The fofblog moderator

http://fofdiscussion.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/fellowship-of-friendsliving-presencepathway-to-presence-discussion-–-part-109/

46. J. D. - August 17, 2011

fofblogmoderator

I’m not very active on this blog and I’m no devil’s advocate, but I have to say that you are in some measure accountable for the childish time-out handed to the bloggers. Not much for enforcing it, but because you have failed to address the abuse shown on this blog for quite a while. It has been brought to your attention before, when it was quieter, but you failed to take any action. Is it some kind of fear or just apathy? This form of bullying has gone unnoticed or ignored for a long time, me included, until now (Ty GV) and I find the indifference displayed by most of us quite troublesome. It is quite hypocritical to think that we are somehow carrying on a healing process from the conditioning of the cult, and yet we remain blind to things like this in our “home”.

Elena:

It's strange to observe how long it takes for people to acknowledge the truth about a situation. I personally believe Steve has done a great job being practically invisible in the fofblog and that there is an advantage to that "take" on "moderation" but a moderator should be so much more than that. That people settle for the same invisible moderation that is far from just or conscious and makes the decision to ban those who question them more than they are willing to take, simply states the level of being of a population that left a cult to fund another one. The subtlety of the excuses do not alter the facts. That we cannot ask for more than what we are and that it takes years and years for people to acknowledge their flaws is the process of growing up into what we could have done, had we been more mature.

Stating at last that Steve failed to address the abuse shown on the blog for quite a while must be an oxymoron if I understand correctly what oxymoron means. He allowed abuses for so long that the play was written out so that I would in turn become as hopelessly abusive as them and they would then have the excuse they needed to ban me. Not that the banner of victim suits me, I hit as hard as I could, but the banner of innocence and lack of responsibility for what happened suits them a lot less. This means that I am not inclined to justify my abuses in the fofblog. I acknowledged them already enough times and apologized. The opportunity that this gives us is to observe how long it takes a group of people to watch themselves and their behavior and begin to acknowledge the truth about what actually happens. 

They didn't ban me, I mean you if you are reading, because I said swear words, that was only the excuse they needed, they banned me because they were questioned to the bones about the passive position they took in relation to the Fellowship Cult. They banned me because I called for action, real, serious and definitive and labelled their fascism in not doing so. 

"J.D:This form of bullying has gone unnoticed or ignored for a long time, me included, until now (Ty GV) and I find the indifference displayed by most of us quite troublesome."

To hear someone acknowledge how troublesome it is to realize how they ALL remained silent to the abuse and the deep questions that were fought between us, is like balm to my heart. It is not that being banned was not positive for me, I have much learnt from it. I realize that had I been stronger and healthier and not just come out of a cult after seventeen years, I might have had the patience and the love to hold myself in the position that I understood necessary without offending anyone but that my abuse came long after I was abused by too many without the intervention of the moderator or others, is a fact. The strange thing about the truth, the facts, is that they continue to act on our being and straighten themselves out one way or the other in the long run. 

The second time I was banned for pointing out the manipulative questioning Ton was doing to me and getting harshly insulted by Nigel without reacting negatively to him, did show the level of biasness that the moderator and others have reached. That biasness in order to avoid confronting the real issues is what becomes criminal in all organizations, “cultish”. They “banish” what they don’t want to see or hear.  That Brucelevy, who I nevertheless firmly admire and respect, turned his whole weight against me because I "over did it", together with others who never "took me" and that in chorus they protected their act of banning me does not in any way diminish the fact that they did so because they were unable and unwilling to face the deep issues: 

That the Fellowship cult needs to be confronted, questioned and closed for good

That cults of the kind need to be overcome by humanity

That we are mature enough to acknowledge the harm they do to people and able to close them down.

That we, ex-members of the fellowship cult need to take responsibility for those leaving and help them out assuming the job of helping them find jobs and support. That we need an equally powerful institution to take responsibility for the institutions harming people.

That were we fully conscious of the horror we've been through we would continue our work fighting cults everywhere in the world because the fellowship is only one minute experience that is repeating itself everywhere with frightening possibilities. The “dismembering” of the human being into cults, parties, industries, sports, scientists, artists is an schizophrenia that individuals in every single activity are suffering beyond comprehension.

In the sphere of the religious, the human being today is at the mercy of gurus who take the suffering of people for their profit succumbing into an even greater slavery than the one they were running away from. Its an imperative for the human being of today to be able to confront his and her own life and participate in society without pretending to live out his emotional-religious life in a cult. 


Isolating our selves in a cult, in a political party, in the arena of sports or as mad scientists separated from the rest is just that: madness. Every human being must develop every side of his religious, political, physical, intellectual, sexual, artistic being. That we actualize all aspect of life itself: religious and political, social and economic, artistic and physical without separating them into cults of their own is necessary to avoid the schizophrenia on the individual.

The individual, in "our" ignorance, does not realize that the world today is in a race of separating spheres that will destroy it in the long run if they are not checked and healed. The experience of "unity", of "harmony", of "coherence" and "cohesion"  in social "life", is an aspect of a "civilized human". 


We cannot continue to allow for the religious aspects of our emotional life to be banned from our lives and hidden in cults away from the current of socio-political life, just as we cannot continue to allow for the political aspects of our intellectual life to be reduced to hierarchic parties without objective responsibility. NO ONE is doing this to US. We are all part and parcel of a process that is living itself out, the process of becoming human beings in our own right. We are ALL equally responsible, and equally responsible for each other.

It's strange to observe how a man who served the Fellowship cult all his life continues to serve the people with his death. That having served the darkest side of the Fellowship and being discarded for it can now serve to open other member's eyes about their situation. It is a good thing that all things can turn into positive ones, that we do not live our lives in vain. Life itself is like a child’s learning to walk through the fall and in its scale, death wrings our hearts into an understanding that cannot be avoided forever.

The real miracle is in the fact that "life" is threads of a force that we cannot see but are living themselves out. That the physical reality simply knits but that it is in the physical reality that we are meant to actualize our love that is no other than the actualization of our being and its unity, diversified. We are fish in the Ocean of Life and it lives itself out in our swimming.

To become objective about our lives means to understand that the institutions that govern its experience are critically important. That we are one with the governments, one with the religious activities that mark its pace, that the arena’s in which we move our bodies and the laboratories in which we explore our possibilities are ALL part and parcel of our own personal responsibility. That WE ARE ONE WITH EACH OTHER AND EVERYTHING AROUND US and acknowledge for ourselves a bond of love in conscious responsibility. That we human beings know ourselves part of each other and are willing and able to act on our behalf for the benefit of each and every individual. That we no longer allow governments, industries, universities or any other institution to run along unchecked by the objective principles of humaneness. That we do not allow gurus to abuse their power or governors to steal the taxes and use them to their personal advantage in detriment of the whole. That we do not allow abuse from anyone anywhere because life is too beautiful to do so and that we are willing to stop the rampant crime with the necessary compassion.