Intentional communities

Regardless of what it might think it is, the BKWSU operates as an "Intentional Community", especially for many of the Western BKs who give up their families and go and live together in shared houses, Bhavans or centers. Intentional communities have been fairly well studied from a sociological point of view and are given to their only foibles.

An "intentional community" is a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values. The people may live together on a piece of rural land, in a suburban home, or in an urban neighborhood, and they may share a single residence or live in a cluster of dwellings.

This definition spans a wide variety of groups, including (but not limited to) communes, ecovillages, student cooperatives, land co-ops, cohousing groups, monasteries and ashrams. Although quite diverse in philosophy and lifestyle, each of these groups places a high priority on fostering a sense of community - a feeling of belonging and mutual support that is increasingly hard to find in mainstream Western society.

Essentially, in my opinion, it is when you chose to live with a group of people NOT because you like them, or are bound to them by blood, but because you share an ideological goal ... in theory. Obviously, when you are bound to others by theories, stuff like ... reality ... invariably impinges. The following commentary is taken from, "Hypocrisy and dissent within the Findhorn Foundation - Towards a sociology of a New Age community" by Stephen J. Castro, published by New Media Books; 1996, ISBN 0 9526881 0 7.

Does your organisation, cult or group suffer from groupthink? Castro argues that the Findhorn community in Scotland is a classic example of this phenomenon and underlines its dangers ... whether those "dangers" are greater or lesser than living in your biological home or becoming a stranger in a city somewhere, I don't know. I think parallels between BK communities are possible. The behavioural symptoms he underlines are as follows:

1 ) An illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all the members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks.

2 ) Collective efforts to rationalise in order to discount warnings which might lead the members to reconsider their assumptions before they recommit themselves to their past policy decisions.

3 ) An unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.

4 ) Stereotyped views of rivals and enemies as too evil to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate, or as too weak and stupid to counter whatever risky attempts are made to defeat their purposes.

5 ) Direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group's stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, making clear that this type of dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members.

6 ) Self-censorship of deviations from the apparent group consensus, reflecting each member's inclination to minimise to himself the importance of his doubts and counter-arguments.

7 ) A shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgements conforming to the majority view (partly resulting from self-censorship of deviations, augmented by the false assumption that silence means consent).

8 ) The emergence of self-appointed mindguards - members who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions. Sounds like the BKWSU IT Team blocking our emails and leadership telling centers what to think about us.

"The general attitude of the New Age seems to be undiscriminating, and even to be against the whole idea of discrimination." When confronted with factual information that challenges cherished beliefs, "the average New Age person reacts by simply not wanting to talk to you any more - you have the wrong attitude and possibly the wrong vibrations."

One ex-Findhorn member is quoted by Castro as saying: "What is presented to the outside world, and what actually goes on inside the Foundation, are poles apart. Forget talk of it being the forerunner to a Brave New World. The regime is more like something from Orwell's 1984. There are some extremely sinister things going on there."

The main complaint made by this book is about the way that Findhorn has expelled people without giving them the right of appeal and then tried to make them into non-persons, ignoring them whenever confronted by them.

How does that sound from the Oxford Global Retreat banishment of allegedly PBKs?

Another indepth study of Intentional Communities is here. Is anyone listening? Castro may not entirely be 'clean'. He and his partner were refused membership of Findhorn for many years and are part of what they call the 'Cambridge' Research Centre for Metaphysics & Evolutionary Studies (CRC) which appears to have nothing at all to do with Cambridge university or legitimate research, but is a front for promoting their arcane spiritual teachings. Does that make it not unlike another 'Oxford' Academy ... of Leadership (OLA)? Oxford ... Cambridge ... no connection to any real university ... great minds obviously think alike.