In conventional social terms any reference to the occult is grounds for immediate dismissal and charges of ‘crazy’. That gives sufi operatives a golden situation in which the victim can always be blamed while the tactics themselves are invisible, leave no trace, and can affect the unconscious of the target. What a terrible situation! There can be no ‘paths’ in this kind of madhouse.
You must therefore always be wary of guru/sheik situations, mindful that the vast majority are useless fakes, idiots and harmless decoys.
You should simply stay away from such people and not put yourself in a situation open to manipulation of any kind. You do not need gurus. Never buy the propaganda otherwise. Some become attracted to freebie energy transmissions. I would say, don’t be tempted. Proceed with wooden stolidity without barakas until you find reality by yourself.
There is a certain relativity to the question: you can explore, study, observe, etc, in any number of ways, and that more than satisfies the ‘guru’ requirement, but you should never surrender your will to anyone suspected of dark side aspects. But that is just the thing they demand. Gurdjieff wants total surrender to the point you will say ‘I am a slave’. Totally avoid all such dangerous nonsense. And stay away from those who wish to ‘destroy the ego’, etc…It is a misunderstanding of ego, …I cannot exempt Jesus Christ and the conversion syndrome of monotheism, although that is a different case. Most of it is nonsense: jesus christ is not your personal savior. The whole conversion syndrome is almost always delusive but (I can’t deny the existence of rare born again conversions or generalize here, etc…That is not our subject save to note that many in these situations take refuge in exoteric religion or especially buddhism. The latter has been a refuge for many, but in general buddhism is thus jumping from the fat into the fire. Steal their meditation methods, etc… Gurdjieff and Gold didn’t/won’t produce any realized disciples, they have no intention of doing so, so don’t credit the subtle propaganda here about schools etc…
Our discussion here is about black magicians like Gurdjieff (and almost certainly Gold) who invultuate the ‘will’ and create a passive victim and/or the tactics of suggestion, etc…To hypnotize people at a distance is dreadful danger..These are evidently open occult spheres characteristic of some but not many teacher/guru situations.
We confront an absurdity at once: Gurdjieff is dead. Can dead gurus do the same ? Yes and they are the worst, further we can have no knowledge here, only paranoid suspicions…Osho always said to avoid dead gurus, and now he is dead….Note the difference of ‘enlightenment’ beyond rebirth, existence as a soul, and the ‘soul’ process of sufis or completed men. It is a labyrinth you can never figure out, but the buddhist path to enlightenment/ and/or its yogic sources do have permanent ongoing meaning. Steal the methods, discard the labels and find your cave or place in the forest…Can’t you go and ask someone like Gold. No you can’t, they are like Trump, the lie all the time.
I will state my opinion which might be better than most: dead gurus seem to change
their character and become dangerous fictions in the unconscious. There is no way to figure it out that I know of. But encounters with dead saints and gurus is often stated as a method for disciples. If that is the case such people are beginners. To me a host of dead gurus is present night and day. Am I deluded? Glad you asked, but you won’t get answers.
Just that ‘spirit’ contact with dead gurus is very frequent. But christians think they interact with ‘jesus’ or, by golly, god himself. It is almost complete fantasy, save that th term ‘god’ is an empty blank. You an interact with an empty blank any time you want.
There may be special cases, celebrities on the propaganda circuit. Ok, so what. Unless you are a celebrity and can feed the propaganda in question, slip away, thankful you are a nobody. You can still meditate and the demon Mara won’t even know your exist, at least not yet.
You can study things historically, but never do a path with a dead guru. But then what about dead jesus christ and dead Buddha? These seem to be exceptions and they have very nice entry doors. But don’t blame me if you end up doing nazi salutes in your next life.
and dead Buddha, what of his. Best of luck, historical study is quite OK, assuming we even know the history. Organized sanghas, of course, appear to guide people through all that, but I am skeptical. Something malevolent seems to have entered buddhsim, The path of boddhisattwas is always odd: you swear to not be enlightened, not good.
especially the tibetan brand: go read the Shadow of the Dalai Lama, specifics about tantric ‘fascism’? I can’t help. Flip the bird inwardly to all that stuff and find your path in a true present. Our archives have many discussions of the rising of fascism and the question of buddhism, in its very late manifestations…Saying heil hitler is not a path.
New Man, New Age, New Socialism 