God Was All Dry: Alienation, Violence, and an Experience in the Fourth Way

By Philip Riley

A book about a personal voyage with alienation, violence, spiritual growth, and possibly religious extremism in a group many would consider a cult.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Oct 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466950481

Philip Riley

This book is a personal memoir about alienation, violence, and a unique experience in what many people would call a cult. The author’s intentions are to open a dialogue on these subjects, which seem endemic to America, as well as to entertain. This is the first effort of the author through a publishing agency. The author was born in Seattle, Washington, and has traveled around the country and world and now resides in Hawaii. He received a bachelor’s of fine arts from Massachusetts College of Art in 1980 and, twenty years later, a master’s in education in Hawaii. He currently teaches a special education classroom in Hawaii and belongs to the Association of Hawaiian Artists. Writing has always been an important discipline in his life, and his efforts include children’s stories, poetry, and short stories.

Book preview

GOD

WAS

ALL DRY

Alienation, Violence, and an experience in The Fourth Way

PHILIP RILEY

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© Copyright 2012 Philip Riley.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-5049-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-5048-1 (e)

Trafford rev. 10/03/2012

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1  School Yard Killer

Chapter 2

Chapter 3  The Party in the Woods

Chapter 4  Breakfast with the Master

Chapter 5  In the World but Not of It?

Chapter 6  Reservations and Explanations

Chapter 7  Into or Out of the Lion’s Den

Chapter 8  Enlightenment Boot Camp

Chapter 9  Becoming a Student in the Master Game

Chapter 10  Angel Life

Chapter 11

Chapter 12  The Tree Farmer Buddhist

Chapter 13  Angel Sex

Chapter 14

Chapter 15  Becoming a Carpenter

Chapter 16

Chapter 17  Putting on the Gloves

Chapter 18  Bittersweet Farewell

Chapter 19  On the Home Team

Chapter 20  Parental Concerns

Chapter 21  Chapel

Chapter 22  Bovine Butchery

Chapter 23  Horses

Chapter 24

Chapter 25  Candy

Chapter 26  Sex with the Metanoian Order

Chapter 27  Yearly Rebirth

Chapter 28  Bisexuality, Why Not?

Chapter 29  Children of the Farm

Chapter 30  Stretching the Instinctive Center

Chapter 31

Chapter 32  Consciousness Confidences

Chapter 33  Meditation

Chapter 34  On Death and Dying

Chapter 35  Watching Visitors

Chapter 36  My Work and Art

Chapter 37

Chapter 38  How Far for Consciousness?

Chapter 39  Golden Gloves at 42

Chapter 40  Cancer

Chapter 41  Leaving

Author’s Note

This non-fiction memoir has been told without embellishment, exaggeration or invention. The Author lived at a site called Walden Farm, The Circle of Angels, A Fourth Way School for eight years. The events of this memoir concern the years 1988 to 1996. Pictures of the site were taken in 2009. The farm is no longer in operation as a spiritual school.

Introduction

On the sun bleached sand in Hawaii, an overweight lady counted store coupons. I presumed her to be asleep and mechanical. This judgment appeared like red spots on the screen of my mind after staring at a bright green wall, an afterimage of a previous life as a student of consciousness. For eight years I belonged to a so called spiritual school that followed the teachings of a Russian Armenian mystic from the 1900’s. In this 4th Way spiritual school called The Circle of Angels at Walden Farm, I and others shunned the dalliances of people like the lady on the beach and sought a hard path to enlightenment. Tension, discomfort, mental and even physical pain were supposed to aid our spiritual growth, and as if to turn human nature upside down, we attempted to produce as much as possible. From our perspective, the lady on the beach and 95% of the rest of the world were asleep. Her path of least resistance prevented spiritual growth. As my eyes wafted over her hefty body, a phrase arose like another afterimage from the Fourth Way years. The phrase was, Most people live lives the size of a postage stamp.

I accepted the belief that a postage stamp existence was what most people in America and the world lived as they followed their mechanical paths. We said they were asleep and the urgency of waking up and being more conscious was proclaimed by our teacher of the 4th Way. The sensuous trade winds blossom with clouds behind a tropical green mountain range. I breathe the fragrant plumeria blossoms. As I appreciate the moment, I consider life now outside of the 4th Way as much larger than a postage stamp.

Slowly the memories of the afterimage reappear as I consider those years from 1988 to 1996 when I exclusively pursued the big fish of enlightenment. I had deemed it worthy beyond anything else. In retrospect many aspects of that lifestyle seem insane or at least incongruous. A vacancy in myself and in American culture perhaps led me there. I valued experience by what I learned, and not necessarily if it was pleasant. I wasn’t averse to experience if it meant growth. Going to high school during the turbulent 60’s, I scoffed at the hippy notion of if it feels good do it. Even in the age of the counter culture and its aftermath, I felt like an outcast. The 4th Way and its struggle to hold to the difficult appealed to me. With the goal of enlightenment, it appealed to my attitude of growth through experience and it offered a place for my alienation.

Over a decade has passed since I left the spiritual community called The Circle of Angels at Walden Farm. According to The Circle of Angels (Dissolved as of 2007) I would be on desert duty, a biblical metaphor of being lost. As far as consciousness is concerned, I would be just looking for a nice way to die. Life outside of the work as we called our path, would mean I was merely trying to be comfortable, slightly above the survival instincts of a dog. Because I have thumbed my nose at consciousness, I would be considered to be in a downward spiral of sleep. Whatever they would have thought, I value what I learned at The Circle of Angels and my present experiences painful and otherwise do not resemble that downward spiral.

In the pressure cooker environment of The Circle of Angel I and others accelerated experiences we might not ever have tried, and we packed those eight years with harrowing ordeals and their rewards. I learned to fast (go without food for 3 to 5 days) every three months, and not sleep for 48 and 96 hours. I learned to sit like a stone for hours in mediation. I learned to maintain a positive frame of mind under duress. I can tell people I am feeling terrific as I learned to fake it until you make it to create a positive state. It still works. However, the most meaningful and hard fought accomplishment was confronting my inner violence. I performed an exorcism I could not have done without the help of the 4th Way.

A charismatic Russian Armenian named Gurdjieff, developed The 4th Way in the early 1900’s. The 4th Way combines three broadly grouped avenues or ways toward enlightenment. The way of the scholar, the way of the aesthete, the way of faith are said to be the three ways. The Fourth Way claims to be a hybrid of all three. Gurdjeiff founded the 4th Way with an organization called the Harmonious Development of Man in France in the early 1920’s. There, he combined elements of eastern mysticism with Western religious ideas. A complex arena of information has been gathered and written by a number of people, particularly one of his chief students named P.D. Ouspensky.

The Fourth Way, as I learned it, proposed methods of living intentionally. The purpose was to awaken us to be more conscious and to lead us to a higher more permanent consciousness. Students of The Fourth Way attempted this through exercises. These exercises could be secret or ostentatious. In short, they were mental occupations we did concurrent to whatever else we were doing that made living each moment mindful and usually more difficult. Exercises permeated every part of our waking hours, even during sex. Along with our exercises, The Fourth Way believed we needed to plug up five energy leaks. These leaks were unnecessary talk, imagination, negativity, formative thinking, and identification. Living intentionally meant being mindful through exercises and not leaking energy. The tension was to force us into a higher state, essential on our road to enlightenment. Our goal was to store energy for a burst into this state that would lead us to permanent enlightenment. Crystallization was the word used. We were supposed to pop into that state like a cork from a Champagne bottle.

I dream of this former life however, in the form of nightmares. I dream I am still there, and want to leave but I am afraid of being discovered. In the dreams, I run into members of the inner circle. The dreams take place on location in the rugged and isolated hills of Vermont. Sometimes I search for a getaway vehicle I either never find, or it is hidden and misplaced. Other times I am on foot and become lost. Often in my dreams, the teacher at The Circle of Angels is close by and I fear a confrontation. I awake disturbed and relieved.

The dreams parody my imagination when as a member of The Circle of Angels, I so often entertained thoughts of running away. Whenever I thought of running, I heard the same refrain: If you used your energy toward consciousness instead of imagining running away you might get conscious. They added, If you leave, you will sink even lower into gravity than before you came. It’s called a downward spiral and it has happened to people who have left. We have verified this. People who did leave were allowed no contact. Many of the students at the farm had been there for over 8 years and some as many as 12. If they decided to leave, they lost contact with friends and lovers they had known for years. Exceptions were made where children were involved so they would not be in violation of the law.

Consciousness is serious business. Not everyone gets this chance. If you thumb your nose at consciousness you will pay, the teacher said. Those who became members of this group had suffered long periods of alienation in American life before they came to the Circle of Angles. The motivation to stay was partly based on fear. I recognized this from the beginning. Though I was told to verify The Work and to come to my own conclusions, persistent questioning was viewed as a manifestation of negativity or imagination and those were energy leaks. To avoid criticism, I had to secretly harbor my doubts of the work. I was supposed to stay on the pot for a big shit of enlightenment, but neither I nor anyone else while I was there achieved that goal.

The Circle of Angels might be called a cult. The unusual activities in every arena from violence to sex would fit many people’s criteria. Our exercises as they were called, were sometimes dangerous. Our projects called octaves could be as well. Nothing was more important than consciousness. We were supposed to hold ourselves accountable, and if we were lax in our octaves or exercises we were expected (if we were good students) to take payments. These would be more severe exercises to prevent laziness the next time. Negativity while on our octaves such as fasting, or going without sleep was unacceptable. It was an energy leak. Look positive and Fake it till you make it, was one of our mottos. The more exercises and payments I did, the more I was doing good work. Suffering was therefore a good thing. From the outside, this environment would be regarded as a world upside down but that seemed to appeal to our sense of irony and to our view of the world in general. We came to believe that it was the world and it’s conventions that operated upside down preventing consciousness. The us versus them attitude toward the world could be regarded as the alienation of a cult

The other earmark of a cult was that we relinquished our individualism to a large degree to one person or a teacher. The group dynamic reinforced the obedience to the teacher’s perspective that was held sacred and beyond that of ordinary human beings.

I am a number 7, claimed the teacher. I have reached the highest consciousness. Jo, (her partner) is a number 6. This is also called Christ Consciousness. You are number 4’s, students in the master game, the highest calling on this earth. You don’t have to believe. Verify it for your selves, she said. Those closest to the leader often said,

I have verified that even though I might not understand what she says initially, later it will make sense. The lower cannot see the higher, but the higher can see the lower. I was supposed to believe everything she did was conscious and right. Where to draw the line with rational thought amidst this peculiar faith was a mystery.

If I appear crazy, I hope you will show your own consciousness and leave, she once said. I wondered how we would do that. It seemed we had already surrendered our judgment. Such conformity to one extra-ordinary person smacks of a cult.

When I step outside of the American paradigm, however, The Circle of Angels is less a cult and more akin to an eastern style spiritual effort. Western civilization and particularly Americans pride themselves on independence and so the sacrifice of individuality amounts to sacrilege to the American dream. We reasoned as apparently many do in the eastern religious traditions that instead of following someone like Jesus or Buddha who lived 2000 years ago, we were following a live master. It excited us. In the eastern traditions, enlightenment has been handed down from living masters to students for centuries. Gurdjieff was considered by his followers to be a master. The teacher at The Circle of Angels claimed to inherit the Gurdjieff legacy.

We often referred to the eastern master student relationship and believed we were part of a relationship with a master of the Gurdjieff legacy. Gurdjieff created an amalgam of different religious ideas. One of Gurdjieff’s students called the 4th Way, esoteric Christianity. This new approach intellectually stimulated me. The 4th way combined both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. I had not however studied Buddhism enough to realize that Buddhism sought to transcend the dichotomy of dualism in which we seemed engaged. We continually pitted our lower instinctive selves that wanted to satisfy the ego and body against what we called our higher selves. Though the 4th way, as written about by disciples of Gurdjieff, claimed to not interfere with other religious beliefs, at The Circle of Angels, it inevitably did.

Unlike most cults, however, people who joined could not claim to be coerced. If there was coercion to join, it seemed to be conducted in reverse. The teacher literally scared away everyone except the most earnest and the most earnest had to make exceptional efforts to belong.

A person has to be desperate to come here, she said. That truth I verified, for I knew the feeling of being desperate in America. I, like the others, had experienced the world for over 30 years. We were not naïve youngsters when we formed the conclusion that the only worthwhile aspiration in this life was to become enlightened and that all life in America brought us was meaningless alienation. We agreed to shun worldly ambitions as low on the scale of consciousness. The teacher ridiculed esteemed worldly figures. Like other orders of monks, we renounced the world. We even quoted the Bible and said we were in the world, but not of it.

Our life jobs or professions before we joined often changed. In The Circle of Angels, we subscribed to the belief that they were often impediments to consciousness. Thus, people who joined The Work tended to conduct new ways of living. I did. Monks in many religions take vows of obedience so perhaps this is not that unusual. Our virtual vows of obedience left us no choice. It was either obey or leave and we had worked hard to get there. I and others took entirely new directions in terms of professions or we discarded them entirely.

There are no chains on the doors said the teacher. Ah, but there were psychological ones of our own making as well as those of the group.

The teacher named Jean expressed a vision that rang true to me. Organized religions, which I and the others had tried, were no longer options. (Jean was so outrageous she several times called Mother Teresa a pig.) The pipeline to God was all dry. The teacher was our Jesus. We studied people and the world distantly; similar to the way you might dissect a frog. The main house was packed with 5000 books from every major religious perspective to encourage our study. Our desperation had led us unwittingly to a pinnacle in humanity, or so we were told and convinced ourselves to believe. You ain’t lost. You’ve been found, said the teacher.

Chapter 1

School Yard Killer

Before I joined the Circle of Angels I stewed for years in alienation and depression. I know a little about what drives school yard killers to commit desperate bloody acts such as the shooting rampage at Columbine. Perhaps I also know a little about what drives people to choose religious extremism. I went through a long process of alienation before realizing my own radical solution. In hindsight, the groundwork had been laid as methodically as the construction of a road. Though I lived adequately and had some job satisfaction, my nerves bathed in self loathing. In my mid 30’s, I saw no way out. Like many passive intellectuals or perhaps like those schoolyard killers, I lived quietly, unnoticed, and seething inside like a pressure cooker. I felt I would implode or explode and I took a leap away from society, where I never read a newspaper, watched the news or paid taxes for 8 years.

The 4th Way language helped to explain my divorce from society. The Work language consisted of tools. One of the tools of The Work was a simple poker deck with each suit and number describing a level and a trait. These traits represented what the work called centers of being. Everyone had a major center from which they operated. The diamonds represented the intellectual center, the hearts the emotional, the clubs the instinctual, and the spades the moving center. The numbers on the cards corresponded to how you used that center. There was also a hierarchy of importance and thus face cards held more power. I was told I was in the queen or I had too much queen energy. The queen in all suits was a high card given to madness. As an example, they cited the queen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland who shouted off with their heads! The queen had a positive attribute. When you needed the energy to try something new, the queen provided that valuable spark for jumping into new activities, sort of like a spark plug. However, the group concluded that I too often lived in the queen, especially the queen of diamonds, as if I had a faulty voltage regulator to my intellect. They said they couldn’t trust me in certain situations. Given my past, this seemed true.

In the work language, the queen provided many sparks long before the Circle of Angels when I ventured far from Seattle Washington, where my parents and siblings remained. I Hitchhiked to New York City at the age of 23 and marched forth with rebellious bohemian attitudes thought typical for an artist. Spiritual question marks suit art, as any artist can tell you, and the queen in my paintings, blurted out from either spiritual boredom or desperation. I applied impulses frequently for the excitement and uncertain spontaneity and perpetuated my confusion outward. Art reflected my moments wrenched as they often seemed.

Art, in my opinion, often entertains the question of, Do you know you are going to die? It confronts mortality. I felt the need to freeze moments in art to preserve their impression in the face of death. Like many artists, whose ultimate dedication is abstract, I subsisted on marginal jobs to pay rent and eat. These jobs took little energy, so I could presumably use my main energy to paint or sculpt. As a young aspiring artist, I went from employer to employer who I held in various degrees of disregard. Blessed with cussed determination, I survived three and a half years in New York City and over ten years in Boston where I earned my Bachelors of Fine Arts and continued painting in a warehouse studio. Living for those art moments was not enough.

My dedication to art began to erode. Fifteen years of low wages and my lack of effort to market myself left me sidelined well outside the mainstream. Exalted ideals of art turned sardonic and I began to lose touch with the whole process. My paintings stopped telling me what to do as if my very intuition became lost. You can’t really be dead? I asked them, but they remained mute. I felt my being slip into a personal darkness and rudderless existence.

My last artistic venture appears desperate if not comical when I developed a 12 foot inflatable carrot suit. People