Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: cber7 ()
Date: December 01, 2005 04:02AM

was there:

I took the time and effort to examine and your initial post, offering several points along the way which you chose not to respond to. Your initial response was a dismissive "whatever." Then you thought better of it and now you apparently want to lecture me instead of responding directly to the points I raised. Instead of a dialogue you are asking me to talk back "at" you, i.e. give you a lecture. It is against my nature and I dislike it, but I will oblige you:

You apparently share an opinion with another ex-member (Moishe) that what you were involved in was in fact [i:f069b69e05]not[/i:f069b69e05] a cult and that its leaders were in fact [i:f069b69e05]not[/i:f069b69e05] psychopaths. You have probably noticed that this website has to do with cults and psychopathic cult leaders, yet you would not assign these definitions to the situation you were in or to the people who you granted power over you. As this is the case, you feel somehow that there is some merit and greater validity to your posts having known Alex Horn, Sharon Gans, and others personally.

I don't. He is just "another cult leader," given the sociopathic Narcissistic Personality Disorder traits he has exhibited. There is plenty of information available here for you to research this for yourself.

Black and white: I agree with you that in normal, merely "neurotic" society, we can allow for shades of meaning between black and white. But in my opinion-- surely shared by many who post here more frequently than I-- neurosis is basically self-inflicted, and as we get older we cope with it and can even laugh about it in ourselves and others. [i:f069b69e05]But the psychopath finds a way to inflict harm on others as well as himself, either in a small-scale way or a large-scale way.[/i:f069b69e05] This is no laughing matter. It is this historical and continued harm that Alex Horn and Sharon Gans continue to get away with that one must hate and condemn. As far as hell is concerned, I am sure that they-- Horn and Gans and Klein and Mindel-- are already there, since hell is a state of mind. This does not arouse pity in those who have seen them for who they are, as the harm they have done in their own black and white universe of "Sleeping Humanity" and "School" trumps all.

You are evidently a spiritual person, since you mention hell, soul, the right or wrong path, personal development, etc. I sincerely respect that. And so it is important for those who [b:f069b69e05]1)[/b:f069b69e05] wish to avoid being sucked into a harmful situation or [b:f069b69e05]2)[/b:f069b69e05] who are presently looking at this and other messages for the purpose of getting out of a harmful situation-- to be able to pursue their spiritual beliefs in a situation that is not in truth cultic or run by psychopaths.

You say that the "truth" is important. You also asserted earlier that the world is not black and white. This forces you to have to admit that this is simply [i:f069b69e05]your truth[/i:f069b69e05]. You can't have it both ways. It is your interpretation of what you remember of your experience all those years ago.

Your accusation of "immaturity" is understandable, but what you are attacking is "in truth" the difficult initial stage of calling something or someone by its proper name-- to fully "own" something, if only to move on and be able to see things in greater shades after one has really moved on. Case in point: What do you think would happen to you if you stated to yourself "Alex Horn harmed me and destroyed something in me and others."? It is more direct, more to the point. It might also bring you closer to admitting that he was and remains a psychopath. Your version-- "He caused great harm, destruction in those who followed him." and "He also caused great harm and destruction in me" seems to me to be the language of avoidance and denial.

By your remaining in an idealogical Limbo of sorts: "he was wonderful, he did great harm" your contribution and your ambivalence about Alex Horn might be doing more harm than good not only to yourself but to others here. Please consider that.

To repeat: there is no point in having any further contact with me or others who share my point of view if the following "truth" is not agreed upon by you: you belonged to a cult and Alex Horn and Sharon Gans are psychopathic cult leaders. This is the first statement that must be affirmed for those who wish to get out, for those who wish to avoid getting sucked in, and for those who have been out for a while but are still haunted and tortured by what you so eloquently alluded to: for once you see them for who they "truly" are-- insane but functioning in society somehow-- you can finally free yourself to go through a purgation of sorts and move on.

It sounds as though time might perhaps have healed "much" of your harm-- I hope so. But this statement "I would reccomend that you question what is behind your hatred and contempt."-- it makes you sound like you are still in "class" or at a "meeting." Not good.

So far as my being "unsure," Was There: I wouldn't worry too much about that, if I were you.

I hope you take what I have said in the spirit it was meant: I have been there too. And I have moved on.

Otherwise I would not be able to sincerely wish you freedom and peace, was there.

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: wasthere ()
Date: December 03, 2005 02:41PM

So cher7 you have avoided my question: were you a student of Alex Horn or not? You have danced around it but have not stated directly. So........

Also a dialogue might be interesting but the ground rules are simple. No attacking, no insults. I refuse to get into these. I did attack, and I did insult, in reply. But that has to be the end of it. If you don't agree, fine, but I will end it here.

If you want to talk, great, but I am not interested in being blasted or spending my time blasting back. It is a waste of time and energy. And I will give you respect and demand respect in return.

As they say, the ball is in your court.

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: cber7 ()
Date: December 08, 2005 09:02AM

Quote
wasthere
So cher7 you have avoided my question: were you a student of Alex Horn or not? You have danced around it but have not stated directly. So........

Also a dialogue might be interesting but the ground rules are simple. No attacking, no insults. I refuse to get into these. I did attack, and I did insult, in reply. But that has to be the end of it. If you don't agree, fine, but I will end it here.

If you want to talk, great, but I am not interested in being blasted or spending my time blasting back. It is a waste of time and energy. And I will give you respect and demand respect in return.

As they say, the ball is in your court.



wasthere:

This is not a game and I can't dance. There are many people who might visit here whose well-being, sanity, and life are at stake. Having been [i:351c22d0bc]then[/i:351c22d0bc] in the situation they are in[i:351c22d0bc] now[/i:351c22d0bc], I am sure you will agree that studying all the material available on this website (related to Alex Horn, cults, cult leaders, psychopaths, etc.) is the right thing to do prior to any further dialogue. Time may have dulled your pain or even healed you, but some readers here who have expressed their lingering agony might otherwise interpret your contributions as lacking in empathy and game-playing. This is echoed in the impersonal way you refer to your pain and suffering, as I mentioned previously. I apologize if this offends you, or seems insulting, or hurts your feelings, or seems to you to be a sign of disrespect by you.

Even so, you have my respect already, if only for what you had to endure in terms of the pain Alex Horn and Sharon Gans inflicted on you and from which I hope you have healed. Now I humbly request that you please show me the same respect by making the effort to read my other posts. In so doing you will be able to come to the only conclusion possible as far as knowing Alex Horn or not, among other things. I encourage you to also read the links I provided in those posts to the websites that describe "malignant narcissism" and the traits of a psychopath. When you have read these the material I will consider a dialogue with you but even then not in this forum.

You felt attacked so again I offer an apology. The vehemence you detect is not so much in response to what I have perceived as a glib tone (not having read my other posts you are not prepared to have a dialogue-- correct?) on your part, but rather a vehemence on behalf of those who are still stuck in a bad situation and want to leave, or who want to avoid getting sucked in, or who have mixed feelings and need a push to make a very necessary decision.

Whether you wish to grant my request or not I respect your decision either way and send my best wishes.

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: wasthere ()
Date: December 10, 2005 03:10PM

Thank you cber7 for your response. Although I am not responding to your request to address your previous posts I hope you consider what I am about to post.

For all the injured and children of injured students of Alex Horn and Sharon Gans I going to state what I believe.

We were all people looking for something more. We were introduced to Alex and Sharon through plays, people we met, friends, or as in my case sought out 'the work' resulting in meeting Alex. As corrupt as Alex and Sharon are/were there was the energy of 'something more' in them. It is in all of us but Alex and Sharon were consciously in touch with it and able to express it. Alex and Sharon showed us ourselves and said it was only in them. In the most powerful sense, this is the greatest testament that we were looking so profoundly for ourselves. Like fish to bait we were hooked.

To the children, this is why your parents were there. To the students, we were and most likely still looking for something real in life. The mistake we made is that we looked to Alex and Sharon to fill this vacuum. We didn't understand only we can fill that hole in ourselves. God is within all of us. Alex and Sharon don't have a monopoly on the creator of the universe. It is ludicrous that they believe this.

To Alex Horn and Sharon Gans: I am still alive. I have a wife and two children. I love my children and wife. I am still married to the woman who 30 years ago gave me the ultimatum: leave the theater or leave me. I made the right choice. My life is not perfect but it gets better all the time. I have a basic but working experience of Myself, my 'I'. It is my belief you betrayed yourself, myself and friends, and the work. It makes me sad to think of you. Skip.

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: Blue ()
Date: December 18, 2005 12:24PM

your posts are very interesting, very informative...
were you a part of alex horns group? i was as was child.
seems many still feel in awe of him even though they admit how dangerous he is/was.

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: Ben Bennett ()
Date: January 15, 2007 09:03PM

I have just had a letter from James Tomarelli asking if I know anything about a connection between Alex Horn and J.G. Bennett. I can confirm from my own memory that Alex Horn did come to Coombe Springs in 1960, where he ran some workshops under the title of the theatre of all possibilities. I was only eight years ald at the time, but I remember finding him creepy and the workshops sleazy. I remember only one occasion when my father came to watch for a few minutes and his presence clearly made Alex Horn uneasy. He left soon after

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: mxkitty ()
Date: February 27, 2007 06:26AM

Allegedly, Alex Horn traveled to England where he met his wife, Anne Burridge who allegedly was studying with J. G. Bennett himself or with one of his study groups in the 1950s. Bennett was into Subud. Subud, a movement founded by the late Bapak Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo (Bapak for short), first reached the West in 1956. We can thusly assume that Anne was into Subud as well.

According to what I've read, Bennett told Anne Burridge not to have anything to do with Alex Horn, so we can assume that Bennett and Horn actually met. But Anne Burridge did not heed Bennett's advice and married Horn in the U.S.A.

After Anne and Alex divorced in 1969, Anne continued to lead the Sonoma faction of The Group.

Interestingly, Sonoma county is in the San Francisco Bay area, right next to Marin County. Marin and San Francisco have several sites where many government-sponsored experiments in mind-control took place. Some of these experiments included children.

Several similar covert government entities have aligned themselves with cults and cult members:

"In fact, in one of Alex Constantine's articles on the mass ritual sex abuse case involving McMartin Preschool and their outright CIA connections, he notes that many of the CIA's child oriented MK operations are 'administered' by an Indonesian religious cult: one of the leading members of this cult is also a principal officer in a MAJOR computer games software manufacturing / developing business. He doesn't name names, but I believe it must be either Sega Genesis or Nintendo or some corporation rather close to them in terms of market share, from the way he writes it. The name of the relious cult is "Subud.'"

by John A. Quinn/NewsHawk Inc.

[www.xs4all.nl]

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: cochineal ()
Date: March 01, 2007 03:22AM

So, in that case, can we assume that Ann Burridge, Ann Haas and Ann Bowen (who is Michael Horn's mother and works with him at the Michael Chekov Theater Company in Manhattan) are all the same person?

If she is the same person then she is not in Sonoma anymore leading that group, right?

How many wives did Alex have? Where did he grow up? Does anyone know anything about his early life? Or Sharon's early life?

Do you have any proof that Alex or Ann or Sharon had anything to do with the the mind control experiments that John Quinn writes about? (That's a pretty amazing article...)

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: mxkitty ()
Date: March 21, 2007 04:26AM

Yes, Anne Burridge and Anne Haas are the same person. Burridge is her original surname. Her surname changed to "Horn" when married to Alex Horn, and then to "Haas" when she married Anthony Haas.

I have heard that Anne Haas has retired from leading classes. Jim Shere, a licensed marriage counselor and therapist gives secret, private classes in his office on the outskirts of Glen Ellen, in Sonoma Valley. His eldest daughter and her husband live across the road in an old, partially restored building that was formerly known as "The Expansion Mansion." Anne Haas owns it.

I have never heard of Ann Bowen. Who are Anne Bowen and Michael Horn?

There was a Carol Bowen in Sonoma Valley in the 1970s who had two daughters named Westonna and Brecon. Is there a connection between Ann Bowen and Carol Bowen?

I have read that Alex Horn grew up in New York state. That's all I know of his youth. As far as I know, Alex Horn has had two wives: Anne Burridge and Sharon Kulko (pseudonym "Gans"). In one book, "Talking with the Left Hand" it mentions Alex's marriage to a woman named "Carol" but I have no corrorabative information on that.

Gurdjieff groups in the SF Bay Area--mid-seventies
Posted by: mxkitty ()
Date: March 21, 2007 04:31AM

There may be a connection between government mind control experiments and this cult. I have suspected so for years and I'm gathering more information for corroboration of this theory.

One of the Sonoma cult's members told me (when he was very drunk and probably should have kept his mouth shut) that The Group is connected to Bohemian Grove, which is just as creepy.

[www.infowars.com]

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