One evening in “class”, a fellow “student” casually mentioned smoking pot. A “teacher” sternly told him, “You do know that smoking pot is against ‘THE RULES’.” Given her admonishment, I assumed that “school” considered drug use an avoidance of doing “the first line work, or work on the self”.
Needless to say, when a corroborator shared this next bit, I thought, I must share this on the blog (it’s also great source material for the musical that I’m going to write one day, “School” — My Five Years in a Cult):
“ … in 2000 Sharon asked, first her son, and then someone else (after he left) to procure hash for the teachers to smoke at the Christmas party. Some kind of cannabis product was present at teachers’ meetings thereafter.”
Recently, some fellow new-millennium disgruntled(s) confirmed that Boston-branch “teachers” keep the tradition of “teaching” while toasted alive. Before “classes” our “teachers” hid in the “teacher’s lounge”. A few privileged and trusted servants delivered the aristocracy food and beverage Downton Abbey style. Once upon a time, I had imagined the royalty planning the evening’s secret esoteric teaching in that room, perhaps meditating and praying together. Instead, I guess, they were gossiping and consuming libations; perhaps some were rolling joints and blowing enlightened smoke rings before making a grand appearance in the “classroom”.
“Class” always unfolded via the same bi-weekly ritual: we waited in the “classroom” silently, reverently, for a “teacher”; eventually, either “teacher” Michael would appear and announce, “Time for TAI CHI.”, OR “teacher” Paul would appear and announce “Time for BODY WORK.” We few, we proletariat, would dutifully file into another room to either, follow Michael through the tai chi form, or “move every part of our body in circles” on Paul’s instruction. Once we plebs were sufficiently “relaxed” the “teacher” would send us silently padding into the “classroom”. There we would await (in silence, of course) the grand entrance of whomever was heading the evening’s lesson — don’t leak, no unnecessary talking, no fraternizing!
After several minutes of silence, a more highly evolved being would stroll in and take his/her seat at the front of the room. Usually, that “teacher” would announce, “Let’s read self observations.” We would kill a good first hour, or so, reading out of our “self-observation notebooks”, essentially confessing our sinful, broken, dysfunctional, coarse and heavy thoughts and/or “negative emotions.”
Academic cult researchers reveal this routine as typical cult techniques. The “body work” and/or tai chi are hypnotic devices that make the “student body” more susceptible; the reading of “self observations” convenient confessions so leadership could hone in and utilize our weaknesses towards the higher purpose of world domination… “Oh, my Grandma, what big teeth you have!” … ” The better to eat you with, my dear!” Humiliation, and fear of humiliation, proved a very effective social engineering tool within the hallowed halls. I guess you would have to be inebriated to justify this manipulation as necessary for “evolution” year after year.
In thinking about drug use in “school”, I remembered a scene from early in my tenure. As a newbie, or “younger student” (“school” was still courting me at this phase) a fellow “classmate” escorted me to a “class outside of class” — another brand of “all-night-school-party”. The drug-free magic of the evening had me giddy with wonder, a true believer, but my euphoria was briefly interrupted. An “older student” and “teacher” stopped to chat with me; as they zealously expounded on the benefits of “school” and how happy they were for me , an unmistakeable pot smell permeated and circled us. When they walked away, the cloud did too. I felt confused and disappointed; but — as was typical — then I thought, “They must know something that I don’t know about smoking pot.”
It’s amazing to now see how quickly I dismissed my doubts and blinded myself to these inconsistencies; I really wanted to believe in “school”!
Morph 2: The Non Fraternization Policy
Morph 3: Drug Use
Morph 4: Recruitment, or “Making New Friends”
Drug use???
Did anyone ever tell them that alcohol was a drug??
Not only were a number of the teachers in “school” alcoholics (including Sharon on the top of the list) but they actually encouraged us all to drink as much as possible.
We used to have a joke at CR about the five major food groups which was pretty much all we consumed:
1. Alcohol
2. Tobacco
3. Chocolate
4. Coffee
5. Cheese Doodles
Tell me which one on that list isn’t a drug and isn’t highly addictive??
At one point, a teacher actually told me that rum was my “essence drink” and I should drink it as much as possible!
Remember when you were sitting in class and those “special a-holes” would serve the “teachers” as they sat in the front of the room in their special chairs? Did you really think that was coffee in those coffee cups? Usually vodka. Sharon is a vodka drinker and woe to the person who does not have her favorite brand on hand and ice cold (with three ice cubes in a red wine glass, thank you). Her favorites kept changing and you had to be on your toes if you were one of the “special” people who were “allowed” to serve Sharon. Only certain people were approved to serve her. Absolut Red for a long time and Grey Goose also. Jordan was strictly a Ketel One drinker. For awhile there was an organic one as well.
Remember the Christmas Class where she said absolutely nothing and then said that the most important song of the 20th century was “Sail Away” by Randy Newman and we all spent months puzzling over that particular piece of wisdom? She was drunk. She was drunk most of the time. Name another peculiar circumstance (and there were many) and she was probably drunk.
Not to mention the prescription drugs she took with her alcohol. I remember once talking to a teacher about a particular drug that she had just popped into her mouth. I asked her what it was and she said that she didn’t have any idea what it was. Sharon gave it to her and she took it. No questions asked.
Coffee?? Sharon took hazelnut coffee (only certain brands) on the weak side, no sugar or cream. Gallons and gallons of coffee were consumed at each class.
Other drugs? What do you think the teachers were doing all the time in the “office” behind closed doors for so long? Take a wild guess.
TTWU has it exactly right. There were times when it seemed like the only way to make it through class was to drink coffee and whiskey until nothing seemed especially important or related to you any more. Not to mention cigarette smoking. There were any number of chain smokers, teachers included. If class was long enough, it was possible to go through an entire pack without getting up.
I remember that Robert, who used to drink prodigiously while teaching, was instructed to teetotal for some months after smashing up his car on Storrow Drive in the wee hours of the morning after class.
One time we were told to bring in pepper vodka and “kahzaian” bastourma — which was actually available in Watertown in the Armenian food shops — and consume as much as possible, a la Gurdjieff. You have to have “being” to be able to consume alot, you see. Gluttony as a virtue rather than a sin.
I remember, too, one Montana retreat where “teacher” Paul was instructed by Sharon to stay drunk for something like three days running. Alcohol, you see, is a “higher hydrogen,” and Paul was supposed to drink his way into a “higher state.” That “higher state” has a well-known name, of course, and it isn’t in “In Search of the Miraculous.” It was weird to see this one guy singled out for what sure looked like special treatment, to have one set of rules for this one special a-hole and another set of rules for everyone else.
(Turns out “school” was after Paul’s money. Robert and Sharon asked him for at least a hundred thousand, flat out, and browbeat and shamed him in front of other “younger teachers” when he balked. Don’t know if he eventually caved.)
It was more than giving up drinking for some months. So far as I know, Bob (can’t get myself to call him Robert) totally gave up alcohol, which was difficult for him. When he smashed his car, he also lost his license. I and others would take turns giving him lifts.
I also remember older students arguing that cigarettes provided higher hydrogens. I also can’t remember whether it was a student, Bob, or Alex, but someone claimed that cigarettes didn’t cause cancer.
Warren Peace, sounds like you and I may have actually crossed paths back then, although I wasn’t around to hear Paul being told to stay drunk for days running.
School is after EVERYONES money. That’s the whole point. Don’t get me started…
Yup, yup, yup.
As a former special a-hole, I can testify to the contents of the cups and glasses often being alchoholic. Many students were surprised to learn that coffee cups did not always contain coffee. We were all encouraged to drink and I, who have a metabolic problem with alchohol, never felt these ‘higher hydrogens’. As alchohol only makes me ill, it was clear when S and others were off their tree due to their consumption.
Cigarettes were most definitely also encouraged for many many years. Certainly for as long as S and R smoked and wanted to smoke throughout classes. A page in In Search of the Miraculous quotes Gurdjieff as claiming that tobacco promotes ‘higher hydrogens’, so this was their justification against increasing scientific evidence. Of course, flouting social norms was a very ‘school’ rebellion. Even when S quit, no one was encouraged to quit smoking But as new recruits often left, repelled by the constant cloud of nicotine infused blech, smoking was banned to the outer hallway in NY. That provided a good place for people who need to get away from the ‘teaching’ and some of the students spent an awful lot of time out in the hall, silently smoking.
I saw Rx bottles for painrelievers in her name, and saw a PDF of a note a doctor wrote for her, excusing her from a legal proceeding, saying that due to her physical problems, she took far too many painkillers to be reliable.
When I was brought to my first class, late 80’s, there were a bunch of people starting the same night – I guess 8 or 9. We were taken to a back room by the female teacher, who told us there were only three rules we had to follow – no talking about school, to anyone, ever, unless sanctioned by school. No fraternization with people in school (ever, unless sanctioned by school). And no drugs.
Before coming to school I was smoking pot pretty regularly, had my days with coke, some acid, some speed, some downs. A pretty typical 70’s upbringing. by the time I was pulled into the cult, I just smoked some pot but even so I wondered if I was too dependent on it and wanted to take a break. At first I didn’t really think they meant pot with the ‘no drugs’ rule as I didn’t then or now think of it as any kind of serious intoxicant, but they made it clear that pot was included. I was told that it would “illicitly open the doors of perception’, rather than getting there under our own steam through self-evolution. I got the idea from this that higher, finer states would be somewhat like being high – you would feel great, relaxed, and have wonderful perceptions you didn’t usually have. (This did actually happen on a few occasions in school, but it was under a different kind of physical opening – meaning that if you stay up long enough, with poor nutrition and other inducements to trance state, like ‘aims’ and other doctrinal exercises and code words, you will become slightly psychotic and have actual physical experiences which are almost identical to the experience of hallucinogenic drugs – except you feel a lot more tired and cranky instead of free to explore a different mental state).
So I signed up for the ‘no drugs’ and with a few slips kept my promise throughout my years in school. Those slips were thoroughly enjoyable and after my first experience reporting my fall from grace, I encountered so many threats and menaces, I just never told when it happened again – and of course these ‘advanced beings’ never had a clue. If fact, one night very early on I was stuck with a fairly large amount of pot I had contracted to buy before joining. I took it with me to class, which happened to be in a hotel at the World Trade Center(meaning someone had posed a security threat to school, although I didn’t know it at the time). It sat beneath my chair, I was shaking with nerves, figuring I would be called out on it, I could smell it! No one ever said a word. I gave it away to friends over the next week, but I was disturbed – why hadn’t these so-called higher beings, who knew things about me (sustainer reports) didn’t know I had a wad of dope at class?
The no talking rule it seemed had a number of sub rules, so it wasn’t just that you couldn’t tell people about school, you could never talk to people in school about school, unless you were supervised in a school activity or created form like partnerships, classes, CR – that would be gossip. You could talk about ‘work ideas’. For some reason nobody ever really wanted to do this, and when an older student would begin a conversation, like “Oh I was thinking about the food diagram last night at dinner and how these fine vibrations of the love my wife put into the hamburger would flow forever into the air and always feed starving humanity” I and probably others would feel a sinking, and some sycophant, or an honest person struggling to really get some heat on these ideas would try to have a discussion, but it was always forced, and you knew inside that you could never be free to really question or doubt, but had to say nicey nicey things. Eventually you found out who it was safe to gossip with and who not. And you always said, “well, I guess we’re gossiping” but it was usually at the end of the conversation. Couples couldn’t discuss school with each other, ever, or work ideas.
No fraternizing was weird because again, it quickly became clear that older students fraternized all over the place. It just added to wanting to be in the “in” group, the more advanced, the favored ones. Of course once you got there, you regretted it. Your school friendships were always colored outside of school by the consciousness of school, and your time together was usually about performing some school task. If you were dating, you were wondering if your lover had in aim in mind, or was working on themselves. If it wasn’t going well, you figured they weren’t and you couldn’t call them out on it! If you actually had fun with a school friend while legally or semi-legally fraternizing, you felt guilty. There were gray areas such as the acting class people, who all went out and called each other and did shows together with non-school people,and all pretence was dropped, it was such a relief. I think it was like a pressure valve, just like S telling Montana groups they should have affairs with each other.
The drug thing – it’s obvious in retrospect that this rule was to keep the law away. I heard, too, from “disgruntleds” who left after I did, that the teachers had started smoking pot at teacher meetings at the CR property, and I guess, at the christmas parties, and who knows where else. But they sure wouldn’t want anyone involved with harder stuff around school because they might get dragged in. Of course, so what if one of your students has a problem? Aren’t you sup[posed to help them? Why so freaked out about ‘security’ ? As a friend of mine says, If it’s all legit, what would police find at one of their spaces, but a group of people drinking coffee and talking about some ideas? If it’s all so legit, why don’t they give receipts for tuition so their struggling students can at least deduct it from their taxes? (oh right, laundry day)
Hello Everyone, Thanks for commenting. Here’s my fav!
“I saw Rx bottles for pain relievers in her name, and saw a PDF of a note a doctor wrote for her, excusing her from a legal proceeding, saying that due to her physical problems, she took far too many painkillers to be reliable.”
Our illustrious and evolved “teacher” …
Here’s an important piece that I want to reiterate for all readers to see …
” …. if you stay up long enough, with poor nutrition and other inducements to trance state, like ‘aims’ and other doctrinal exercises and code words, you will become slightly psychotic and have actual physical experiences which are almost identical to the experience of hallucinogenic drugs – except you feel a lot more tired and cranky instead of free to explore a different mental state.”
This is my favorite illustration of evolved — well-not-so-much — oblivious beings …
” … I was stuck with a fairly large amount of pot I had contracted to buy before joining. I took it with me to class, which happened to be in a hotel at the World Trade Center(meaning someone had posed a security threat to school, although I didn’t know it at the time). It sat beneath my chair, I was shaking with nerves, figuring I would be called out on it, I could smell it! No one ever said a word.”
My favorite conclusions …
“The drug thing – it’s obvious in retrospect that this rule was to keep the law away. I heard, too, from “disgruntleds” who left after I did, that the teachers had started smoking pot at teacher meetings at the CR property, and I guess, at the christmas parties, and who knows where else. ”
“If it’s all legit, what would police find at one of their spaces, but a group of people drinking coffee and talking about some ideas? If it’s all so legit, why don’t they give receipts for tuition so their struggling students can at least deduct it from their taxes? (oh right, laundry day)”
As Robert is so fond of saying, you’ve had your own experiences and can draw your own conclusions …
In regard to “non-fraternization” …
“You could talk about ‘work ideas’. For some reason nobody ever really wanted to do this, and when an older student would begin a conversation, like “Oh I was thinking about the food diagram last night at dinner and how these fine vibrations of the love my wife put into the hamburger would flow forever into the air and always feed starving humanity” I and probably others would feel a sinking, and some sycophant, or an honest person struggling to really get some heat on these ideas would try to have a discussion, but it was always forced, and you knew inside that you could never be free to really question or doubt, but had to say nicey nicey things. Eventually you found out who it was safe to gossip with and who not … ”
I remember a Christmas party bumbling across a small cross section of the “more highly evolved” discussing “work ideas” and thinking to myself, “I’ve never heard anything more pretentious in my life.” It was one of those moments during which my inner rebels poked up above the “school” haze and saw it for what it was ….theater and pretense brought to you by Cults-R-Us.
Drinking the Kool-Aid…
Is any of this any different from drinking the Kool-Aid?
We all did it.
I will tell one anecdote. I was in the kitchen cooking one day at CR before lunch (I was FOREVER in the kitchen cooking). Lorraine, one of the “teachers” came in to ask for a glass of water. She had a handful of pills. I asked her what they were (we were pretty good friends) and she said that she had no idea but Sharon had given them to her (she thought they were for weight loss.) She downed them all.
Ok, who takes a handful of unidentified pills?
Can you call this brain washing?
Can you call this insanity?
I have to say one more thing.
Regarding “school” as a whole and my reaction to it now years later. It’s a long story about why each of us did what we did under “school” rules.
A part of my healing from this involves telling my family about what happened. I left ten years ago. In speaking with a cousin about this she said that she understood how embarrassed I must be about my involvement with this group. Embarrassment isn’t it, though. I’m ashamed. Ashamed to have been taken in by Sharon and Robert and the whole damn thing.
Shame.
I don’t remember if I have referenced this before or someone else did but it is worth noting again. It says it all.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en
Che,
Shame as a blog post topic … I’ve been thinking about it. Shame is a prison and silence builds the bars to this prison. Good for you for telling you family. Every person you tell sets you free a little more — no more secrets is the key to your freedom.
Letting go of secrets, setting them free, means telling people. Telling people about the secrets that steep you in shame means being vulnerable. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable with others, you connect, or re-connect to others. You are no longer trapped in a prison of esoteric isolation. You are no longer silenced. You are freeing your voice.
I raise a glass to your unfolding freedom, the reconnection you are experiencing with your family and the healing that I hope will follow.
GSR
I will write a post about shame and vulnerability, specifically.
From the Brene Brown TED Talk: The three ingredients needed to bake/brew shame are … (drum roll, please)
1)Secrecy
2)Silence
3)Judgment
The same three damaging elements that enable destructive cults to manifest.
The antidote to shame: empathy.
Perhaps the same is true of cults. Our empathy for each other will enable us to speak out and this secret will be no more, therefore unable to continue.
CANNABIS/MARIJUANA FROM A GURDJIEFFIAN PERSPECTIVE
Someone privately asked me a question that I have spent years attempting to answer for myself. Marijuana is the scourge, so-to-speak, of today. Grow-ops are the equivalent of the gin mills of yesteryear.
This explanation requires an advanced understanding of the Gurdjieff Teachings.
I suffered from moderate (undiagnosed) depression when I was a teenager and discovered how to self-medicate myself at the age of 16 (forty years ago). But I both loved and hated it. I loved how it got rid of the depression and I hated it for that.
More and more people are seeking help. I know that I have been somewhat lucky because there has never been a time when I smoked pot, that it didn’t create a powerful inner sense of friction in me. And as a Gurdjieffian I understand the value of that friction between the inner suffering and torment it creates and the feeling of being high (a powerful polarity).
There is so much that I could flesh out, however, this is my best guess.
…
Marijuana has to be one of those special plants that Mr. Gurdjieff talked about in ‘Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson’ that are capable of absorbing energies from realms beyond the earth. And one of the active ingredients in Marijuana must, at least to me from my own personal experience, exist at the level of ‘hydrogen 12’.
This means pot contains a bit of gold or solar energy (using alchemical terms). Unfortunately, it seems to operate in a similar, though different way, from the misuse of ‘si 12’ (sexual energy). This is because it seems to operate with one major difference: ‘Si 12’ blends with both ‘mi 48’ (octave of feelings) and ‘do 48’ (octave of impressions) and this leads to both emotional and mental identification (‘fa 24’ & ‘re 24’) and pot seems to do exactly the same thing — and bond with these molecules and have a similar effect on feelings and thoughts.
The difference lies in the fact that it is not ‘si 12’ and ‘si 12’ should lawfully be alchemically transformed in the food octave and partially manifest itself in “sensory awareness” (Mindfulness of body). And one of the manifestations of ‘si 12’ being used correctly, is that it brings a physical/sensory awareness.
And because pot operates at the same level, ‘si 12’ does not need to be siphoned away to support emotional and mental identification.
So I do not think that pot itself heighten our sensations, but rather (again in my opinion because this explanation is 100% made up by me) frees ‘si 12′ to do what it was meant to do. This can be very good. Especially as training wheels.
Pot seems to magnify physical sensations (along with head-brain taste and smell) but I think this is a misperception: rather it deludes two parts and releases the third so the third can do what it was supposed to do: enhance a sensory Mindfulness.
And again, because whatever the ’12’ is in pot (‘c 12’ – ‘cannabis 12’?) that is compatible with our ‘mi 48’ and ‘do 48’ — because it is not ‘si 12’ or sexual energy — it operates in a very similar and yet vastly different way.
Mr. Gurdjieff used the term ‘vehemence’ to characterize all misuse of ‘si 12’. He also said this vehemence was involved in wars, arguments, the desire to win, climb mountains, be first, set records, write books, win debates.
This specific effect is lacking in ‘c 12’. It makes you emotionally and mentally clouded, but certainly not vehement. You are just too mellow to get vehement.
However, it undoubtedly leads to the creation of yet further buffers, though again of a different nature than those created through the misuse of ‘si 12’.
Perhaps ones that won’t make us vehement, but instead unable to act or do anything; perhaps they can even put us into that state of denial created by pot, where we take up residence in absorbing emotional and mental sand castles built in the sky — rather than confront the world and face reality.
And if you thought the disease of tomorrow was bad under normal circumstances (why do it now when we can do it tomorrow), this variant of self-calming is magnified with pot.
Allan Clews 2014