Moishe3rd:

You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

But the complaints I have received about Alex and Sharon have been very serious and they have hurt many people.

Good to learn you have broken away though and are not paying them monthly as so many people did and some still do. It can easily run a thousand dollars per month to be one of her "students."

Alex and Sharon fled California amidst child abuse allegations and still operate thier group in NY and Boston (Robert is in Boston).

It seems that they take advantage of people and exploit them for money and free labor.

Sharon has grown rich through her "teacher" position and the complaints keep coming in indicating that she continues to cause people serious problems.

Of course you are entitled to your own view.

But I would not suggest or recommend Sharon Gans and her classes to anyone under any circumstances or any teacher associated with her such as Bob.

Thank you for your reply.
Yes, I am sure it could cost thousands of dollars a month and that Sharon (and Alex?) may be wealthy off of this largesse. And, I am not doubting their obsessions with this facet of their "teachings."
However, 25 years ago, I found them useful. Then, as now, I saw a great many "students" go through their school. I was at various points "new;" "old;" a "teacher;" confidant; and was "kicked out."
My experience with every single person in school was that people, including Sharon and Alex, and definitely Bob Klein, got out of "School" what they put into it.
Therefore, yes, as Sharon and Alex both had dominating, obsessive personalities, I can see how that could have gotten worse over the years, and, I suspect, created their own personal hell because of their inability to get over it. I understand how that could easily translate into their students developing the same bad traits.
Therefore, I understand the vehemence with which you and former students castigate them.
I guess my point is that life is simply not black and white. I found School to be useful. And, I suspect that Robert Klein is probably still striving away to keep it useful, in spite of, or in addition to, being in a controlling "cult."
Anyway, thanks again for responding.

This thread may offer some material that could be a useful framework for some who feel perplexed reconciling good and harmful experiences they have had in relation to a controversial teacher.

One Framework for Recovery from Abuse

[board.culteducation.com]

If you derived real and solid benefits from A.H. and his school, , those benefits will remain real for you, no matter what others say about AH.

However, as Mr. Ross pointed out, quite a few persons have consulted him and report having had painful and disorienting experiences in relation to A.H., Sharon G. and their circle.

And to say that people get out the school what they put into it--shifts the burden of responsibility entirely onto the underlings' shoulders and allows the powerholders to escape any accountability for their use or abuse of power.

It may make a great difference what gender you are—men might be treated quite differently than women.

Many persons who are ejected or who voluntarily leave esoteric groups often suffer great anguish from social isolation. Until recently it was difficult for survivors to find places to discuss bad experiences in relation to esoteric work.

It appears that the RR.com message board is one of the few venues in cyberspace where survivors have been able to gather and begin comparing their experiences.

They would appreciate that this be respected.

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As always, I google around and try and check up to see what Alex and Sharon are up to - Bob and Fred and the rest too, if I can find them.

If you had really left that situation behind as you claim you would not "as always" be trying to find them.

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I was in school back in the 70's and early 80's and Bob was actually a very good friend of mine. As were Sharon and Alex, most of the time. Things being what they were, we had our conflicts, but, man... everything that I can hook up with online is depressing, depressing, depressing. Surely there are some folk out there that look upon their time with Sharon and Alex as a positive experience. No?
I do.
I met my wife in School. We have great children and, G-d willing, I'm going to be a grandfather soon.

This term "School" you use with a capital letter. Do you believe it is a real School? Others here including myself see this term as a dangerous trigger word. Or a clear indication that you are unaware that you are still their student. Not good. Maybe you find the information and shared experiences on this forum depressing because it is overwhelming evidence that you have denied certain things about your own past. Maybe the sands of time have buried the bad things and you are somehow left with only the "feelings" associated with the good-- whatever that may have been. But overall, your cavalier tone seems extraordinarily unempathetic to those whose lives have been done serious harm by your old "gang" and who are still suffering some anguish over the abuse they suffered.

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And yes, we both got kicked out of school at different times by different people. I kicked out my own share of people the few times I was "running things." C'est la vie.

"Running things?" "C'est la vie."? You really haven't left, have you? Those of us who have had the same experiences as you have have vastly different feelings about our time in "School." Either we have it all wrong or you do. There are no gray areas when it comes to these matters and no room for equivocation. And I am as liberal-minded as the best of us-- trust me.

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I guess the reason that I am writing here is that I am genuinely interested to see if any of the folk that ran through "School" got anything out of it.

"Ran through 'School'"? That is an odd way of expressing your experience.

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The few people I have talked to over the last thirty years had some misgivings, as do I, but they also credit Alex and Sharon for shaping their lives in a positive fashion, as do both my wife and I, in ways that would not normally be found in the world.

Your Mother and Father had the role and responsibility of shaping your life along with the help of your extended circle of acquaintance during your formative years. That's one reason why your Torah has the Commandment which says you shall honor them (in my opinion)-- that is, if they did right by you. Like many many many "students" who were drawn to Sharon and Alex you sound like a child in search of a parent. This is one of the main unspoken ways they lure people. As far as talking to people over the years-- you have not been talking to a full spectrum of people.

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Anyway, I don't know if this post will be allowed, but if it is, why don't some of people add to their positive, or negative, experiences in this particular "cult" and tell me what's going on today, if anything.
I'm simply interested.
Thank you, and be well.

Your entire contribution indicates that you are still psychologically in the place you physically left years ago. Asking people to contribute what positive experiences they have had obfuscates the process of healing and breaking free from the deep ties that the cult experience formed in them in the first place. This asking for contributions both good and bad is a very bad idea. From the point of view of many here, this "interest" you profess is part of the problem, not a solution. People here are looking for clarity, not more conflict and reasons for ambivalence.

Okay.
Thank you for your reply. It is interesting and useful...

Moishe,
To some extent I can understand your feeling that Alex and Sharon had a positive impact on your life. I certainly feel that I learned and experienced some positive, eye-opening things, mainly because of the ideas in the books that I read in one of Alex's group, with which I had an on-off relationship for some ten years.

But for me the bottom line with regard to Alex is this: his relationship with his "students" is manipulative and deceitful. He told us we must give up our will to his for many many years, because this is how a student learns from a teacher. But he never told us who his teacher was, or whether this is the kind of relationship he ever had as a student. He said contradictory things about who he'd studied with, and it's possible he really never studied with anyone for very long.

He told us when and how to break off relationships, to get married, to have children. We spent hours and hours in class each week, and hours recruiting people and working on Alex's projects. We were not supposed to tell even spouses what we were doing when we were on Alex's work.

It was impossible to disagree with Alex, because you were always cast as revealing your own hideous flaws when you disagreed. I saw him excoriate one student in public to the point of verbal murder -- the student never returned. When I questioned him about it, Alex said mildly, "He's a new student and I was just giving him some help."

I think you might need to separate the ideas of Gurdjieff, Nicoll, Ouspensky, Collins, from the class that was run by Alex, and I suspect Sharon as well. To me, Alex's class was a milder version of a Communist re-education camp, where you are forced to recant if you show any signs of independence, and where you must utterly submit in order to advance in the Party. Alex may have been sincere at one time, but I believe he is driven by ego now.

Interestingly, Ouspensky talks about the ideal student (a paraphrase) as someone who has already experienced and been disillusioned by life. Someone who's had a full life, and is now looking beyond. By contrast, the vast majority of students that I saw in Alex's class were young or struggling. He takes advantage of people's vulnerabilities and plays them right back at them.

Moishe:

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Yes, I am sure it could cost thousands of dollars a month and that Sharon (and Alex?) may be wealthy off of this largesse. And, I am not doubting their obsessions with this facet of their "teachings."

Largesse? Largesse implies that one has money to spare to give to those in need. On the contrary, many students have had to hold down two or more jobs and neglect their spouses and children in order to pay for the privelege of being "taught" by Alex Horn and Sharon Gans. You speak as though obsession combined with domination are humane and benign. Obsessing over the accumulation of wealth and power has historical precedents and contemporary correlaries. Two pertinent examples are Pharoah and Saddam Hussein. There is little difference between Saddam Hussein's palaces and Sharon Gans and Alex Horn's real estate acquisitions-- what they have in common is most of all the slave labor. In fact, Saddam is morally on higher ground because he probably paid his workers something even as he pillaged and stole from the rest of his citizens. Didn't Pharoah subjugate your ancestors and make them build things for him as slaves-- i.e. free labor? I know-- Alex Horn and Sharon Gans told you you would "grow your being." Did you?

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However, 25 years ago, I found them useful. Then, as now, I saw a great many "students" go through their school. I was at various points "new;" "old;" a "teacher;" confidant; and was "kicked out."

"Then as now"? I thought you said you left? As was stated elsewhere, apparently you never left. You claim you went through many permutations during your tenure with "School"-- new, old, teacher, confidant, kicked out-- how [i:a35b833ce6]you[/i:a35b833ce6] do not see this as manipulation and abuse of your psyche needs to be confronted in your [i:a35b833ce6]own[/i:a35b833ce6] heart. Of course, if you were like many who have been involved with Sharon Gans and Alex Horn, perhaps you can see your complicity in this cycle as your own unacknowledged need for attention and lust for power and authority over others-- and always at the expense of your humanity, of course.

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My experience with every single person in school was that people, including Sharon and Alex, and definitely Bob Klein, got out of "School" what they put into it.

This is another trigger phrase. Be assured that Alex Horn, Sharon Gans, and Robert Klein got far more out of [i:a35b833ce6]you[/i:a35b833ce6] both financially and psychically than you and hundreds of others have ever gotten out of them.

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Therefore, yes, as Sharon and Alex both had dominating, obsessive personalities, I can see how that could have gotten worse over the years, and, I suspect, created their own personal hell because of their inability to get over it. I understand how that could easily translate into their students developing the same bad traits.
Therefore, I understand the vehemence with which you and former students castigate them.

This is the first statement you have made that has some sense of insight. The next question is: if they are in their own personal hell now are they even aware of it? And were they already in their own personal hell when you met them? Is it not likely that they had co-opted the "Work Ideas" as a sophisticated means of not facing themselves? And all this while they were taking full advantage of you and others? If substance abuse-- be it alcohol, caffeine, nicotine (please don't speak of "Higher Hydrogens for evolution"!) -- and obsessing over the control of other's lives and the acquisition of material things is any indication, it seems that they are constantly avoiding facing their own inner lives-- and especially now since they are too old and it is too late. Is it too late for the students who have been with them the longest and who are now your age? Quite likely-- being a degenerate has some addictive yet hollow perks. It is ironic that the very ideas they purport to live by (but in reality abuse) for the sake of "consciousness," "will," and so on are quite likely the source of their psychological prison. How far they are from reality and what a shame they continue to get away with their exploitative and dangerous charade.

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I guess my point is that life is simply not black and white. I found School to be useful.

"Life" is nothing without the people who inhabit it. "Life is simply not black and white" is a complete evasion. The same can be said of "School"-- it is the people in a "School" who make it black and white and every shade in between. If you are saying that people are not black and white but are filled with nuance and layers, fine. But in order for some people to escape painful, violent, sado-masochistic situations they have to see their abusers and the abusive situation first in black and white, which translates to "they are wrong and I am right," "they are sick and I am not sick," "this is crazy" etc.

The real question is whether you truly realize what you are doing here on this forum if everything is as wonderful for you as you state. Some other people have made this useful, temporary, and self-preserving dichotomy of "black and white"-- maybe you are here because it is now your turn to do the same. And it costs nothing.

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And, I suspect that Robert Klein is probably still striving away to keep it useful, in spite of, or in addition to, being in a controlling "cult."

This is a direct contradiction of what you said before about the students inheriting the same bad traits as Sharon Gans and Alex Horn. If you really believed deep down what you say of your "good friend" you would still be in touch with him in some way real and tangible other than the clear psychological ties you have demonstrated in your messages. It seems you have a good intuition which is why you have (at least physically and externally) stayed far away. Perhaps you need to consider whether Robert Klein is actually the worst of the members of your old "group."

But you have a problem: You do not on the surface believe that what you were involved in was and remains a cult, or that cults of this kind exist. Maybe you have not applied yourself to the study of the nature of what a cult is. Perhaps if you consider that isolation from life does not merely have to be physical-- if it is psychological it is sufficient. Alex Horn, Sharon Gans, Robert Klein, and several others "teach" that this is "being in Life but not of it." This is but one little step among many in the manipulative process of being indoctrinated into "the Work" [i:a35b833ce6]as they distort it [/i:a35b833ce6] and contributes to the "controlling cult" you mention. Initially this idea is exciting to the young, impressionable, gullible, and disillusioned who get drawn into their "School," but ultimately it is useful only to Robert Klein and the two people who helped harm him and so many others: Sharon Gans and Alex Horn. And, as with Dave Archer, you should not look to external and material success or a website for your "ersatz bildungsroman" as an indication of psychic health.

And it appears to some of us here that you cannot assume that the mere passage of time has allowed you to truly leave and move on.

Persons who are trying to make sense of their time in a Fourth Way group
may be interested in a new book by Gary Lachman entitled 'In Search of PD Ouspensky'

[www.amazon.com]

Lachman spent some time studying Fourth Way, then decided to leave. He was 'inside' just long enough to get exposure, but left before becoming trapped and converted into psychic property of the Fourth Way and its Catch-22s.

Lachman's book may be useful but perhaps painful reading for survivors--who may wish to have someone available for support if theydecide to read it.

Lachman offers a very interesting suggestion, backed by a lot of circumstantial evidence that Ouspensky was intentionally targeted for recruitment by Gurdjieff, as was Thomas de Hartmann.

At the time he crossed paths with Gurdjieff, Ouspensky had established a successful career as a writer and lecturer on occult studies and Theosophy--his lectures were very well attended, making Ouspenksy a good 'catch' for an ambitious but obscure spiritual entrepreneur.

Lachman suggests that Gurdjieff studied Ouspensky and his writings, was able to identify Ouspensky's deepest yearnings, then created an effective strategy by which to seduce him, recruit him, then exploit him as a publicist for Gurdjieff's own projects.

After he left Gurdjieff, Ouspensky tried to teach Fourth Way independently, tried to separate it from Gurdjieff's powerful and needy personality, but remained emotionally entangled.

Sound familiar?

Persons committed to Gurdjieff will insist that Lachman missed the point.

Others will decide Lachman got the point--quite well.

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cber7
But you have a problem: [b:3ddc6660a7]You do not on the surface believe that what you were involved in was and remains a cult, or that cults of this kind exist. [/b:3ddc6660a7]Maybe you have not applied yourself to the study of the nature of what a cult is. Perhaps if you consider that isolation from life does not merely have to be physical-- if it is psychological it is sufficient. Alex Horn, Sharon Gans, Robert Klein, and several others "teach" that this is "being in Life but not of it." This is but one little step among many in the manipulative process of being indoctrinated into "the Work" [i:3ddc6660a7]as they distort it [/i:3ddc6660a7] and contributes to the "controlling cult" you mention. Initially this idea is exciting to the young, impressionable, gullible, and disillusioned who get drawn into their "School," but ultimately it is useful only to Robert Klein and the two people who helped harm him and so many others: Sharon Gans and Alex Horn. And, as with Dave Archer, you should not look to external and material success or a website for your "ersatz bildungsroman" as an indication of psychic health.

And it appears to some of us here that you cannot assume that the mere passage of time has allowed you to truly leave and move on.

Admittedly, the above that I put out in bold is correct. I do not believe in most of the ideas presented that label such things as cults.
It has been pointed out that it is not useful for me to comment in such a way where it disturbs those here seeking advice or recovery from such cults as I do not fully believe in.
I believe therefore, it may be more useful to refrain from debate on these various points.

However, I did write to Dave Archer regarding his piece. And, writing back and forth discussing various experiences, it was evident that neither I nor my wife had the experiences with Alex, or with Sharon, that he described or the people on this board are describing.
For which I can only say, Thank G-d. I am glad that the experiences that you all are describing were not my experiences.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the five or six years where we were involved in was a time where things were not as you all describe. I am quite certain that Bob Klein did not have the traits that you all seem to ascribe to him, because I knew him quite well.
Again, I suspect, from all of the experiences I have heard, that we were extremely fortunate.
This is good.
I apologize for any bad feelings that I may have evoked. That was not my intention.

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Marie27
Moishe,
But for me the bottom line with regard to Alex is this: his relationship with his "students" is manipulative and deceitful. He told us we must give up our will to his for many many years, because this is how a student learns from a teacher. But he never told us who his teacher was, or whether this is the kind of relationship he ever had as a student. He said contradictory things about who he'd studied with, and it's possible he really never studied with anyone for very long.

He told us when and how to break off relationships, to get married, to have children. We spent hours and hours in class each week, and hours recruiting people and working on Alex's projects. We were not supposed to tell even spouses what we were doing when we were on Alex's work.

Again (and moderators please just delete this post if you feel it is harmful), my experience with Alex was not one where he was manipulative and deceitful...
And again, I suspect that this was because I was involved during a period of time where Sharon was trying to curb Alex being manipulative and deceitful.
I was never told to give up my will to anyone.
People with spouses not in School were not allowed to join the School.
No one was ever told when and how to break off relationships or to get married - certainly not by Alex. Sharon did often suggest these sorts of things. Some students who had been there many years took her suggestions. Some students who had been there many years did not. The same with newer students.
My wife and I met in School. We were married against Sharon's suggestions that we not get married. Much later, we separated on Sharon's suggestion that we separate. Later, we did not get back together at Sharon's strong suggestion that we get back together. Later, after we had both left School, we did get back together and are still married.
I write all of this to either give credence to your perceptions or, in a different fashion, to question them.
Again, if this is useful, good.
If this is not, I apologize.
Be well.