BREAKING THE CODE OF SILENCE...
May all beings be happy!!!
I am certainly happy because I have been granted the privilege of non-anonymously breaking the Cohen Silence Code on our What Enlightenment?! blog. And it feels real good. Don’t be shy and don’t be the last one on your block or on this blog to join in. Come on in, the water’s fine!
My name is Hal. As many readers here may recall, I was the editor in chief of What Is Enlightenment? magazine from 1994 until late 1996—the period during which Andrew Cohen’s periodical made the transition from being a small in-house newsletter to an international spiritual publication.
I left Andrew’s community in early 1997. Since that time I have experienced a gradual unfolding of understanding about what happened during my time there and what went wrong. My own personal story is not that important. In many ways, I think, I personally suffered less than many. I was one of the few who left with Andrew’s blessing (although against his wishes), and with the door (initially) left open should I wish to return.
In the past, I have not wanted to speak publicly in any way that might be seen as negative about Andrew, his community or his teachings. I was hesitant to do this at first because, despite misgivings, I felt some loyalty to Andrew. I was concerned that due to my renown as the former editor of and frequent contributor to his magazine, anything I said that might sound critical would receive undue attention, and possibly cause him harm. I was also not sure how to sort out events and their meaning. I felt that before I said anything critical, I wanted to be certain that I was not motivated by personal hurt or animosity. I wanted to wait before speaking out until I was no longer subject to anger that might skew my perspective. Finally, I felt it was more important for me to move on with my life, and continue my own spiritual path. I did not feel it was healthy to shovel energy into a bottomless hole of resentment or recrimination. So, except for personal conversations with friends who were also in the community and who had left, I remained largely silent.
But a few years ago I began to learn of things that caused me great concern. An old friend who I worked with on What Is Enlightenment? magazine called and told me she had left the community. I told her a little about my thoughts about it—how I had come to see how oppressive life in the community was, how wrong it was that there was no personal freedom or autonomy permitted, how abusive the confrontational methods used to enforce conformity now seemed, how frequently we lived in fear, and how criticism was always forcibly squelched. She interrupted me and said, “Hal, things have gotten a whole lot weirder since you left.” I asked her what she meant, and she told me stories involving the use of physical force and abuse against students. She spoke of being ordered by Andrew to deliver “messages” to fellow students consisting of slapping the student in the face as hard as she could. She told me she had been ordered by Andrew to paint messages in blood-red paint on the walls of a student’s room at Foxhollow. She described to me the conversion of the spa at Foxhollow into a kind of psychological torture chamber.
As the years passed I spoke to many other former students who confirmed these stories, elaborated upon them, and told me many more. I learned of students having large “contributions” psychologically extorted from them. I heard how a student was required to sign a “gag order” agreement prohibiting him from publicly criticizing Andrew as a condition of having his “contribution” returned. I was told the story of community women prostrating in a freezing cold lake in the winter, some suffering dangerous exposure, as a symbol of their devotion and repentance for “women’s conditioning.” I learned of a student being forced—against his will and his moral compunction—to engage in daily visits to prostitutes in Amsterdam for weeks on end as a kind of penance for past sexual indiscretions. I was told by a student how he was ordered to reveal to his estranged teenage daughter her mother’s infidelity that occurred many years in the past, in order to teach the daughter not to hold her mother, now a critical former student, in such high esteem. I heard these stories and many, many more. As the weight of the awful truth about what Andrew and his community had become accumulated, I began to feel that something must finally be said. People must be warned. At the very least, any prospective student should know what they are signing themselves up for when they join Andrew Cohen’s community.
As a result, I’ve decided to begin to write publicly about these things. I’m throwing off the cloak of anonymity. I hope to write as frankly and revealingly about what I’ve learned as I can. I plan to contribute my own opinions about Andrew’s methods and his teachings, but in the end, each of us must decide for ourselves what it all means. I hope that others will join in with their own stories, comments and contributions, anonymously or not.
Please join in. May this discussion be of benefit.
May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness; be free from suffering and the root of suffering; and dwell in the great equanimity that is free from passion aggression and prejudice!
I am certainly happy because I have been granted the privilege of non-anonymously breaking the Cohen Silence Code on our What Enlightenment?! blog. And it feels real good. Don’t be shy and don’t be the last one on your block or on this blog to join in. Come on in, the water’s fine!
My name is Hal. As many readers here may recall, I was the editor in chief of What Is Enlightenment? magazine from 1994 until late 1996—the period during which Andrew Cohen’s periodical made the transition from being a small in-house newsletter to an international spiritual publication.
I left Andrew’s community in early 1997. Since that time I have experienced a gradual unfolding of understanding about what happened during my time there and what went wrong. My own personal story is not that important. In many ways, I think, I personally suffered less than many. I was one of the few who left with Andrew’s blessing (although against his wishes), and with the door (initially) left open should I wish to return.
In the past, I have not wanted to speak publicly in any way that might be seen as negative about Andrew, his community or his teachings. I was hesitant to do this at first because, despite misgivings, I felt some loyalty to Andrew. I was concerned that due to my renown as the former editor of and frequent contributor to his magazine, anything I said that might sound critical would receive undue attention, and possibly cause him harm. I was also not sure how to sort out events and their meaning. I felt that before I said anything critical, I wanted to be certain that I was not motivated by personal hurt or animosity. I wanted to wait before speaking out until I was no longer subject to anger that might skew my perspective. Finally, I felt it was more important for me to move on with my life, and continue my own spiritual path. I did not feel it was healthy to shovel energy into a bottomless hole of resentment or recrimination. So, except for personal conversations with friends who were also in the community and who had left, I remained largely silent.
But a few years ago I began to learn of things that caused me great concern. An old friend who I worked with on What Is Enlightenment? magazine called and told me she had left the community. I told her a little about my thoughts about it—how I had come to see how oppressive life in the community was, how wrong it was that there was no personal freedom or autonomy permitted, how abusive the confrontational methods used to enforce conformity now seemed, how frequently we lived in fear, and how criticism was always forcibly squelched. She interrupted me and said, “Hal, things have gotten a whole lot weirder since you left.” I asked her what she meant, and she told me stories involving the use of physical force and abuse against students. She spoke of being ordered by Andrew to deliver “messages” to fellow students consisting of slapping the student in the face as hard as she could. She told me she had been ordered by Andrew to paint messages in blood-red paint on the walls of a student’s room at Foxhollow. She described to me the conversion of the spa at Foxhollow into a kind of psychological torture chamber.
As the years passed I spoke to many other former students who confirmed these stories, elaborated upon them, and told me many more. I learned of students having large “contributions” psychologically extorted from them. I heard how a student was required to sign a “gag order” agreement prohibiting him from publicly criticizing Andrew as a condition of having his “contribution” returned. I was told the story of community women prostrating in a freezing cold lake in the winter, some suffering dangerous exposure, as a symbol of their devotion and repentance for “women’s conditioning.” I learned of a student being forced—against his will and his moral compunction—to engage in daily visits to prostitutes in Amsterdam for weeks on end as a kind of penance for past sexual indiscretions. I was told by a student how he was ordered to reveal to his estranged teenage daughter her mother’s infidelity that occurred many years in the past, in order to teach the daughter not to hold her mother, now a critical former student, in such high esteem. I heard these stories and many, many more. As the weight of the awful truth about what Andrew and his community had become accumulated, I began to feel that something must finally be said. People must be warned. At the very least, any prospective student should know what they are signing themselves up for when they join Andrew Cohen’s community.
As a result, I’ve decided to begin to write publicly about these things. I’m throwing off the cloak of anonymity. I hope to write as frankly and revealingly about what I’ve learned as I can. I plan to contribute my own opinions about Andrew’s methods and his teachings, but in the end, each of us must decide for ourselves what it all means. I hope that others will join in with their own stories, comments and contributions, anonymously or not.
Please join in. May this discussion be of benefit.
May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness; be free from suffering and the root of suffering; and dwell in the great equanimity that is free from passion aggression and prejudice!
posted by the Editors at
7:55 PM
3 Comments:
Hal,
I read your comment about Andrew Cohen with interest. I’ve been on one of his retreats and have found him to be a compelling teacher. Reading about his former students’ bad experiences has left me confused and wondering what to do. I feel in my heart that I can learn a great deal from Andrew Cohen. But now I don’t know whether or not to trust him.
I just did a google search and found an article you wrote for WIE about gurus and the abuse of power and a conversation you had with the authors of “The Guru Papers.” I’m wondering how you feel about this topic now, especially the part about “oneness idealogies.” In the story, you wrote that, according to these authors, “oneness and selflessness are given precedence over separateness and individuality, and thereby authoritarianism is born.”
I can see for myself being lured into the authoritarianism of the guru (Andrew) since the goal of enlightenment is to forgo the separate self/ego and submit to the higher self. But since the higher self is elusive, and the guru represents the higher self, then it would seem prudent (if a person wants to evolve) to follow the authority of the guru.
I do get a real sense that Andrew is established in the enlightened state. So how is it that he can be so blind to the abuses he’s subjecting people to? I’m guessing he would say that he’s trying to “kill the ego.” But slapping people in the face and making someone visit prostitutes and so forth is overkill by anyone’s standards!
Also in your WIE story, the authors of “The Guru Papers” said that these philosophies of oneness draw conclusions about human nature and the nature of existence from the experience of oneness, and this is where the trouble begins.
Is that what’s going on... Andrew’s “perfect responses” are sometimes false conclusions?
Do you feel, in retrospect, that he has something to offer as a teacher, so long as a person doesn’t get involved in his community? Or would you recommend that a person look elsewhere altogether? The problem is, how many truly enlightened teachers are there who aren’t corrupt in some way?
I also wonder if you or someone else can explain Andrew and his community in terms of Spiral Dynamics. It seems that he’s at Coral or beyond, memes we don’t know much about. According to Don Beck, the higher level memes have similarities to the lower, but are up an octave. I’m guessing that Andrew is at whatever meme would correspond to Blue. But since it’s evolutionary, it can’t be perfect--still a work-in-progress that can fall into dysfunction. I don’t know enough about Andrew’s community to speculate too far...
An interested reader
Hi Hal
Thank you for posting to this blog. I hope many people will read it and understand the dangers of getting involved with Andrew Cohen.
I myself was in Cohen's community for 15 years or so, and have witnessed all of the things you described in you post, and then some. Some of the stories you relate to have been told to me by Andrew himself, usually with an extraordinary amount of glee and pleasure in how "creative" he was with coming up with that particular "sadhana".
Thinking of all that makes me cringe now, as I was one of the yes-men around Andrew, who did accept his weirdness for the longest time in order to be able to be in his circle of power, which was a very compelling place to be, to say the least.
I do appreciate how you say you have held back for so long to write openly about these things, as I myself have tried for years now to keep a positive attitude towards what Andrew has been trying to do in terms of trying to bring change to the world. I do feel there is a lot to that, especially because of the powerful enlightenment experiences I have personally had, and all the understanding that did flow out of those and out of the association with Andrew and the people around him. So I haven't been able to dismiss that.
But lately, reading this blog, and talking with some of the other people that have left, some before me and some after me, I started to see things differently, and have not longer been able to see the things Andrew is doing to, as he puts it "crush the ego", as a wholesome way of instructing people on the spiritual path. In the name of love and evolution too many people have been disillusioned by him.
I could describe other things he did, in his ever increasing practice of holy madness, also things he did to me personally, but I think the one thing that sticks out to me at the moment is connected to what has been posted about his narcisism and persecution complex.
As you said in your post, there were a men's and a women's sauna in Foxhollow, where Cohen started to post numerous big, and sometimes gross, cartoons about individuals, exposing their weaknesses (read ego-tendencies) and posting letters we had written to him. And if he didnt like those letters, they were posted upside down to signify the ego had written those. Fake blood was sprayed on the walls, being a metaphor for his blood because we were attacking him with our ego's. Some letters were blown up to life size, with parts highlited that were particularly intense, etc.
We all had to spend at least an hour a day in there, as part of our regular daily practice, and sometimes we had to stay for a whole night. You would never know what the next "item" would be that Andrew had put up, it could be your letter upside down, or God forbid a cartoon of yourself whipping others in Dominatrix outfit, or flying in a Kamikaze airplane or stabbing Andrew to death, and on and on....
One big "post" to this brainwash chamber was a quote about the holocaust by Elie Wiesel: it read something to the effect that anything was better than indifference. The indifference here, referred to how 6 million jews were slaughtered with indifference. (I'm missing the subtlety here of the quote, but for this purpose it should give a good sense what this is about). The point was Andrew likened his own students, who dedicated their lives to him and his and indeed our common ideals, to Nazi's!!
Well, i do agree the ego is a bitch, but that is just too much.
I could go on and on I guess, but I think I'm going to leave it at this for now.
I am going to post this anonymously because I don't want the hassle of "repercussions". But if Don Beck or anyone else wants to know my name I will give it to them in confidence... ; - )
It is the disease of leaders.
Today's leaders and decision-makers become what they are because of an unearned confidence, a confidence in themselves and in their decisions that fMRI and psychologists are showing to be the result of a "lack of connectivity" in certain parts of the brain.
The "salience network" allows most people to see if one decision is better than another... and so without that, a person only has ONE decision, THEIR decision, and they are supremely confident about it because they see no other choice.
And THAT is why the human race is in a whole lot of trouble, even greater trouble than Cohen causes.
Well, it is a theory anyhow... there may be other explanations :)
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