I would like to make a succinct study of these conversations so that we can understand what is actually going on between people when they talk. Speech is such a field in which everything is taken so for granted but leads to wars or to love and this one is no different. It lead to the banning of an individual and while Ton’s position seems to be that that was a perfectly legitimate outcome that he’s unwilling to challenge, I believe it was a perfectly illegitimate outcome and should be challenged.
This field is fairly new to me so this is an exploration, not an unmovable truth.
Some questions that come to mind from the very beginning are:
Do these people actually agree?
If they agree why can’t they agree?
What is really happening here when both seem to be willing to enter a conversation?
What is Ton’s attitude?
What is Elena’s attitude?
What is Ton’s aim?
What is Elena’s aim?
What are the mechanisms each other use to convey their points?
What is beneath the obvious?
So we have on the one hand Elena who apologizes and asks to return back to a blog where she has been banned for calling people fascists for not agreeing in taking up action against the Fellowship cult, a criminal organization psychologically and physically acting against the members but is banned without ever presenting her with an explanation but under the premise presented by some of the bloggers that she is mentally ill and without a chance of recovering!
In her first post she presents the idea of suicide in cults and the idea that the cult phenomenon is not just a guru abuser phenomenon but a social phenomenon in which each member participates. She presents long, well thought out posts with clear argumentation presented with the aim of a dialogue for furthering her understanding.
Her second post is worth repeating for it presents various propositions that in themselves would need careful exploring but she continues on the same exploration around suicide that she presented in her first post and in her third post she reaffirms what she’s been saying with more arguments.
2nd post:
15. Elena - April 3, 2010
Hi Nigel, good to see you are well. I think it’s been about five months!
In another chapter of the book I’m trying to write, I state that the Fourth Way as presented by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky is essentially no different to other cults including the Christian religions.
In all of them there are a few basic premises such as a human and a divine realm, the relationship of the human to the divine and vice-versa, how the human can reach the divine through particular behavior and the relationship from human to human. It is no coincidence that the Fourth Way is presented as esoteric Christianity for in essence it adopts the same basic tenets.
I argue that the differences between the problems we face today are no different to those posed to people in Martin Luther’s time. What has changed is the number of people able to participate in the social processes due to democratic realities. The simple fact that more people are able to participate economically, socially and culturally and that the power relations between them is not as strongly tied to a unique hierarchic structure, gives room for not only greater freedom but also much more abuse. As the power of the king and the pope declines, we see the phenomenon of dictators and gurus trying to replace them each with their own particular agenda on what is right for the people. People remain, what changes is the relations between them.
What we also see is that in all times, the relations between people are tied to their relationship to the “goods” they share. Economic, cultural and social “goods” and how those goods are distributed is what determine the relationships between them as much as how each feels about his or herself.
The social, economic and political milieu in which an individual grows up, determines the way they will develop no differently than nature determines the way an animal behaves. Nature is to an animal what culture is to a man. They belong to each other as the dot to the line or the center to the periphery.
One of the great realities that the cult phenomenon is revealing is that the milieu to which people are submitted has the power to enslave them more deeply or free them more expansively in very short periods of time. We can see that the “milieu” has the capacity to lead people to massive suicide in periods no longer than weeks, months or years. Weeks in the internet mass suicides of Japan and years in the twenty-thirty year process of the People’s Temple (Jonestown). It would be very interesting to look closely at the social structures proper of Japan to understand the ingredients for the suicides. In my superficial knowledge of it, the impression is that it has been a very strict, formal society that has promoted suicide as a viable resolution to failure to act with honor in people of high rank but that has developed in modern times into very young people “joyfully” committing suicide because they deem themselves a failure before they even have or give themselves a serious opportunity to try. Statistics show that there are around 100 suicides per day in Japan. How what was once an “honorable solution” has turned inside out and against its own people, is something to look deeply into. It is as if the young Japanese today, were trying to tell their community that it has failed to honor them but instead of fighting against it, they sacrifice themselves to it and maintain it’s honor.
It is also interesting to look at how members of society are solving similar difficulties in western countries where teenagers are simply taking firearms and shooting at whoever got and gets in their way. They are both equivalent responses to different “milieus” and are both a profound scream for help from the younger generation to the older generation. Hopefully we will not take too much time to hear it. (end of post)
Then of everything that Elena has been saying, Ton picks up in post 31, one and only aspect that says “We are One” and instead of addressing Elena on his own words and trying to encompass everything she’s trying to explore, he uses a text that presents the idea that those who stand of We are One, stand against individuality.
What is interesting about Ton’s response is that it completely disacknowledges the fact that what Elena has been precisely pointing out is that people in cults adopt a mass behavior, completely annihilate their own individuality and end up committing suicide. So Ton not only neglects to acknowledge what Elena is saying, he picks up one tiny statement within the whole three long posts and presents it as a theory that goes against individuality.
31. ton - April 6, 2010
19 “We are One!”
“The oneness doctrine appeals to modern westerners because it seems less authoritarian and easier to reconcile with science than western theologies, but it is riddled with contradictions. It takes an individual, after all, to experience oneness; moreover, the concept of oneness has within it a hidden duality that leads to a hierarchical division of reality. Oneness ideologies denigrate individuality as illusory and self-interest as sinful, the source of all suffering and evil.
Buddhism and Hinduism in particular postulate the existence of certain rare beings who have transcended their individuality and thus experience oneness in a deep and abiding fashion. These are the enlightened ones, gurus, masters, sages, avatars.
The very nature of any structure that makes one person superior to others breeds authoritarianism, indeed, gurus are the ultimate authority figures. The guru insists that the path to enlightenment comes through surrender to him. The guru claims that those who devote themselves to him will be rewarded with bliss, self-knowledge, immortality, states that are conveniently as difficult to reach as they are compelling. The guru projects an air of absolute certainty not only about his enlightenment but about almost all matters. When criticized, the guru accuses the critic of being mired in illusion and egotism, which the guru, of course, has transcended.
Both as individuals and as a species, we face real-world problems, some of which threaten our very existence. Spirituality can help motivate us to address these problems by boosting our empathy for our fellow humans and for all of life. But spirituality should incorporate reason as well as emotion and intuition, and it should be embedded in daily life, not separate from it.”
——————————————————–
23
“Sceptic challenges guru to kill him live on TV….
Since richer, urban Indians have little time for long pilgrimages or pujas (prayer ceremonies), they are often attracted by holy men who offer instant gratification — for a fee.”
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=10282(end of post)
This is an important post because it in fact holds the ingredients to most of what Ton then continues to expand on in the rest of the posts both in the fofblog and in this one here. He assumes in this post that the statement “We are One” is used against individuality and then presents the notion that those gurus who present it are in themselves authoritarian figures using their status to submit followers.
This is very interesting for me. For while I agree with everything that is said here I don’t agree with the idea that a true enlightened being would state that We are One to submit another person’s authority. But let’s look at what actually happened then.
Elena was definitely feeling questioned but she presents us with the following post:
32. Elena - April 6, 2010
Hello Ton,
What an elegant way of questioning a statement.
The idea of We are One or All is One I believe, has been experienced by Westerners of our times when they are tripping on drugs, when an afternoon is too awesome to avoid it or when making love, the whole cosmos participates as much as when they sit peacefully with each other and listen to music, talk things over or cuddle around their children. Such experiences include the kind of Oneness that I am talking about. In addition I believe children are naturally closer to the experience of Oneness; that we all know what it tastes like when we remember ourselves as children for children are not born with the deformed perception of the world that comes with separatist concepts and behavior present in classicism, academicism, “groupalism”, racism and nationalism. Humanism as a doctrine would tend to become as “separationist” as any of those isms and maybe that is its destiny, but Humanism as an inner reality of the individual as much as a social practice amongst communities would tend to make Oneness a reality when, beyond our religious beliefs and nationalities, we begin to share in the life of this Earth as Human Beings.
I believe people already have experiences of Oneness in our lives without having ever tried to have it and that the experience of that Oneness is powerfully expressed in the integrity of people still connected to nature and their nature. The pathologic disconnectedness to our selves and others seems to have come with the industrial revolution and particularly the human misery that came with such process in which the whole purpose of “work” and “life” became “economic survival”. Alcoholism in Russia, drugs in the States and Europe and suicide in Japan could be better understood if we realize the extent to which people’s lives no longer matter in those societies, what matters, like in the Fellowship cult, is how much is you are worth, how much do you produce? And then by standardizing that amount that people produce with an average wage, that production becomes a massive phenomenon in which individuals have no meaning and their place in society is just a number: an “employee”. That is deadly for the soul and culture of the human being as an individual as much as a community. People are so uninspired in these societies that we get phenomenon like the 23 suicides of the telecom company in France in the past two years, many actually leaving letters stating that they cannot bear the work environment. The corporate world has become a cult of its own.
So as not to extend too much here, let me conclude saying that the experience of Oneness as I am understanding it today, is “life-giving” and we actualize it by the “spirit” within our “acts”. Everything a person does separates or unites him with the rest of the world. Pathological separation leads to destruction in a process of crime. Most people live consciously or unconsciously uniting and separating with the rest of the world. Cults are unconsciously separating from the rest of the world until they suffocate in their pathologic individualism. No matter how “humanistic” their ideals, their practices are anti-humanistic and that makes them implode rather than evolve! Healthy communities allow for healthy union between their individuals and healthy individuals promote healthy communities. These promote culture: a life giving force from the community to the individuals and from the individuals to the community in a dialectic embrace. “The” Culture in which the individual grows up and participates inspires his work and his work inspires his culture or hers! Where there is no culture there is no inspiration, where there is no inspiration, there is no spirit, where there is no spirit, people enter a process of crime. Inspiration cannot live in dogmatism, the greatest challenge Humanists would face, is not to allow Humanism to become a doctrine. (end of post)
Elena then gets some understanding from other posters and Ton presents us with the following:
38. ton - April 6, 2010
32 Elena
“….the greatest challenge Humanists would face, is not to allow Humanism to become a doctrine.”
if it has “ism” or “ist” as a suffix,
it ALREADY IS “a doctrine.”
i’m reminded of this:
“In a way ideologies are drug fixes, because they fix some certain kind of mental disequilibrium. You just give yourself a shot of Marxism or Hegelian idealism and say, ‘Oh, that makes the pain go away!’ ” terrence mckenna
33 Thot — John Horgan (Rational Mysticism)(end of post)
In this post, Ton misinterprets what Elena is saying and presents it as the opposite of what she’s saying:
Elena: Humanism as a doctrine would tend to become as “separationist” as any of those isms and maybe that is its destiny, but Humanism as an inner reality of the individual as much as a social practice amongst communities would tend to make Oneness a reality when, beyond our religious beliefs and nationalities, we begin to share in the life of this Earth as Human Beings.
“….the greatest challenge Humanists would face, is not to allow Humanism to become a doctrine.”
________
This is very significant because Ton’s mechanism begins to become obvious. No matter what Elena says, he’ll turn it around and use it against her. He’ll do this in various ways:
One, by literally misunderstanding, misinterpreting and misreconstructing what Elena says.
Here it is very obvious particularly because others understood what Elena was saying but Ton didn’t.
Two, by picking one sentence and ignoring all the rest. One sentence that he’ll use to deconstruct not only what Elena is saying but Elena herself and this is where we enter crime. When in a conversation one of the participants rises against the individuality of another participant and tries to subvert his or her being with personal attacks while moving away from the specific points of discussion.
In this post, Ton’s tone already begins to rise and he uses mckennas quote to pinpoint a so called mental disequilibrium which is extremely significant for Ton will raise this issue in subsequent posts implying that Elena is mentally ill. This is extremely significant because Ton introduces a subject that was one of the supposed reasons for banning Elena and the same and only subject he took up in Elena’s blog. Is he really interested in questioning Elena’s mental health rather than discussing the theories Elena is presenting?
It is worth noting that Ton will consistently quote other people to present such attacks or questionings and not speak from his own self avoiding the direct responsibility and leaving it for interpretation.
Continues…..
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