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Discussion of the SES, particularly in the UK.
Ahamty2
Posts: 79
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:03 am

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Ahamty2 » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:42 am

Yes, Tootsie, I do recommend Clara Salaman’s “Shame on You”. It is not a literary masterpiece, however, it is well written and a good read for today’s readers. I read it as an adult SOP member with a daughter the same age as Clara who was born in London whilst I spent two and a half years in the SES, so it has relevance for me having been to Queensgate, the Newton Institute for Economics and second-line work and Holland Park. Also, Roger Pincham was one of my many tutors in SES, so it has more personal memories.

Being a fictional account of SES has is positives and negatives, the SES has used this aspect to discredit the description of the School through the eyes of a thirteen year old girl attending the day school. But we all recognise the characters with different names and the description of School’s behaviour and its attitudes. It made me laugh at how ridiculous we must have been and it also touched my emotions to a point that I couldn’t read it with the tears flowing.

I have to say that the cover price of ‘Shame on You’ is outrageous here in Oz, especially at the strength of our dollar. Sydney SOP was a very harsh version of the SES which was taken to extremes under MM, no doubt. I am sure the Fox’s thought so too, in spite of their generosity to Sydney. I liked the whole family of them.

Dorine Tolley’s “The Power Within” is different altogether being a non fiction account. Before commenting, just to say that I found Dorine van Oyen a relief when she came with LM, her close relationship with LM made it more relaxed and not so tense. MM’s wrath of the top group women was unrelenting and so Dorine took some of the pressure off them at the time, we all copped the lot when they left though, hence, the final revolt that put it all to an end. The van Oyen’s were not an ordinary dutch family, they were privileged and the dutch School under her brother Paul was not without its own scandals. Mike Gomez may be able to confirm that for us. Paul’s review of the book is very flattering of his sister’s relationship with LM, but it is of someone’s very close and intimate relationship at such a young age, a father substitute, almost a sugar daddy view of LM. LM must be held responsible and accountable for all the harsh discipline that was taken up in varying degrees by the leaders of all the Schools.

Yes, I went to Mt Wilson from when it first came into the hands of SOP right up to the time of walking out. Of course, as all properties are obtained under Trust structures so there are no individual owners, even Kent St. I wonder what financial pay out was made to MM and NM when they left. I couldn’t see them leaving empty handed. Perhaps that is why they sold Kent St, I am not privy to know. I think Mt Wilson was still in the hands of the trustees up to recently but not sure.

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

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Tootsie » Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:08 am

I saw Shame on You at Borders selling at $32.95 and thought it a bit pricey, but with your positive review and Borders sending me one or their 30% off coupons it will be my next read! The one thing about the Sydney SOP was the children who went to the Falcon Street school seemed happy. Bill Fox was in my group and used to live in the Falcon Street house before the school took it over. I knew all of the teachers and could not believe any of them could mistreat any of the children. Maybe it was just London. Took a few of the teenage boys for woodwork myself and sometimes found they would take you to your limit and could of killed a few of them, but always realised they were just testing you and it was a privilege to work with them.

Always thought Mount Wilson made Auschwitz look like a holiday camp. People here would not believe what went on there. Brings to mind the phrase coined by Robert Burns 'Man's inhumanity to man'. But what went on there was done in the name of truth, lots of karma to pay back for somebody.

Daffy
Moderator
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Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Daffy » Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:32 pm

If you want to purchase Shame on You at a reasonable price, see my earlier post here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=688&p=9420#p9420 - this online bookshop ships free to most countries.

Ahamty2
Posts: 79
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:03 am

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Ahamty2 » Thu Oct 29, 2009 1:17 am

Again, this was the generosity of the Fox Family. Falcon Street was the precursor of the now John Colet School at Belrose. I remember Mrs M wanting to introduce some of the draconian principles of St Vedast and St James at Falcon St but met resistance from Mrs F and her daughter, which was a blessing as it was then called St James as well. You see once again the power of money, even in an esoteric school like SOP. I know someone else in SOP who paid a high price for disobeying MM on this as well. MM instead kept what they wanted to do to the children like London for the adults at Mt Wilson.

Especially in the early days of Mt W, when it was nearly all virgin Australian bush land. Can you imagine them at Waterperry meeting five of the world’s most deadly venomous snake sunbaking in their path while they tended to its pristine grounds. It was common to meet an eastern brown, tiger snake, copper head, death adder or a red bellied black with death just minutes away from you. Then there were the funnel web spiders whose habitat was continually disturbed by us, crawling into you sleeping bag or running across your face at night, one bite or two, that’s it. The leeches on your legs and arms became so bloated with your blood they just dropped off, leaving you covered with irritated sites all over you. Mt W was real blood, real toil and real sweat!

At Mt W, MM came into his own, he would push everyone to their physical and psychological limit and sometimes beyond. It made training for the SAS Commando Unit child’s play. Then in the evenings you would be struggling to stay awake, having to give your observations of the working surface. No wonder some of the most ridiculous delusional comments were made at Mt W and MM would latch onto them for hours. The penal colony all over again, in the late 20th century, at the direction of our british masters, all on the sacred land of the indigenous people of this great country.

When I mentioned some of the observations to a group of psychologists and psychiatrists at the university I had graduated from, they all said it was a wonder there wasn’t more people who went over the edge and what would happen then. I told them that the School, whether here or in London just throw up the sanskara brick wall, then run and hide. The School may be full of intellectual legal eagles, pseudo homeopaths and pseudo ayurvedic practitioners, but they can’t handle the psychology of the human mind when it is pushed too far. Their only explanation is that it is the person’s sanskara and nothing they can do about it. Where are all the highly trained medical practitioners, psychologists and psychiatrists in the School, there aren’t any.

There is a poignant and somewhat disturbing part in Clara’s “Shame on You” on this very area which really hits home for me, as I and my daughters work in this very area of human disturbance. The SES is pathetic with all its high brow mumbo jumbo understanding of superstitious nonsense in its hair brain understanding of the human condition. They think they know about the human psyche, but all they do is try to manipulate it for their own use, irrespective of the consequences.

That is why they must be made to answer for what they have done and continue to do!

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

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Tootsie » Thu Oct 29, 2009 3:25 am

Ah yes I remember those Mt Wilson leeches well! Before we got the Luna Park shed we used to sleep in a big circus type tent and after a hard day in the bush you could hardly crawl into your sleeping bag at night. The smokers in the group did us all a favour by burning off the leeches on our arms and legs with their cigarettes. One day I remember waking up in my sleeping bag covered in blood. The leeches had crawled down my neck onto my chest and had a good feed. During the night and in my sleep I must of scratched at my chest and the leeches burst covering me in my own blood. Those were the days.

Jo-Anne Morgan
Posts: 64
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 11:23 pm

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Jo-Anne Morgan » Thu Oct 29, 2009 5:38 pm

Ahamty2 and Tootsie,
If it's not a rude question, why did you put up with that nonsense? Why didn't you just leave straight after the very first time it happened?
Jo-Anne

Free
Posts: 127
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:30 pm

Postby Free » Thu Oct 29, 2009 9:22 pm

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Last edited by Free on Wed Oct 05, 2011 10:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Tootsie » Thu Oct 29, 2009 9:31 pm

It may sound silly now but at the time all the work was done as service to the absolute. By putting school first in all our activities we were overcoming our own personal desires and working for humanity and and the world. The reality was that instead of following our own personal desires we were now followed the school leaders desires and he had all the power. Power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely. The school leader ruled by fear and criticism instead of showing humility and compassion, hence Mt Wilson.

Ahamty2
Posts: 79
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:03 am

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Ahamty2 » Fri Oct 30, 2009 7:44 am

Why! Why! Jo-Anne. That is the question I still ask myself, like lamenting over spilt milk really. Why didn’t I leave earlier? Why did I give the best years of my young adult life in an organization such as the SES. There were no physical barriers to stop you, so why let the psychological barriers hold you there. Doesn’t that show that the SES is a cult, no matter if people want to believe that or not.

Free and Tootsie have given some aspects of the reasons. It all begins in part one, that which takes us to that first night and then the remaining eleven as it was back then. The ‘pause’ exercise, the “do not accept or reject anything you hear here just let it verify itself” then exercises like “do not criticize anyone in the School” then “do not allow circling thoughts” then “let your attention rest on the working surface and observe what arises” little things like these are subliminal processes of control turn your attention out, and be awake: do not day dream, or have thoughts about anything. Do not waste your subtle energy, to surrender everything to the absolute. It is all there! Then comes the SES’s own teaching of Advaita , which is the Truth Supreme, service to the Absolute!

Then the biggest error of all, is to surrender your ego to the Absolute which is in fact surrendering it to be used by another human being, no absolute there that is for sure even though advaita says there is only the Absolute, all else is Maya(Illusion). We have to realise that like all animals, even humans with so called use of reason, can be conditioned. Adi Shankara was raised a Buddhist who revived hindu nationalism to destroy Buddhism in India by going back to the Vedas and interpreted them through his Buddhist philosophy and called it Advaita Vedanta, hence his commentaries on the Upanishads etc.

The School hates the analogy, but Hitler used Sanskrit also to his own end. Heinrich Himmler read the Rig Vedas and hindu mysticism. Himmler was a member of the ‘Artamanen Society’ and also a society known as ‘the Ahmenerbe . One of its heads was a Sanskrit scholar, Dr Walther Wust , Himmler learnt Sanskrit. The same methods of control were used to get those close to him to do what they were told even if they believed it to be wrong. Disobedience meant death. Where did the “Aryan “race being superior come from? The Brahmins were above everyone, learned, superior and knowers of the hidden knowledge of the Vedas. Those closest to Hitler, believed he had occult powers and had access to esoteric knowledge beyond ordinary humans. At the Nuremberg Trials, Joachim von Ribbentrop made an infamous statement even then, after Hitler’s suicide, stated his continued subservience to Hitler and was taken as evidence that some believed in Hitler’s special esoteric powers that he was privy to have. He stated: "Even with all I know, if in this cell Hitler should come to me and say 'Do this!', I would still do it.".

Jo-Anne, you asked why we didn’t just leave, rather than put up with it all. Our ‘ego’ wouldn’t let us leave. There is the sense of failure, turning our back on the truth and worst of all, not serving the Absolute, whatever that is in reality. The impossible dream: fighting windmills and “marching into hell for the heaven above” says the words of the song.

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

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Tootsie » Fri Oct 30, 2009 10:21 am

The interesting thing was that when the Mavro's were kicked out of the SOP because people were no longer going to put up with them, they simply started another school under the name of the School of Self Knowledge. And some intellectually challenged people from the School of Philosophy followed them to their new school. Ahamty2 comment about Joachim von Ribbentrop willing to follow his leader even when the game was up shows the effect an organisation can have on their members minds.

stiltrubld
Posts: 69
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2009 5:26 pm

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby stiltrubld » Fri Oct 30, 2009 7:06 pm

Talk about dependence!


You certainly had it bad over there in Oz.


I was told that Mavro had to be got rid of by Maclaren, is that right?


What a mess.
Last edited by stiltrubld on Thu May 24, 2012 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
SES: 1990 - 2009 London (Female)

Ahamty2
Posts: 79
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:03 am

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby Ahamty2 » Sun Nov 01, 2009 3:52 am

Stiltrubld, Mavro had become a public embarrassment to the SES. But London can only hold itself to blame. The SES was repeatedly told of how the Mavro’s were running the Sydney SOP. The stock reply from them was the Sydney SOP and all the Schools were autonomous and the Sydney leader could run it how he wanted and it had nothing to do with them or LM. The usual SES denial thing, hoping it will all go away!

If that was the case why did LM get such a jolt to his ego when some years ago now, the then largest School in the Southern Hemisphere, the Wellington School in NZ broke all contact with the SES and LM and aligned themselves, its leader and vast majority of its members, with Dr Roles and the Study Society. Some of us had to opportunity to hear the former Wellington leader’s version of it all in Sydney some years after the event. The event did not make global headlines in those times when the internet and world wide web were hardly used.

In Sydney, Mavro pounded the top group on the Friday night from 7pm to midnight with his usual hell fire and damnation bit as if we were all co-conspirators to it. How they would all pay with their substance especially the leader. Going over to that fairy floss group (Mavro’s words, not mine) as he usually referred to the Study Society and Dr Roles. How they would all pay for their heinous crime of desertion to the Truth and the Teaching. Let me assure you, I am not exaggerating, this is true! Most of us did not even know about the event and for while we didn’t even know what he was on about.

When Peter Hounam and Andrew Hogg had a series of articles in the Evening Standard and published their findings in “Secret Cult” was when Mavro’s behaviour went into the public arena. Even then, London was in denial, after all, it was in the colony, they have always been rebellious, and LM did say to us that he could still hear the ball and chains rattling in the streets of Sydney. Do I need say anymore about London’s attitude to the Sydney situation. Even Dr Roles himself advised LM that he should deal with Sydney and that it can’t go on like this, after all LM used to belong to the Study Society before he took over the SES from his father Andrew Maclaren.

LM had to decide whether to lose the now largest School in the Southern Hemisphere, the Sydney SOP, another Wellington, or sacrifice the leader, Mavro, who had spent years setting up the Australian Schools. Mavro had now become a public embarrassment and a liability, so the choice was obvious. Some members left with him to start up the ‘School for Self Knowledge’, an opportunity to gain favour and position in the new version. However LM and London had to pay the price for their inaction, a large number of the senior levels of the Sydney SOP left altogether, leaving only a few and mainly the middle school to pick up the pieces. Hence the Sydney SOP is a pale image of its original self. I predict that it has about another ten to fifteen years left before it fades into insignificance. Once the Mavro’s die, as they are close to their eighties, the School for Self Knowledge with go the same way. When Lambie dies, the rot will set in with the SES as well. Guru mania is now dead, people are wiser and very well informed, thanks to the internet and this forum. I watch to see how long it will be before it starts to happen to the multi billion dollar enterprise of the TM organisation now that Maharishi is gone. Look what happened to the Hare Krishnas once Prabhupada went? How the mighty must always fall, much further than us simple folk!

stiltrubld
Posts: 69
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2009 5:26 pm

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby stiltrubld » Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:58 am

Thanks Ahamty2, for all the information. I am finding all the history of the SES very helpful to understanding how these things happen and get entrenched.
Last edited by stiltrubld on Thu May 24, 2012 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
SES: 1990 - 2009 London (Female)

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

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby bluegreen » Mon Nov 02, 2009 11:28 am

I do think 'spirituality' has something to offer, but maybe it is simply about balance and observation of the power of the mind (circling thoughts I mean) can lead to getting in touch with what is described as 'stillness'. This seems to be all it is about and there are many ways to achieve this.

How? Which are the best ways that you know of?
St James Girls School 1977-1981

stiltrubld
Posts: 69
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2009 5:26 pm

Re: SES Origins and Character

Postby stiltrubld » Mon Nov 02, 2009 12:55 pm

This is where the SES has something to offer – in my experience – as an adult. But it is also another reason why in my opinion how the children were treated is so tragic. Because kids don’t have the circling thoughts, at least not in the same way as adults. The SES I believe have tried to bring ‘spiritual’ teaching into children’s school life in order to provide a basis that can be useful as children grow up. That was one of the reasons that I sent my kids to St James anyway. But in the old days when they were obsessed with control they did a lot of damage by the sounds of things. When I went to SES at first I was looking for ‘meaning’, not because I didn’t like my life, but just answers to my life’s questions. I was interested in economics as mentioned above and found answers in the work of Henry George to some of my questions. I did find as an adult that the introduction to ‘philosophy’ and in particular the ‘exercise’ when I was first introduced to it was very interesting and useful, since I had never thought of ‘not thinking’. I don’t mean not thinking in terms of working things out etc, but just related to the thoughts that go on and on, related to oneself, which I began to observe more and more through the practices we were given. Those include the ‘exercise’ of simply sitting and connecting with each sense one after the other - it has the effect of cutting through 'useless' thoughts/criticisms etc leading to fuller connection with the senses - that's all - simple! Also meditation, reflection and ‘sounding’. But this is where 'SES speak' comes in and no doubt I sound 'institutionalised' trying to explain this! Yoga I have never tried, but is supposed to have the same balancing effect I understand. I have found this state of mind described like this too: "What do the healer, the mystic, the psychic, .... all have in common? They are all in touch with their non-local mind and our community of spirit." I am sure there are plenty of ways to gain this understanding and experiences, but also plenty of ‘cults’ to deceive people too unfortunately. I have found the teaching of Gangaji also to be very helpful (http://www.gangaji.org). She does not have an organisation or ‘followers’ as such I don’t think – she has simply learned to still her own mind (for want of a better way of putting it) and talks to others about it. In the 'stillness' is real connection - its hard to describe in words because it is the words that tend to be in the way.
Last edited by stiltrubld on Thu May 24, 2012 11:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
SES: 1990 - 2009 London (Female)


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