have no remedy, because (in the eyes of the law) they weren’t justified in relying upon such assurances or inducements in the first place. And the law has been slow to recognize that it’s tortious to impair people’s ability to think critically without their knowledge and consent. Indeed, harmed persons have been slow to recognize it until long after the ability to do anything about it is gone.

Update August 2013

Fellowship of Friends appears to be recruiting.

Numerous bookmarks advertising the FOF are showing up on billboards and I have stumbled upon many of them placed in books at stores that I frequent.

Here is an earlier post with information.

The style of the bookmark has old fashioned cameo portraits of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Nothing is said about Robert Burton.

Or about what you will pay.

[forum.culteducation.com]