27.11.08
E.J.Gold commentary
mybrainisafleamarket:
EJ Gold is quoted quite often in a book entitled Halfway Up the Mountain:The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment, by Mariana Caplan.
EJ G is quoted throughout the book in snippits, and these all seem quite good-the way some food items are excellent as nibblers at a party, but would lead to indigestion or worse if eaten day in and day out as a staple.
But (this is strictly my own opinion, but I formed it after attending lectures by two persons (not EJ) who sounded quite good in the book–it is my stance,that Halfway Up is a brilliantly done infomericial to support spiritually rationalized BDSM via the guru principle.
One thing I noticed was that I became grim and depressed about myself as I read through it, beginning to fear that unless I found The Right Teacher, I’d waste my life and become a mediocrity.
I later figured out that any time something in the media leads you into a funky, grim mood where you are tempted to give your own power away and distrust your own instincts–step back, breathe deeply, and question whether that material is serving your own best interests or someone elses.
So if you want to do detective work on who associates with EJ, get a copy of the book, list the names of people quoted in the book (vs those who merely had their writings quoted.)
Then google them along with EJ Gold (this is going to take a long time) and see if any of them are seen as associating with Gold by giving workshops or lectures or appearances together, or endorsing each others work or books.
That might be one way to assist in figuring out which crowd runs with EJ these days.
This article is also an interesting commentary.
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:0bNrncZMpgYJ:www.villagevoice.com/2003-01-07/news/for-adults-only/+andrew+harvey+mariana+caplan+apologist+dangerous+village+voice&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&ie=UTF-8
From Gold and a cult registry, 2008/11/27 at 9:35 AM
nemo said,
27.11.08 at 5:26 pm
I noticed the reference to Lee Lozowick, another case like Andrew Cohen, manufactured gurus who ran out of gas.
I remember Lozowick from the seventies.
A strangely sad case, who at least realized he wasn’t a guru
The Gurdjieff Con » Malevolence and deliberate harm done to followers said,
28.11.08 at 3:04 pm
[...] EJ Gold commentary [...]
mybrainisafleamarket said,
01.12.08 at 8:51 am
Nemo wrote
1. nemo said,
27.11.08 at 5:26 pm
I noticed the reference to Lee Lozowick, another case like Andrew Cohen, manufactured gurus who ran out of gas.
I remember Lozowick from the seventies.
A strangely sad case, who at least realized he wasn’t a guru
Dear Nemo, LL is still going strong. He has far from run out of gas. But he is discreet. Interestingly, he seems to have influenced people in Europe. If you do a Google search plus a Google blog search, a lot of LL information is in French.
Some additional items for research.
LL has recently emphasized that he practices in the lineage of something called Baul Hinduism, which is indigenous to Bengal. He claimed to be in the lineage of a guru named Ramsuratkumar (note to researchers, a variant spelling is Ramsurat Kumar), now dead. There are some printed biographies of Guru R, and these mention LL, for Lozowick and his followers brought welcome support to this guru. Indian gurus appear gain in prestige when they start attracting Westerners.
In the mid-1990s, Lozowick was interviewed in Andrew Cohen’s magazine
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j20/lee.asp
However, Lozowick also seems to have had a long interest in Gurdjieff material
In her book The Gurdjieff Work (only in the second edition 1989), on page 113, Kathleen Riordan Speeth wrote,
‘Members of of Lee Lozowick’s Hohm community devoted an entire issue of their magazine Eclipse to Gurdjieff, with the apparent intention of recruiting people to Hohm lectures.’
And…this article by a Lozowick student describes a visit to Paris. They went to Café de Paix, a Gurdjieff landmark. It may also capture the inner dialogue of a dedicated LL student—which does not seem Hindu at all, but sounds more Fourth Way.
(quote from article)
http://sonic.net/~tayu/wayfourth/paris28.htm
“Mr. Lee is driving. He is the center of so much to so many seekers. A modern day spiritual master for whom the sacred and the ordinary blend into one. All moments are about being. Today he is driving his friends around Paris. We have a day to kill before our rooms become available at 7pm……
“Most striking of all, of course, was the Eiffel Tower looming in the immediate distance. I recall once arguing with a school mate in the 4th grade about the reality of flying saucers. I was certain at the time that they did exist while my school mate was quite positive they did not. He argued along the lines that seeing was believing. I argued back that he had never seen the Eiffel Tower but he believed that it existed, etc. etc. We never resolved our argument , but the Eiffel Tower became for me a symbol of faith, knowledge, verification, and trust.
Here it was. Large, imposing, a lot of steel. We wound our way down to its base and I stood under it at the geometric middle to look up and see the vast mass supported above me. Mr. Lee noted that the first time he visited the Tower, he walked all the way up to the top. I longed to perform a similar feat of bravado, but the propriety of the moment precluded it. That urge did find refinement and resonance with inner considerings about whether I was being held back in my Work because of my current life situation. Fortunately I was able to let the bubble go and allow it to float away on the breeze carrying a wave a pigeons skyward.
Later in the day we made our way to the Cafe de le Paix where Gurdjieff liked to hang out. It sits across the street from the old Paris Opera House (Nationale Institute de Musique), and it has been in operation since 1850. We took a table on the street although we discussed that Gurdjieff would probably have taken a table inside which would be more conducive for intimate discussion. Our waiter was a stout, bald, French man wearing the pride of his culture, a black vest, and a white apron. I had a double espresso, Robert a tea, Mr. Lee a decaf espresso, Michelle a cappuccino, and Rob a mocha supreme. Gurdjieff sat here. Was it as stylized then. The place seemed a little gaudy for our tastes. Certainly expensive. Traffic whizzed by. We sat.
Mr. Lee comments on how he enjoys watching the flow. Our conversation turns to spiritual teachers and groups. We (primarily Mr. Lee and Robert) discuss Andrew Cohen, Arnaud Desjardin, students, relationships to the school, and the French spiritual student. The French are not as “New Age” jaded as the Americans. They still retain an innocent enthusiasm that many Americans have exchanged for a sort of “been there, done that” attitude. As we sat and watched the world expand and contract around us, I was reminded of a parable I had once written about a student talking to Mr. G. in a Paris cafe. My own observations from that afternoon may not have amounted to more than the scraps of paper the student held in the story, but my impressions from that moment still persist.
We discussed trying to get reseated inside to bring us closer to the Gurdjieff experience. The waiter would have none of it. He explained in animated French that there is a different bar tender inside, and that waiters cannot be expected to work in conditions where people are always moving between seats, etc. etc. etc. By this time in the day, our jet lag was acute, my nose was flowing freely from airline allergies, and we were becoming hungry. I suddenly realized what Work my ordinary self was enduring, and yet I felt acutely awake. I realized that this is Work. Exhausting the machine so that all that is left is being. Loud cars, honking and fuming, stuffy waiters, people crowding past each other like hive animals, sun, clouds, spring rain, and sitting. Sitting at two little round tables watching the world and my inner state go by.
Sitting with spiritual teachers at the Cafe de le Paix is the ultimate reminding factor. Being with my own teacher is practice enough because we know each other so well, but spending time with Mr. Lee is particularly stressful for my little self. When I am clear, I can simply be with him and that is that. If I consider, then I have started to feel like I need some sort of feedback from him to tell me how wonderful I am. And if I do not get this feedback, then my little self has started to worry what he thinks of me. I have wanted to be on my best behavior so he will think well of me, and yet he is one who doesn’t think of me at all. No act I do will change who I am at this time. And it will certainly not change Mr. Lee’s impression. He does what is necessary in the moment. Telling me how wonderful I am is the wrong thing to do because that is food for the little self.
A teacher is very much like space itself. A teacher sees and permits all manifestations without judgment or comment. One simply exists in his or her presence. If the teacher is your teacher then they can interact with you in such a way that the little self will get upset and you have the opportunity to observe that. And what you observe is not the outer shell of response, the Android part, but the hiding, contracting, essential part. The part of me that wants to be told how wonderful I am obviously is masking my inner shyness cramp that thinks the world cannot like me. So I got to practice just being and not worrying about it. Sitting at the Café then was an exercise in being.
Robert and Mr. Lee talked more about teachers, students, our visit tomorrow to see a Sufi teacher. I talked a little, but I was mostly silent. I was silent sort of like one gets silent after smoking dope. Everything was accentuated, everything intense. I had little to say. The only voices that wanted out were ones that just had things to prove.
(Its interesting that what this student called the ‘propriety of the moment’ kept him frm doing what he said he wanted to do—climb the Eiffel Tower. What a shame that in visiting Paris, he let his own desire to do something, something he might never be able to do again, pass merely because he felt he had to follow the lead of a guru. The teacher had climbed the Eiffel Tower—what a shame the student didn’t permit himself the same pleasure. This to me signals what can go wrong in these unhealthy, spiritually rationalized dominance- submission games. MBTF)
There is a chapter on Lozowick in the first edition of Georg Feursteins’ book Holy Madness.
However, Feurstein later became involved with Lozowick in some capacity. His second edition of Holy Madness was re-issued through Hohm Press and contains changes.
nemo said,
01.12.08 at 3:33 pm
Good comment. btw, I almost missed this: it wasn’t automatically approved (I think I now know the reason, it has more than two links. don’t worry, put in as many links as you want).
But if a post ever doesn’t appear, repost it.