If you are here “breaking rules” by reading this blog, I implore you to consider “school’s” required secrecy, otherwise known as “privacy”. “School” will claim to be “the invisible world”. It will call lying “clever insincerity” and claim that the required lies are “necessary” to “protect the invisible world” from those who would destroy it!” (cough). By “breaking rules”, you endanger the ideas and the group.

Allow me to deconstruct this bullshit:

1. Invisibility: If you’re currently attending, your friends & family see that something is up. They can’t quite figure it out. They see your personality becoming flat and your vocabulary taking on a certain pat and stilted “quality”. They see you withdrawing and isolating more and more. They feel, see and hear you lying and are baffled by it. “School” is not invisible. Just ask Time Out magazine: http://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/follow-the-leader
2. Clever Insincerity: “School” lies. It lies to you. It lies to your “essence friends”. It recruits you, with deception, into a system of deception. It justifies lies by saying, ” … after all, people lie all the time. People don’t even know they are lying.” Lying for “school” is conscious lying, at least. It calls this system, “Clever Insincerity”, intentional deception that is necessary for  “privacy”. This “privacy” wedges between you and the rest of your life. The longer your tenure, the more lies and secrets, the bigger the wedge. Can you name one benefit to you, personally? Ask yourself how the group benefits. Maybe it has something to do with that monthly “tuition” … are you writing checks to OSG? Or paying in cash? Think about it. Who sees that money? Where does it go? You certainly won’t see it.
3. Privacy vs. secrecy: what’s the difference? Privacy is about things that are truly no one’s business: whom to marry; your sexual orientation; whether you believe in God, or not; what type of career is best for you; what to study in real school; whether or not to spend an evening reading the bible, or binge-watching Orange is the New Black. As an adult, you choose which things are personal and to be kept to yourself, or share at your discretion. Secrecy is about hiding. Hiding requires lies that are hurtful, to you and to those to whom you tell those lies.
4. As Mr. S so rightly pointed out in his blog recently, the “secret ideas” are not secret. They originate mostly with the never-mentioned studies of the never-mentioned seeker/philosopher –and  probably 20th-century cult leader– GI Gurdjieff. Ask yourself why  “school” omits his name in the hallowed halls. Then ask yourself why what you are doing right now, reading this blog, is  an infraction, “breaking school rules.”

“School” secrecy protects a system of fraud and deception. Like cancer it grows insidiously, damaging you exponentially. Unlike cancer, you can choose to lay that burden down and refuse to lie for this group; the healing is exponential. You reclaim your voice, you repair your relationships, you get your life back. And since the “invisible world” must stay “invisible”, there’s really nothing it can do to stop you.