The Gurdjieff people here where I live apparently, so I was told, decided not to invite me to join them, decades ago, because I had got into "something else", as people will notice from my other postings here, if they feel the need to check.
My background was inclining me away from the complicated methods of extreme intellectual aproaches, as they seem to be for the clever intellectuals only.

What I still want to ask the people who deride the wierd training, and personality, of Gurdjieff, and some other so-called "teachers" is:- Just what do you allow or suggest as ways to get guidance in your life, help in your life and it's problems, or to improve things with which you feel ill at ease or unconfortable?
And if you feel such thing are not worth considering, or are unnecessary, for youself, how do you really feel towards people who feel that need?
Thanks,
Bronte

As no one seems inclined to answer my question, I am going to consider the anti-Gurdjieff comments as lacking in essence. And anyone else who reads them should too, if there is such a a lacking in responses to my challenge here.

Quote
Bronte G
The Gurdjieff people here where I live apparently, so I was told, decided not to invite me to join them, decades ago, because I had got into "something else", as people will notice from my other postings here, if they feel the need to check.
My background was inclining me away from the complicated methods of extreme intellectual aproaches, as they seem to be for the clever intellectuals only.

What I still want to ask the people who deride the wierd training, and personality, of Gurdjieff, and some other so-called "teachers" is:- Just what do you allow or suggest as ways to get guidance in your life, help in your life and it's problems, or to improve things with which you feel ill at ease or unconfortable?
And if you feel such thing are not worth considering, or are unnecessary, for youself, how do you really feel towards people who feel that need?
Thanks,
Bronte

"gurdjieff people" must expend a great deal of time and energy to "re-program" you to their ideology and methods and this becomes more and more difficult as society at large becomes more accepting of the more exotic. if you expressed an unwillingness to suspend your current practices they would not be interested in you. how could they be?

gurdieff himself claimed that he required a certain type of person to be a student of his alleged system. i believe the passage is available in one of ouspenky's books. basically, if memory serves, he required that a person have first "equaled life" and had grown rather disenchanted with what life had to offer. this means to have had a successful career or had become financially stable, who perhaps had already raised a family successfully. i think if one looks at the circle of people he drew to him, most all of them are of this calibre. talented and successful people. at least in the 1920s and 1930s.

how ridiculous by comparison to see what "fourth way" charlatans and sociopaths tend to prey upon: younger people who have certainly not equaled life, who have not become mature adults in full yet, who often are confused by the array of alternative idologies available to them, and in the past several generations that many of these poor souls have come from broken homes so subconsciously they are looking for parental figures to tell them what to do. this last is a rather general statement but it has validity.

the laughable irony in all this is that if such a person as gurdjieff described were to ever be approached by one of these phoneys the whole fourth way enterprise would blow up in their faces. people of this calibre tend to see through the mists of disingenousness and there would be too much risk of their hypocrisy being exposed. phoneys don't want to lose their gig, you know what i am saying?

fourth way charlatans instead lie to themselves and their fellow masochists that such people are in fact "asleep" and have "crystallized out" so that they are incapable of transformation.

just goes to show you that even people who believe that they have "awoken" can lie to themselves successfully. in fact that is the only way they can continue in their circumstances-- if you think about it.

men and women such as gurdjieff required do exist all over the place, but there are not any spiritual guides nowadays who are either worthy enough or clever enough to fool such a man or woman.

hope this satisfies you somewhat.

I joined a Gurdjieff group in the late 70's (Claymont). I totally fit Cher7's description of the type "'fourth way' charlatans and sociopaths tend to prey upon: younger people who have certainly not equaled life, who have not become mature adults in full yet, who often are confused by the array of alternative idologies available to them."

I won't recap everything said about the philosophy; I still find it complex and burdensome to understand, so much so that I really wonder at my eagerness to throw in my lot with something so inherently bizzare and complex. My father was a big Gurdjieff enthusiast (still is, unfortunately), which had a lot to do with my eagerness.

My brush with the work was disasterous. I had a nervous breakdown, and spent several years recovering. I spent many years after that in denial regarding the entire experience, just trying to forget it and move on. Lately, I've gotten interested in researching Gurdjieff and negative experiences with cults, and am very grateful to sites like this where people can share their experiences (general web searches don't turn much up). While Gurdjieff may not fit all aspects of a cult, there seems to be much in common. I embraced the philosophy whole-heartedly. When it didn't work for me, I collapsed. Looking at it more objectively, I don't really see how it can work for anyone, as the ideals seem completely unattainable (assuming they were worth attaining in the first place).

Dear Nancy, if you do a search of the message board you should be able to find a number of other posts with information.

Involvement in G groups can go back for generations.

A thoughtful person named Jupiter described what it was like to grow up in a Gurdjieff type group that was tied to J Bennett and did a sub practice called Subud. If you do an author search and 'all dates' you will find Jupiter's works. You will also see how J was harassed by others who were quite threatened that someone else dared express misgivings about something they'd dedicated their adult lives to--and could not bear to question.

Jupiter got out while still young. Those who remain inmates until they are middle aged or older have a much greater burden of investment.

In a Gurdjieff/Fourth Way oriented household, if the parents are distracted and spaced out by constantly practicing self remembering, 'alarm clock' exercises, or fretting about group politics and staying on the right side of a demanding and tyrannical leader's whims, that means little emotional energy is available for parenting a youngster.

In such a circumstance a child desperate for attention and love may try and turn him or herself into a 'fourth way prodigy' and share the parents' interests in gurdjieff work and get attention by that route. The trouble is childhood is bypassed and the desperate child develops a cult personality in order to get some crumbs of nurture from parents and the Fourth Way group the parents are in.

In some cases, a child in that predicament may grow up, and become a life long inmate of G work, and in some cases perhaps become a G work teacher, marry within the group and produce a second or third generation of children who get exposed to this same warping influence.

The search button can be a little hard to find, because it is tiny and in the upper right corner of the RR.com message board window.

Some people have been contributing posts for years so do 'all dates' when conducting searches, otherwise you will miss some good items.

Click the search button open and then do a search

'Webbydeb' was the daughter of someone who taught G work. Her mother Kathleen was reportedly daughter of parents who were involved in a G group in New York City and supposedly little Kathleen met old man Gurdy him self.

[forum.culteducation.com]

[forum.culteducation.com]

She had to surrender her license to practice clinical psychology in circumstances reported here.

[www.culteducation.com]

A survey article on G groups can be read here:

[forum.culteducation.com]

G groups--SF Bay Area

[forum.culteducation.com]


And to show that it is futile to argue with persons who have an entrenched personal curative fantasy linked to G work, one can read the dialogue that unfolded here.

[forum.culteducation.com]

I was not myself in such a group. But I grew up in a very strict all adult household late in my parents' lives. I was expected much too early to understand the concerns and adjust myself to the emotional needs of adults and in so doing I was evicted much too soon from childhood, adopted a facade of false maturity.

As an example, how this worked, I gave up watching Saturday morning cartoons, long before I genuinely outgrew interest in them. My dad used to nag and make shaming comments when he saw me watching TV on Saturday. So I gave up something I enjoyed---and that had not, BTW interefered with my completing my homework.

The interesting thing is, Dad had no trouble letting himself enjoy TV.

Years later I discovered that before I was born, my father had been a TV junkie and spent hours watching 1950s cowboy Westerns. In short, he was a hypocrite. He'd been ejected from childhood due to a strict European upbringing. As an adult he happily let himself enjoy junk TV, but when he saw a child of his own enjoying recreation in a way he had not been allowed to enjoy in childhood, he was bitterly envious and nagged.

But at least my father didnt induct me into a religion. As an adult, I was free to pick and choose my own entertainment.

No matter what faults Subud has it is not appropriate to relate Jupiter's experiences in Subud to the Gurdjieff movement. Subud is not a "Gurdjieff type group"
ABSOLUTELY NOT, never was, never will be! That is just a wrong statement to make.
It should be left separate.
A study in the most cursory way will show any diligent researcher that Gurdjieff and Subud merely had a coincidental connection, an "opportunistic" one.
Criticism of the effect of Gurdjieff should be kept separate from the Subud comments, because they are different practices, different teachings, different sources.
That statement does not redeem either of them. Comments which link the two now are totally out of place. The link died long ago. And in order to practice Subud, it has always been an advantage NOT to have been in Gurdjieff, just as I was not.
I found more of an enlivening of my Christian beliefs by being in Subud, and no attraction at all to the mind-challenging, personality challenging, chaos producing disciplines and person-control that I read of in Gurdjieff, which have been so badly and sadly practiced by people who then joined Subud. That is partly how Jupiter's family got such a short end of the stick when they came to Subud from Gurdjieff.
The rest is history, or should I be saying Her Story?
And I hope and pray she is progressing in life and her brilliant career now.

Corboy,

Thanks so much for all the information! Your message will take me some time to review and ponder, and of course I want to follow all the links. I could really relate to your remarks about your father and TV. My father used to joke that he could see my brain melting when we watched TV. And when I spent time working on crossword puzzles he would scoff at the waste of time. As I grew up, a portion of me was a healthy skeptic, taking Dad with a grain of salt, but for various reasons I became determined to win his approval by becoming spiritual, whatever that meant, and whatever it took. Although of course at the time I had no idea I was doing it to win approval.

I'm really interested in finding people who attended the course or seminars at Claymont who are willing to share memories.

Regards,
Nancy

This thread is for persons interested in recovery.

Jupiter was here because she was interested in recovery.

Readers are invited to do an author search on RR.com for 'Jupiter' and 'all dates' and observe for themselves how she was treated by Bronte G.

If someone is happy and fulfilled in Subud, G work or whatever, there are plenty of venues where this contentment can be shared.

This thread has a different focus.

For historical context, a large group of persons in the UK were interested in both Gurdjieff work and Ouspenksy's work.

Bennett was one of those persons. He sampled a lot of options and was a very questing and trusting person.

Ouspensky threw his followers into shock when he declared there was no system and died soon afterward. Many went to study with Gurdjieff who died not long after, in 1948.

So this left a pool of disoriented followers, bereft of thier two authoritarian leaders. They were schooled in submissiveness and in hunger for wonders by tutelage under both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and thus created a social network ripe for various opportunists, among them Puk Subud and, believe it or not, Mahrishi Mahesh Yogi.

Joyce Collin Smith studied under Ouspensky, then studied and practiced Subud and did the Subud latihan exercises as part of Bennetts group, and was deeply troubled by what she witnessed both in herself and amongst other practitioners of Subud. She also as mentioned above, was troubled that Pak's wife felt entitled to shoplift, because she was wife of a guru.

Collin-Smith left and soon after took up with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, back when MMY was still trying to work in conjunction with Francis Roles and the remains of Roles' Ouspensky group. Later there was a rupture and MMY went independent. He later stroke of luck was riding on the fame of the Beatles.

Joyce Collin Smith describes all of this -Ouspensky studies, Bennett, Subud, and later her own involvement with MMY in her book Call No Man Master.

Without realizing it, she evokes the whole social scene which condensed around Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

So...even if Subud is not itself based on Gurdjieff work, it was the sort of thing that was propagated via social networks made possible by Gurdjieff and Fourth Way groups...and empowered by the gullibility and hierarchical power structures fostered by such groups.

As mentioned this thread is for persons interested in questioning these set ups.

If you are happy and fulfilled in such work, our discussions need not subtract from your fulfilment.

But as Nancy mentioned, there seem few venues online where one can have discussions and ask questions without interferance or bullying.

So...be polite and respect the intentions of this thread.

If someone dislikes what we are doing, they are free to go elsewhere.

Bennett in this predicament went on to get involved with Subud.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2008 11:12PM by corboy.

"So...be polite and respect the intentions of this thread.

If someone dislikes what we are doing, they are free to go elsewhere"

My "treatment" of Jupiter was as respectful as Icould manage, given that I have twenty times the life experience that she has in Subud, but not one tenth of the sufferring she experinced at the hands of controlling, manipulating, power-hungry Subud family and others.
I hope it will be noticed that I to an not now "IN Subud", and that I too have had to recover from some pretty heavy handed Subud power-controllers who denied me my own freedom to be myself, or pursue the best things I could in life, thus adding to the failure of my life by removing much of the self esteem I had. A task already well accomplished by others in my life.
So, In my appeal to readers here, such as Corboy, I wish to ask that you do not make the mistake of warning people about something that is not part of the plot.
It is as if you are trying to warn people not to pick poisoned mushrooms, in this case Gurdjieff, but assume that it is alright to warn them not to pick some other thing.
Perhaps it is relevant to notice that some of the people who followed Bennet into Subud also left it later, in particular his closest associates.
I am not asking people here to take a positive attitude to Subud, even if I want them to.
I am asking you not to make the mistake of warning them that they will be safe from harm in Gurdjieff if they avoid Subud. The two are separate. Studying the fact will show that.
No need to get upset because I don''t accept that the two are as-one.
It won't help people find their way out, or away from, Gurdjieff.

And I never ever heard the connection you make between TM and Subud. It has always been a separate thing. And any one who has practiced either, then attempted the other, would know that.

To whom it may concern:

Do not attack people personally on this message board, which is against the posted rules.

"Victim bashing" will not be allowed.