Over the years, we have been contacted by many grown children, just freshly coming out of this group, who haven't seen their parents or siblings for years.

The basic study ideas for the group are known as "The Fourth Way," and if you are not familiar with these ideas, you may read about them from a papeback book called "The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution," by Peter D. Ouspensky. This small book (about 100 or so pages) outlines the ideas specifically, and in the order in which one should try to understand them. Mr. Ouspensky was a student of George I. Gurdjieff, and later was a teacher in his own right.

[Note: This book may "turn you on" or "turn you off" depending entirely on you and what you think of it. The book does not, nor do I, prozlytize about these ideas, and the brief description of them here is to help with perhaps understanding somewhat why some people find this interesting.SW]

"Understanding" means more than an intellectual knowledge of the words used. The major admonition given by The Fourth Way is that students should verify everything and believe nothing. To do this, one must "Observe, observe, observe," as Mr. Gurdjieff was quoted to have said frequently (about observing oneself).

The idea is to observe oneself as an "interesting stranger," and observe oneself and others without old judgments and attitudes. Students of this system of ideas try to learn and understand how to use objective reason. (Yes, it can be accomplished with effort.)

First must be added relativity. That is, one cannot understand much using the part of our brain which counts only to two. This is the part that learns the multiplication table, knows tid bits of facts and fancy, and thinks it can understand anything if only it can be explained to it. Not true. Michelle de Montaigne, essayist in France in the 1500s, wrote, "I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty."

"Either/or" thinking brings up extreme examples (best/worst scenarios), and relativity reminds us there are many more than "two sides to every subject."

The ideas are for working toward self-discovery, self-observation, and gateway to freedom from ordinary conditioning and stale attitudes adopted without reason. We found the ideas to be very practical when understood and applied to daily life. In other words, one must be out of one's mind to do this kind of work. :-)

This letter, referred to by many ex-members as "The Hell Letter," is shown at the link for it, near the bottom of this page. Together with this was the event of the senseless demise of 39 cult members in San Diego that sparked more memories, of Jonestown and Waco (although Waco was a bit diffrent; Janet Reno got them annihilated).

We harkened back to the memory of the first FOF death (not a suicide). This was Bill Serrao, in the 1970s, when he developed cancer of the pancreas. He lived near Sacramento, and we expected Robert to go see him. When Robert heard that Bill had cancer, he said, "Oh, he'll be all right." And it looked that way, as often pancreatic cancer patients seem to "rally" as if they are coming out of the difficulty.

This happened to Bill, and Robert never did go see him, although passing by frequently and close enough it would not have been THAT much trouble to stop by to see him.

He demonstrated his first lie, although we didn't even realize it at the time, being so "busy" with FOF activities, tasks, and other distractions. Over the years re-examining things like this, at a more advanced age at each examination, we discovered our subjectivity growing more mature and wishing we had done differently at an earlier age, and realized everything happened in the only way it could happen at the time.

Burton told us right from the beginning that he would be with his students when they were about to die. We did not interpret this to mean "in spirit" but in physical fact. He allowed us to think he meant he would hold our hands on the way out of this world.

I was reminded of remarks of Michel de Montaigne that if you have someone with you when you die, it is a big help, and if it's a friend to boot, all the better. Something like that. Makes sense.

We think Burton never meant that at all. We think he does not care for anyone except himself and his own comfort.

Something in me finally grasped that Robert Burton cannot deal with too much reality. More than once when he learned that a student was dying of something (including AIDS), he would send the member off to an FOF center in a foreign country (Italy was one)! Mostly these poor souls were sent to places where Burton seldom visits, or it seemed that way.

Gurdjieff plainly said that the ONLY way to demonstrate one's work was to be externally considerate of other people. He also said that being externally considerate demonstrates one's value for the Work ideas.

"Where there is smoke, there is fire." Check it out.