Activity

As a somewhat lengthy aside, an excerpt (somewhat related) from a personal journal from almost 50 years ago, for, perhaps, your amusement:

My only other personal experience remotely related to “lights and eyes” (though not reflected light) was about six months later. I was riding a bus home from San Francisco to Marin County when an attractive woman on the bus approached me and invited me to a play that was to be performed during the evening of the following day. Motivated at the prospect of seeing this woman again, I accepted her complimentary ticket.

The following evening I attended a play by (and starring) Alex and Sheila Horn at a theater in the Mission District of San Francisco. Later I was invited (not by the same woman, whom I did not see at the theater) to attend a meeting following the performance. I was curious as to what the “pitch” was going to be; the play was entertaining, but I had no doubt that there was another agenda.

I subsequently learned that the theater and the associated personnel were part of an Ospensky/Gurdjieff personal development group. Anyhow, I joined an assembly of about thirty others at an adjoining storefront that had been set up for a meeting.

I am generally an open and friendly type who is receptive to new ideas, and one who enjoys stimulating conversation in a mutually re- spectful environment. But I have a recalcitrant trend in my personality when I sense “power games” are being played, when others are less than candid or are being manipulative, or when posturing an attitude of superiority.

I understand that there may be others who may benefit from rigidly controlled settings, that there are some instances when this may be beneficial for certain individuals. Having been through Marine Corps boot camp, and four years of active duty followed by five years in the reserves, I can – as they say – relate. As a sixteen- year old kid undergoing marine corps boot camp, the discipline to which I voluntarily submitted had a positive effect on my maturation process, still ongoing decades later.

But I was not enlisting in the marines. After about a half an hour into the meeting I had a sense of some of the above, i.e., we were being questioned (in turn) by script where binary responses led to subscripts. Conversational exchanges were not favored, and though I was respectful in speech and attitude, I felt resistance from the group leaders, especially when I questioned the purpose of the meeting, or agenda.

I do not recall the specifics of the final exchanges between the group leaders and myself, but I was asked to leave – which I did. However, just prior to my departure, a young man began tapping on the window. He had been standing on the sidewalk outside of the store, observing us through the window. Of course he did not know the purpose of the meeting (neither did I, at the time), but he was asking to be admitted.

Someone opened the door and let him in just as I was gathering my belongings to exit through the same door. As he entered, and as I walked past him into the night, he looked at me and then at the group leader and said, “Wow, I don’t know what this is all about, but I just saw all this light flashing around the room, and I had to come in.”