Hello, my name is Morgan.

I am responding to your inquiry about participation in the Sterling Institute seminars.

I am in a unique position to do so, for several reasons. I attended the very first men's seminar, then called "Men, Sex and Power", in January of 1981.

I had been volunteering as an assistant for EST, and was induced to enroll by a good female friend there, who was heavily involved with the women's equivalent - "Women, Sex and Power", which had been going on for about a year and a half by then.

My friend had obviously been getting a lot of benefit from her involvement with the institute, so I signed up. I found so much of what was put forward in the seminar to be of value that, immediately upon completion of the weekend, I - along with several others - volunteeered to help with seminar production.

I also applied for a male staff position that had just been created. At that time, there was only one staff person, a woman. After a three-month ordeal of 'proving myself worthy' to Justin's satisfaction, I was hired as a paid staff member.

I was directly responsible for every aspect of the institute's functioning except office administration, finances, and management of the volunteer enrollment teams, from then until I resigned in late 82', having had more than enough of Justin. I was continuously present in the seminar room, for every event that took place while I worked for there.

At the time, the men's seminars were designed to make men more manageable by women, to the benefit of both. Male and female participants were urged to appreciate and celebrate each other, and there was none of the division or contention between the genders that has become so prominent.

Men's enrollments began steadily dropping off, however, and in late 81' Justin was seriously considering ending the men's events. Clearly, the men weren't getting what they needed out of the seminars.

Someone gave me an article, from New West magazine, which was an interview of the poet, Robert Bly, about what was missing in today's men, and how to access that missing component. It rang true for me, as my personal experience of men was exactly that. Men had lost their sense of what being a man was like, and there were no role models for what that might be.

That article, incidently, sparked the men's movement worldwide.

I gave the article to Justin, and he was intrigued, but he had no idea about how to proceed. I suggested some possible approachs and, as I was by that time co-facilitating both the men's and women's seminars with Justin, I took steps to initiate the new policy, in the very next men's weekend.

I can give you details of how that came about, and what we did, if you like. You see, I am not bound by any oath of secrecy. That seminar was not the seminar that Justin now presents to men, though much of the material is the same. What is radically different is the tone, and the resulting separation between Sterling men and their women.

At that time, Justin had almost no friends and had ostracized his family. Myself and the one-to-three female staff members served as his family, friends, confidants and servants. Throughout my sojuorn there, one or more of the female staff met most of his sexual needs as well. What can I say? Justin is - in his way - a very charismatic man, and finds it very easy to get what he wants from women.

It was a very closed circle and, knowing the man as I did, I suspect that nothing has changed.

At the time, Justin insisted upon living a life of almost total isolation, spending his time between seminars sitting in his darkened apartment, dressed in a robe, watching the vidoes of previous seminars, and the TV soap operas that he acknowledged - to the staff only - were one of his major sources of information about relationships. I'm not joking.

While I was there, all of us on staff were fully aware of Justin's 'idiosyncracies', and I personally considered him to be emotionally - and perhaps mentally - unbalanced . This was a fairly common topic of discussion among the staff.

As I was the only other male who could get close to Justin, my presence - as a very different kind of man - seemed to keep him more or less in line. Not that I had any authority over him, for Justin will allow that from no one. Rather, it was that my presence seemed to settle him a bit. I sensed at the time that he knew this, and that he felt that he needed it.

I was concerned, when I resigned, that without that counterbalance, Justin would begin to go out of control, and I believe that the current situation is the result of exactly that.

That Justin would have created seminars to support men and women in having relationships that worked may seem ironic, but an examination of the man, his methods and his attitudes shows otherwise.

Justin was quite open with the staff, about his profound distrust of men. In observing him in social situations, it became clear as well that he actually feared men. Watching him squirm to avoid men, say at a party, was an education.

The only reason that Justin undertook to work with men was that the women who had graduated from the women's seminars were clamoring for it. He even said as much in seminars, as well as in our 'inner circle'.

As I continued to work with him, however, something else became apparent. This too was a topic of discussion among the staff. From observing how he treated the women he was in relationship with, including, for a time, two of the women on staff at the same time, and the devastating impact upom a female staff member of a forced sexual interaction with Justin, it bacame plain to me that Justin hates women.

Those who label Justin's philosophy about relationships as 'misogynistic' are dead on the money. Misogyny is the hatred of women, and Justin is, demonstrably, a misogynist.

He has created a relationship model that puts women 'in their place', and that encourages those men who are particularly suceptable, to run roughshod over them.

So much of what people seem to be complaining about has to do with the aftermath of the seminars, that some light needs to be shed there as well. I have posted an explanation elsewhere in this forum, in response to "Looking for Sterling Women", that lays out the dynamic of enrollment quite clearly, as it was employed at EST, and is still being employed at Sterling.

It is no surprise to me that the relationships between some Sterling men and their women are being negatively impacted, for Justin is far less concerned with the state of people's relationships than he is with demanding the enrollments that keep his organization going.

I am posting this information because I am fed up with the irresponsibility shown by so many people who put their business survival ahead of the real benefit they might be able to provide. There are many out here, including myself, who do otherwise. Justin, and those like him, give us all a bad name.

Justin Sterling has both the ability and the platform to do truly great work. That he has chosen otherwise is the measure of the man.

I am willing to go into depth, with anyone who asks, on any subject relative to Sterling Institute of which I have any knowledge. I can do that on this forum, or privately if you prefer.

Regards, Morgan (one name only, no last name) C. P. C. C., C. C. H. T.