A recent student

Discussion of the SES, particularly in the UK.
A lesson learnt
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2011 8:52 am

A recent student

Postby A lesson learnt » Fri Mar 18, 2011 5:55 am

Hi all,

I’d also like to thank everyone who has taken the time to post on this forum. It’s valuable information for those who, like me, have begun to feel uneasy about the school and have turned to sites and forums like this one to find out more. Luckily enough it seems.

I’m writing with mixed emotions that have already been adequately expressed by others on the forum. Mainly confusion, as I've only just come to my senses (excuse the pun).

I’ve been attending a school in the wider organisation for over a year now, and just weeks ago the idea of leaving the school was far from my mind. I was loving it! The general content had, and indeed has, made a huge difference to my life which I'm grateful for.

But concerns began to arise leading up to and after the mediation ceremony, and reading this forum has been like reading my own thoughts. Same old themes it seems.

There were never any show-shoppers to send me immediately running, perhaps aside from the significant meditation fee being somewhat sprung on us. But having now read many posts in this forum, I’m appalled to say the least. And a number of things are clicking into place. I certainly won’t be going back.

One thing I would like to reiterate, which others have also said, is that many of the tutors (perhaps in certain schools within the organisation) seem to be genuinely really good people. I guess they just believe in the philosophy to the degree that they are too deep in it to see the cracks. The students in my class were also wonderful people - I'll miss them, and I hope they don't end up too involved with the school.

Another thing I’d like to add is that in my opinion at least (and I understand that many on this forum would absolutely have every reason to disagree), much of the content taught in this early stage has been very helpful, and does not in itself seem inherently wrong in any way. I remain interested in the core principles, but am entirely uninterested in remaining at the school.

What I think, in my very humble opinion (without any real history with the school) is that it’s the organisation not the philosophy that is wrong, as is so often the case. It may have started out with good intentions, but has gone seriously wrong since then. Absolute power corrupts absolutely – what a broken record in human history.

Thanks again to all for bravely sharing your experiences, and I’m so sorry to hear what many of you have been through, it's unimaginable.

Take care.

Tootsie
Posts: 151
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:37 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby Tootsie » Fri Mar 18, 2011 7:12 am

Hi Lesson Learnt,

In the true Hindu tradition you are not allowed to charge money to teach meditation. Even in the Western tradition this also applies. The narrative of Jesus cleaning the temple of money changers also refers to this. There are always people out to make a fast buck and spirituality is no exception to this rule. The biggest con-trick the SES uses, is to get people to work for nothing saying this is serving the Absolute. (Keep your attention focused on the working surface) Yet they charge their pupils a weeks wages for a mantra. If they follow their own logic it should be free. Maybe they are running a business, then it would be legitimate for a charge to be made.

Glad to hear it only took you a year to discover what the School was about, put simply power and money. Some of us on this forum took many years to come to the same conclusion as you. Good Luck.

User avatar
bonsai
Posts: 322
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:08 am
Location: London

Re: A recent student

Postby bonsai » Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:16 am

Hi A Lesson learnt

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for sharing your experiences too. It is very important to hear the views of people who have been in the school more recently than some of us. Without the experiences of the new people coming to the forum we don't get to really here about whether the organisation is changing or not.

A lesson learnt wrote:One thing I would like to reiterate, which others have also said, is that many of the tutors (perhaps in certain schools within the organisation) seem to be genuinely really good people. I guess they just believe in the philosophy to the degree that they are too deep in it to see the cracks. The students in my class were also wonderful people - I'll miss them, and I hope they don't end up too involved with the school.

I really agree that there are many genuinely nice people in the school, both amongst the pupils and the tutors. I think they become very blinkered where the philosophy is concerned and very quickly lose the ability to apply critical reasoning to what they hear.


A lesson learnt wrote:Another thing I’d like to add is that in my opinion at least (and I understand that many on this forum would absolutely have every reason to disagree), much of the content taught in this early stage has been very helpful, and does not in itself seem inherently wrong in any way. I remain interested in the core principles, but am entirely uninterested in remaining at the school.

I don't diasgree with you that much. Finding the truth about our existence and wanting to find means to better cope in our everyday lives is very much a matter of natural human inquiry. The thing I do wonder about is whether anything school promotes is genuinely spiritually enlightening. I also worry that they use of quotations and snippets of material from a vast range of sources but I suspect that they take much of these out of context and manipulate them into support for their own views. It seems a bit like taking lots of film clips and stringing them together into sentences that no one ever said.

I think the search for truth and spiritual enlightenment has to be very much a personal exploration. Of course you have to discuss and debate with other people and especially with people with differing and opposing views. But the longer you stay in the school, the more you realise that they don't really respect people with other views and the more and more that they stifle real debate and inquiry rather than encourage it.

Bonsai

actuallythere
Posts: 180
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:05 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby actuallythere » Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:45 am

Dear recent student,

You have my utmost respect and I want to congratulate you on doing something that might have been difficult. I would suggest you keep in touch with the new friends you have made in SES, and very gently remind them from time to time about why you've had to leave. One must not judge them or attack them as that pushes them deeper into SES. One must find ways to encourage them to ask questions of themselves - about the mental, social and emotional processes they are now going through. What was missing from their lives that they are now getting? Why were they missing something, what was the root cause of that? Are they certain SES is the right solution? Given SES's very well documented history of extremely serious complaints from families and former members, what other solutions are available that might be less risky than a life dominated by SES?

If they shun you for asking these questions, ask them why they are shunning you, and whether they are acting on advice to shun you, and whether they are certain that acting on others' advice in this way is the right path to personal fulfilment and happiness. Your questions to them are all about encouraging people to retain their mental autonomy, the capacity to discern.

The first year of SES the soft sell, the nice cups of tea with the nice bank manager, who is waiting for the right moment to get you to mortgage your soul. You were surrounded by niceness for an entirely practical reason.

By the way, that fee for meditation is a drop in the ocean by comparison to what they'd eventually try to brainwash you into leaving them in your will, at the expense of your spouse and children.

The pleasantness, the niceness of people at SES is exactly the problem. They were too nice to ask their SES masters why their own children were being driven to suicide. They were too nice to see their own layers of self-deception, and in fact their own suffering. They actually believed the "philosophy" that any anguish was all in the mind, all tamasic, all attachment to the ego.

They were too nice to know why they were being nice, even when they were being told to crawl on their hands and knees with a toothbrush at Waterperry House. This made their masters even more manipulative and abusive. The tragedy of these nice people is that they are mortified when they see what is going on, and then feel too humiliated to publicly admit the truth. But after 10 years in SES, many people stop seeing clearly. And after that period of time, learning to see again is an extraordinarily tough process, and takes the bravest of people to do it. Many have done, and they are our heroes, for sure. There's nothing humiliating about bravery.

In your post you refer to appreciating and admiring "the philosophy". I'm not going to hold back. Many people on this forum are worried that SES members start using an entirely new vocabulary that divides them from their families and the rest of the world outside SES. One of the first jargon terms they get you to use is 'philosophy'.

Outside SES, most people agree that the field of philosophy contains a myriad of divergent approaches, many of which contradict each other, causing endlessly fascinating debate. As far as I'm aware philosophers like Socrates encouraged people to ask, to discern, to enquire and to learn to see for themselves - SES rather tells you "neither accept, nor reject". With this, they soften you up to stop you being a philosopher, to eventually not reject what they sell you as the universal truth.

There is no universal truth, or answer, that any genuine philosopher can provide you with: any self-appointed philosopher who tells you otherwise is lying. What SES gives people is not philosophy, it is ideology. You are your own teacher, nobody else. I would bet you could form your own philosophy... Read your own chosen material with people you like and love. Discuss your own topics with an open mind with your own chosen friends. Do accept and reject: Disagree, agree, discern, enjoy learning. You've pretty much graduated from the school already.
Last edited by actuallythere on Sat Mar 19, 2011 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tootsie
Posts: 151
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:37 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby Tootsie » Sat Mar 19, 2011 1:05 pm

Hi Lession Learnt,

Yes the first year in School is really nice. Just turn up once a week with other interested people and discuss topics like:- What is Wisdom? What is the power of ideas? Who am I? What are we looking for? We are given the exercise to quieten the mind and it works. People serve us cups of tea and home-made biscuits and seem to take a genuine interest in what we say. We are in 'good company' and the place where it all takes place is spotlessly clean with beautiful flower arrangements. The tutors are nice people and everybody likes Shakespeare, Plato and Mozart. Why would one not think that they have discovered heaven on earth.

Ok here comes the bad news, starting in the second year. Second line work starts, not too hard at first, maybe beginning with cleaning the Schools premises with others or serving tea to the tutors and pupils. Then meditation morning and evening. I will not go on about learning Sanskrit attending residentials or all the other joys that awaits.

The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. This describes exactly how the SES treats its frogs so as not to have them jumping from the pot, and by the time they realise what's going on its to late to jump. Who controls School? One thing for certain its not Donald Lambie.

actuallythere
Posts: 180
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:05 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby actuallythere » Sat Mar 19, 2011 1:30 pm

Who controls School?
Perhaps Jeremy Sinclair and David Boddy, as leaders of a de facto adversing and public relations research experiment to see how a group can be formed and controlled by manipulating human nature. The experiment backfired.

Tootsie
Posts: 151
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:37 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby Tootsie » Sat Mar 19, 2011 4:13 pm

It is interesting that on the cover of the book Secret Cult it says. A full expose of a strange and destructive organization that is penetrating the corridors of power. This book was published in 1984, the same time an assassination attempt was made on Margaret Thatcher and David Boddy was the Iron Lady's spin doctor. He often told interesting stories about the bombing. Boddy is all about leadership and power and he founded the Lucca programme with this aim. School infiltrated Trade Unions so as to influence them. The story is in the book In Search of Truth.

actuallythere
Posts: 180
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:05 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby actuallythere » Sat Mar 19, 2011 5:51 pm

It could go way back to Maclaren MP. Imagine how useful it is, for politicians and advertisers, to have a consultant running a laboratory with which he can gauge individual and group needs and aspirations. It's like providing a window onto the subconscious - the thing that makes people buy Coke or Pepsi and vote Labour or Conservative. Sell the information back to politicians and corporations, and you have a license to print money. After all, has anyone ever established exactly what Jeremy Sinclair is doing on the board of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation?

By the way Tootsie, why do you think Lambie doesn't run SES?

User avatar
bonsai
Posts: 322
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:08 am
Location: London

Re: A recent student

Postby bonsai » Sun Mar 20, 2011 12:09 am

actuallythere wrote:By the way Tootsie, why do you think Lambie doesn't run SES?


I don't know why Tootsie thinks that Lambie doesn't access the SES, but one reason I can think of is that he isn't actually a trustee of the organisation and doesn't carry any legal responsibilities for the organisation.

Bonsai

actuallythere
Posts: 180
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:05 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby actuallythere » Sun Mar 20, 2011 8:52 am

That's a good point Bonsai. Perhaps it is a committee, a triumvirate of Sinclair, Boddy, Lambie.

Who authors the Material? There's definitely no guru in an ashram in India who would ever dictate that Mozart is more perfect than Beethoven, or that Marsilio Ficino is more perfect than Sartre.

I would guess the laws of this quasi-religion are selected by Sinclair, who is playing a game that could be called Sim Religion (if you're not familiar with computer games, there are scenarios such as Sim City, Sim Earth, and The Sims in which you get to design and manipulate your own closed system).

Maybe we could have our our turn, found an organisation named the Society of Emotion Studies, advertise classes in "Psychology" in the Tube, in which we spend the first year watching and discussing movies and handing out organic popcorn and home made lemonade. We'd gently move into why people are so captivated by film. We could say that Freud was wrong but Jung was right, and that the ancient manuscripts had the clues in the first place. Slowly but surely we'd move students into the Greek myths, hypnosis, repetitive chanting, dietary control, and demand ever more of their time. We'd tell them the only way to maintain self awareness is to wear a hat at all times, even indoors in the summer - and we'd watch the results. We'd sell them our own Trilbys, flat caps, scarves and shawls, made in Peru near the mystical site of Machu Picchu. The higher group of members will refrain from using the internet as a mark of their autonomy. Finally we'll persuade them that the only way to transcend their Oedipus/Elektra complexes is to shed half of their wealth and give it to us. Meanwhile we'd discreetly approach political parties and marketing firms telling them we are running a case study on a closed group that is under our control, and we're happy to sell our findings as Advertising Research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_research Conclusions: people want to feel special and righteous, to belong to a movement, to expand their minds, and to discover a secret. Dear clients, make adverts and political campaigns that respond to that. The invoice is in the post.

woodgreen
Posts: 219
Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2010 7:07 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby woodgreen » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:50 am

Hi A recent student,

So glad you were able to post and say why you left - not always easy - stay with the Forum, it helps!!!

xxx

woodgreen
Ex-SES Member. (Member for 3 years in late nineties).

bluegreen
Posts: 95
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:42 pm

Re: A recent student

Postby bluegreen » Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:28 pm

Love the parallel Actually There. Welcome to the forum A Recent Student.
St James Girls School 1977-1981


Return to “General discussion of SES”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 54 guests