In 1981 I joined a Gurdjieff group in the California Bay Area. This group was lead by Henry Korman, and had no name. Many of the group members had moved from New York to the Bay Area with Henry in the late 70's. If you are enquiring about other groups such as this one, let me know.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

If anyone wants to learn a bit about the groups that derive from Horn, read Taking With the Left Hand by William Patterson Smith If you still want to study Gurdjieff work, bear in mind that real G groups dont advertise or prosyletize. Most of G's material derives from Theosophy with some Tibetan Buddhism thrown in. Please read James Webb's history of Gurdjieff Work '
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Fourth Way groups require careful evaluation by students, both those already in a group and those interested in looking for a group. More modern groups may utilize material from psychotherapy, may have psychotherapists (licensed and unlicensed) as leaders, members, or both. If any group becomes socially isolated and uses powerful methods of inner work and self disclosure, it may despite co
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

tho this may or may not succeed Try and post an inquiry on the NYC Craigslist. Sound like you're interested. If you query about 'the work' and make it look like youre worried that it is a cult, you might have your post flagged and removed. That happens constantly on the NYC Craigslist, but not on the two West Coast sites! But you have to see if your pal is involved with
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The group 'needshelp' is referring to is a freelance Gurdjieff/Fourth Way group led by Alex Horn. He created the Sharon Gans group, and a former student of his, Robert Burton created yet another freelance Fourth Way group, formerly called Fellowship of Friends, now called Renaissance. The Rickross site has a lot of archived material for all these groups.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Either John Horgan or someone he interviewed spoke of 'The enlightenment industry.' The minute you take a liberating meme, a meme that is meant to wake us up by busting memes, and you commodify it, trademark it and turn it into another burdensome parasitic meme, you've 'co-opted the process for your self aggrandizement.' If a disciple does well, the guru or LGAT tak
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Interested in contact with any who may have fallen victim to Robert Burton or Alex Horn in the period from 1973-76.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Be careful about curiousity--just like glittering lures for fish, it can be used against us. I used to patronize a bicycle shop where one of the mechanics was a former biker. His gang had been like the Hell's Angels, but more obscure. One day, it was warm and X had his shirt sleeves rolled up, displaying a veritable gallery of tattoos. I pointed to one of them and asked, 'What
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

'deconditioning' by some. Timothy Leary the LSD guru believed that if people could be stripped of all (or most) of their prior conditioning, they could be re-programmed with better ways to live and eventually the whole human race would evolve. Stuff like this was big in the Sixties and still lingers today in various New Age venues. (See Gary Lachman's book 'Turn Off Your Mind-
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

and have such an air of old fashioned legitimacy, that its hard to clue in that something is going on. The other thing that makes this a tough one to spot is that they apparently started off from a study group once led by Ouspensky, who had studied with Gurdjieff and then broke with him. Until Gurdjieff began publishing his own books, the only written material available for persons interested
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

They started in London, as a spin off from an Ouspensky study group. The London group is called School of Economic Science. They have advertisements for philosophy classes, but what is covertly taught is derived from bogus Gurdjieff and Ouspensky material. You can be involved for years and get sucked in gradually before you really know what is going on. Strict old fashioned dress cod
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

trance--especially since you note that it wasnt the content that was significant but the emotional tone. Given that you're still painfully influenced by all this after 5 years out of the group, some counseling with an expert might be worth a try. Rick can probably recommend some exit counselors in your area--that can ensure the cult issues will be addressed first. Look for someone who has
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

If you are looking for a therapist There was a psychiatrist at UCLA school of medicine, Louis Jolyon West, who was a cult expert. He died a few years back. If you ever think you need referral to a therapist, you might phone the psychiatry department at the school of medicine, ask who on staff is continuing Dr West's work, and then say, 'I need a list of therapists who have been train
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Reading Prophetic Charisma by Len Oakes will probably help you make sense of all this and dispell a lot of the mystique. Sounds like Michael gave you all 'hits of energy' to attract even more energy from you as a group. Its interesting how you mention that the energy behind the teaching was more important than content. This very long URL will take you to an article on a Google dis
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Corboy and Revclaire, thank you for your kind and thoughtful responses to my message. It is a great blessing to have this website/message board and you. At the time of my recruitment, I was particularly vulnerable. And, Royal Way did fill that ... it gave me everything I needed. I felt accepted, loved, important, and cared about. Prior to, my life was bereft. It's reassuring to kno
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

It appears you were recruited in a highly skillful manner. Thats scary. 1) Identify the issues in your life right at the time you were recruited. Recruitment usually succeeds when it coincides with a period of vulnerability. Feelings you put on hold as your involvment deepened may come back now that you no longer have the distraction of the group 2) The hardest thing to give up is that shar
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I see it as a choice between serving reality versus serving illusion. My bogus spiritual advisor said something that (sadly) he failed to live up to himself, but I found to be 100% true: 'If you cannot be honest about the things of this world, you cannot be honest about spiritual matters, either.' Excellent advice. It is a tragedy that the guy was so scared that he chose to ser
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

It is entitled 'Degenerate Players in the Work' They dont mention groups by name, but if former members read the descriptions, they will very likely recognize thier groups! William Patterson, a scholar of Gurdjieff work has written a book describing the genesis of 3 counterfeits, and has a chapter on Burton. Burton's teacher, Alex Francis Horn and Sharon Gans created a
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

some new names: Renaissance, Apollo The leader is Robert Burton. There is a huge amount of information on this group in Rick Ross's archives. Burton claims to be a Fourth Way (Gurdjieff) teacher, but he is bogus. Legitimate Gurdjieff study groups all disavow him. Go to 'Groups' in the Rick Ross site, go to 'R' and go to 'Renaissance'--you'll find h
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

also be fact-checked. Many spirtual guides claim to be disciples of celebrated spiritual teachers or saints, but their claims turn out to be bogus. Or the guide will make claims that cannot be verified--Gurdjieff did this constantly. Or the guide will win your trust very quickly and to such a degree that you feel ashamed to fact-check the claims. Yet another trick is to find an accommod
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Another case study is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. His lineage claims are debatable (go to trancenet.org for more info) MMY marketed his material and marketed it to Western seekers who were already hungry for esoteric eastern wisdom. His first point of recruitment were persons in societies dedicated to the study of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. And in the late 50s early 60s, nobody knew how to fact check
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

A church like Unity may be OK, but a if a particular Unity church does not screen persons or groups who request use of its facilities, that particular Unity church can, unwittingly, wind up as a platform for cult activity. To use a computer analogy, You can run a variety of application programs using an operating system like Windows 98 (Unity). If one of the programs happens to harbor a virus (e
Forum: Destructive Churches

Why do people join cults? What do the believers get out of it? As a young man, I came of age in 1960, and spent the next ten years in college. A hippie, dodging the draft, and wandering through various cults. I studied English, philosophy and art. I was a seeker of the truth. I was at Millbrook with Timothy Leary. I was with a Gurdjieff cult. Arica. Scientology. My mother was a Christ
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

First, if this is a non profit group, they are supposed to file for nonprofit status with the Attorney General--and such information should be a matter of public record, available on the Attorney General's website. There is an author, William Patrick Patterson, who is a reputable Gurdjieff scholar. He wrote a book, Taking With the Left Hand, which describes some trends that Patterson cons
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

hunches for you to mull over, concerning this group: You said that part of the doctrine seems to be that there are seven levels of human development. Here are remarks from a person who studied Gurdjieff/Fourth Way work in England. Her comments seem to jibe with what you have described: 'The Gurdjieff concept, which Ouspensky had accepted, was that several levels of 'man' alre
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

My hunch is that 'Michael' probably keeps promising recruits under survaillance, gleans information about them through his spies, then uses that to make it seem that he has psychically intuited what their deepest concerns are. Many bogus psychics use adroit questions (the technique is called 'cold questioning') or yes, they use spies to snoop on people. It sounds as though
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

(Before you read further, make sure you are in a good place and have some Kleenex and/or a good friend you can call. I am offering some ideas that may help clarify what happened to you but you may find some of this very upsetting. If you're feeling fragile you can keep this post for later) The reason I was a bit cautious when responding to your post is that while I have never (Thank GOD!
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families