People thought they were moving to a quiet Californian hippie retreat. Little did they know it was a haven of abuse. Many men have come forward to say that they were assaulted by the leader.

The group has also infiltrated Google.

Extraxts follow:

>Adam Slater, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said that although male sexual assault survivors experience “the same trauma as women,” stigma hinders the filing of criminal or civil lawsuits.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-21/six-men-allege-sexual-abuse-fellowship-of-friends

> They were searching for spiritual awakening and enlightenment. Instead, the six men were subject to “rampant, unceasing sexual abuse” by their spiritual guide, in concert with members of a controversial religious group and workers at an award-winning Northern California winery, the men allege in court documents.

> The unnamed plaintiffs filed a lawsuit Friday in Yuba County against the Fellowship of Friends — a nonprofit religious group described by some as a cult — along with its founder and spiritual teacher, Robert Earl Burton, and its Renaissance Vineyard and Winery.

> Fellowship of Friends bills itself as an organization that helps members reach their true potential, an upscale throwback to the erstwhile Bay Area communes that separated participants from society so they could pursue self-realization. Former Fellowship members, however, allege the group is really a cult of personality masquerading as a nonprofit, and that its true purpose is to satisfy Burton’s sexual needs. On the side, the Fellowship created a famed winery whose lists of honors and accolades for its Cabernet Sauvignons, Sauvignon Blancs and Riesling span pages.

https://nypost.com/2021/11/09/sex-rituals-and-fine-wines-inside-alleged-cali-cult-the-fellowship-of-friends/
> Sex rituals and fine wines: Inside alleged Cali cult the Fellowship of Friends

> Burton, born in 1939, is a former Arkansas school teacher who reinvented himself in the 1970s as a California guru. He studied the teachings of a self-help movement called the Fourth Way, founded by Russian philosopher George Gurdjieff, who taught practices he claimed would bring about heightened self-awareness. Burton adapted the methods, preaching that one should immerse oneself in the finer things in life, abolish negative thinking and live in harmony with dictates given to Burton by his “44 angels.

> ”He claimed these angels, a who’s who of historical greats including Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri and Benjamin Franklin, gave him instructions on how his followers should live. Every so often, his angels predicted apocalypse. So Burton instructed followers to fund his ever-expanding “Galleria,” a collection of largely Western European artwork he claimed would one day rekindle civilization. (Conveniently, the building doubled as his house.) In 1996, the Fellowship’s collection of antique Chinese furniture sold for $11.2 million at a Christie’s auction.

> In the early days, during the 1970s, Burton’s demands were bizarre: Athletic activity, humor, eyeglasses, mixed-breed pets and using the word “I” were all verboten. Women, deemed spiritually inferior, allegedly were forbidden from getting pregnant.

> “One of the most horrifying things I heard was the rule about abortions,” says Brown, who speaks to four ex-members in the podcast about Burton’s alleged dictate that any member who got pregnant had to terminate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/technology/google-fellowship-of-friends-sect.html

Man was fired from Google after he complained about the group infiltrating a unit at the company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellowship_of_Friends

This is what happens when (without question or scrutiny,) you hand over your spiritual development to another party. Even the board of directors of this organization could not contain this spiritual whack-a-doodle.

I notice that this organization requires a 10% tithe. That alone should be a red flag.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2023 07:26AM by summer.

This reminds me of thr Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, now called Triratna I think, after a series of sex scandals. Their leader too thought women were inferior, and tried to seduce male converts to his group.

Why is it that so many repressive cults become hypersexual?

Iko Iko Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why is it that so many repressive cults become
> hypersexual?

Maybe for the simple reason that they allow the leaders to do things they couldn't in Normalville.

Seems to be a common pattern. About twenty years ago, a young Nepali boy was heralded as the New Buddha. Recently he was pulled in for assaulting an underage nun.

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2503088

People were scammed and abused by another fake shaman and grifter, but the group wasn't seemingly founded as an exclusive same sex cult.

Also seems to have the same kind of faux prophecies and tithing business investment scam as Mormonism and the control and harassment tactics of Scientology.

##########


https://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/lawsuit-filed-against-yuba-county-cult/article_5b8da89e-9ee6-11ee-924a-1b2fb42f5a7f.html


"The group says it was “founded fifty years ago on the Fourth Way teachings of George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky” and that it embraces “the practical wisdom of all great spiritual traditions, recognizing that all esoteric schools teach the same thing: how to be present to your own life.”

"Years after its founding, however, the Fellowship experienced a series of controversial incidents that led to the decline of its wine business and subsequently its membership numbers. Allegations of sexual abuse and end-of-world prophecies that never came to fruition seemed to hurt the perception of the group and its leader.

"Along with sexual allegations against Burton, the suit also claims that the Fellowship of Friends is a nonprofit corporation that was “created as an attempt to avoid payment of taxes, escape accountability for the consequences of their conduct, chill civil judgments, and confuse courts and those seeking redress for these DEFENDANTS’ acts and conduct.”



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2024 07:38AM by anybody.

If the reports are correct then the cult leader saw women as inferior and pregnancy as a bad tbing. We can infer from this that men were probably discouraged from physical involvement with women.

No better than the University of Cosmic Intelligence

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2503762