I usually don't post but it's necessary now to since I've just recently left John de Ruiter and the Oasis community in Edmonton, Canada after being there for 7 years. It's been difficult the last 6 months coming to the realization that aspects of his teaching were not matching up with what has been going on there.
2 years ago I was told by someone on his trusted committee that he has had an "opening in the Calling" and that what it required of him was to be sexually involved with female members of the group. The one who told me this didn't know how to handle the news and said that it's probably going to go public soon and to just be prepared. Word got out that I was aware of this information and that it wasn't going public and that I wasn't suppose to know about any of this. The person who told me was "reprimanded", was sorry they told me and that I shouldn't say anything about it to others in the group. Trying to be the good spiritual student I kept quiet about it but told two very close friends shortly after. One was in the group but moved away not long after and another not connected to the group. I spent a lot of time trying to rationalize why this was taking place in all kinds of ways, by thinking it was the esoteric level of the teaching, that Gurdjieff supposedly slept with some of his students, along with Trungpa, so as not to freak out. It wasn't what I signed up for when I moved to Edmonton to follow him and after some time, chalked it up to being his personal life and therefore wasn't any of my business and to just "trust".
A year later a woman in the group went missing under very strange circumstances. Police found her body hours north of the city weeks later. For some reason they couldn't tell the community what they discovered about the case but said only it was most likely suicide. I was very disturbed, as was everyone else, and started seeing a therapist about it and about being in this group around John. I needed help. I continued going to the meetings he holds at Oasis but felt a separation happening slowly.
In December of this past year I told John I was finished with the whole spiritual seeking thing and that I just wanted to live; that I'm throwing enlightenment out the window and I'm done and might be leaving. He didn't say anything to me in response to all of that and I walked away. About 10 minutes later my heart opened and it felt like it was flying out of my chest through the cosmos and that I was free. It was a very ecstatic experience, one I've had a glimpse of before I ever met him. But once again, I attributed it to John's ability to evoke it out of me and I thought that I didn't have to leave at that time.
Soon after this, my mother bought me a plane ticket to visit her in Rome where my sister and her family live and I left a few weeks later to meet them. I hadn't left Canada for 6 years so it was great to finally go again. Yet I didn't tell them much about what was really going on there except to say that I wasn't sure about being there anymore. I felt horrible that I was utterly finished with the whole scene and didn't care if I ever went back again and broke down more than once about it. It was a turning point of sorts that seemed to break the spell.
My sister suggested I go and just see what happens if I go back to Canada and NOT go to any of the meetings and watch what happens. I did and never went back and didn't care anymore about going again.
This Spring the family of the woman who died wrote a letter to the Oasis community explaining that they read her diaries and believe that John slept with her a few weeks before she killed herself. Many people were shocked. "John would never do something like this."
But I knew it was very probable that he did. Oasis issued a statement a few days later saying that the accusations are false, unjustified and that the diary entries describe nothing more than "waking dreams and visions". Basically, that she dreamed it all up. I was angry. A friend in the group was shaken and I told this friend then what I knew about what's been going on with "the man behind the curtain", that I couldn't prove he slept with her but it's very likely that he did. This friend and another went on the community website about considering the possibility that John DID have some kind of sexual interaction we don't know about and they were both shut down. This was the final straw.
I told other close friends outside the group at that point what I knew, who suggested that I be very careful, that the woman who died might have been suicided, that the case had not been closed officially and there are still many unanswered questions about it. At that point I got very scared and knew I would have to leave.
With some distance now from Edmonton, I can't wrap my head around, STILL, who the heck this guy really is because I truly believed he was a teacher of honesty, integrity, and purity. I really did learn to take responsibility for my life and not play the victim (as he pointed out to me more than once). He always highlighted the ways in which, as Awareness, we're either serving the self that we have or serving Knowledge and our deeper knowing, to do what you know to do and pay the cost. This never sounded like a psychopathic approach. He would point out to me too how self-absorbed, self-identified, I was at times and ways to be more honest about it and make real changes to correct it. His perspective on what many would call entities isn't talked about by many teachers, save Casteneda, Gurjieff and The C's. I never once saw him lose his temper or sense a hint aggression in the tone of his voice toward another even when attacked by others. He was nothing but kind and respectful to me personally. Nevertheless, I had to go.
Another difficulty being there was his perspective on being gay, that it wasn't the highest form or way for evolving as Awareness, that being with the opposite sex was better and for me to consider the possibility. Many people get married there, sometimes matched up by John or guided by him as to who would make the better partner for them. John stresses marriage as the " the high road" to evolution. It wasn't until I as seeing my Focusing coach/therapist for awhile that I realized how unconsciously it was convenient not to deal with my gayness in a group that stressed heterosexuality as better. I tried for years to transcend sexuality altogether.
One other aspect of John's teaching that recently clued me in is his supposed connection to Christ. He claimed very openly years ago that he was in direct communication with Christ and that Christ was, in part, responsible for John's training for the future. But after learning all about Caesar and the research done about the creation of Christianity I honestly wondered, "Who then is John really talking to if Jesus is a total myth?!"
The Oasis group is also very pro-Israel which I had problems with, as well. People truly live in a bubble there with regard to what's really going on in the world. Fb friends from the group would shame me for postings, for paying attention to the horrors of that truly awful situation in the Middle East and tell me I was distracting myself from going within and not staying "with what matters more". I could no longer be a part of a group people that consciously chooses to stick their heads in the sand.
I looked for the thread from years ago when I defended John to post this there but couldn't find it in the search engine.
Today I'm sharing all of this stuff here to help sort some of it out (or try to, at least) and so that others are aware of what happened there.
2 years ago I was told by someone on his trusted committee that he has had an "opening in the Calling" and that what it required of him was to be sexually involved with female members of the group. The one who told me this didn't know how to handle the news and said that it's probably going to go public soon and to just be prepared. Word got out that I was aware of this information and that it wasn't going public and that I wasn't suppose to know about any of this. The person who told me was "reprimanded", was sorry they told me and that I shouldn't say anything about it to others in the group. Trying to be the good spiritual student I kept quiet about it but told two very close friends shortly after. One was in the group but moved away not long after and another not connected to the group. I spent a lot of time trying to rationalize why this was taking place in all kinds of ways, by thinking it was the esoteric level of the teaching, that Gurdjieff supposedly slept with some of his students, along with Trungpa, so as not to freak out. It wasn't what I signed up for when I moved to Edmonton to follow him and after some time, chalked it up to being his personal life and therefore wasn't any of my business and to just "trust".
A year later a woman in the group went missing under very strange circumstances. Police found her body hours north of the city weeks later. For some reason they couldn't tell the community what they discovered about the case but said only it was most likely suicide. I was very disturbed, as was everyone else, and started seeing a therapist about it and about being in this group around John. I needed help. I continued going to the meetings he holds at Oasis but felt a separation happening slowly.
In December of this past year I told John I was finished with the whole spiritual seeking thing and that I just wanted to live; that I'm throwing enlightenment out the window and I'm done and might be leaving. He didn't say anything to me in response to all of that and I walked away. About 10 minutes later my heart opened and it felt like it was flying out of my chest through the cosmos and that I was free. It was a very ecstatic experience, one I've had a glimpse of before I ever met him. But once again, I attributed it to John's ability to evoke it out of me and I thought that I didn't have to leave at that time.
Soon after this, my mother bought me a plane ticket to visit her in Rome where my sister and her family live and I left a few weeks later to meet them. I hadn't left Canada for 6 years so it was great to finally go again. Yet I didn't tell them much about what was really going on there except to say that I wasn't sure about being there anymore. I felt horrible that I was utterly finished with the whole scene and didn't care if I ever went back again and broke down more than once about it. It was a turning point of sorts that seemed to break the spell.
My sister suggested I go and just see what happens if I go back to Canada and NOT go to any of the meetings and watch what happens. I did and never went back and didn't care anymore about going again.
This Spring the family of the woman who died wrote a letter to the Oasis community explaining that they read her diaries and believe that John slept with her a few weeks before she killed herself. Many people were shocked. "John would never do something like this."
But I knew it was very probable that he did. Oasis issued a statement a few days later saying that the accusations are false, unjustified and that the diary entries describe nothing more than "waking dreams and visions". Basically, that she dreamed it all up. I was angry. A friend in the group was shaken and I told this friend then what I knew about what's been going on with "the man behind the curtain", that I couldn't prove he slept with her but it's very likely that he did. This friend and another went on the community website about considering the possibility that John DID have some kind of sexual interaction we don't know about and they were both shut down. This was the final straw.
I told other close friends outside the group at that point what I knew, who suggested that I be very careful, that the woman who died might have been suicided, that the case had not been closed officially and there are still many unanswered questions about it. At that point I got very scared and knew I would have to leave.
With some distance now from Edmonton, I can't wrap my head around, STILL, who the heck this guy really is because I truly believed he was a teacher of honesty, integrity, and purity. I really did learn to take responsibility for my life and not play the victim (as he pointed out to me more than once). He always highlighted the ways in which, as Awareness, we're either serving the self that we have or serving Knowledge and our deeper knowing, to do what you know to do and pay the cost. This never sounded like a psychopathic approach. He would point out to me too how self-absorbed, self-identified, I was at times and ways to be more honest about it and make real changes to correct it. His perspective on what many would call entities isn't talked about by many teachers, save Casteneda, Gurjieff and The C's. I never once saw him lose his temper or sense a hint aggression in the tone of his voice toward another even when attacked by others. He was nothing but kind and respectful to me personally. Nevertheless, I had to go.
Another difficulty being there was his perspective on being gay, that it wasn't the highest form or way for evolving as Awareness, that being with the opposite sex was better and for me to consider the possibility. Many people get married there, sometimes matched up by John or guided by him as to who would make the better partner for them. John stresses marriage as the " the high road" to evolution. It wasn't until I as seeing my Focusing coach/therapist for awhile that I realized how unconsciously it was convenient not to deal with my gayness in a group that stressed heterosexuality as better. I tried for years to transcend sexuality altogether.
One other aspect of John's teaching that recently clued me in is his supposed connection to Christ. He claimed very openly years ago that he was in direct communication with Christ and that Christ was, in part, responsible for John's training for the future. But after learning all about Caesar and the research done about the creation of Christianity I honestly wondered, "Who then is John really talking to if Jesus is a total myth?!"
The Oasis group is also very pro-Israel which I had problems with, as well. People truly live in a bubble there with regard to what's really going on in the world. Fb friends from the group would shame me for postings, for paying attention to the horrors of that truly awful situation in the Middle East and tell me I was distracting myself from going within and not staying "with what matters more". I could no longer be a part of a group people that consciously chooses to stick their heads in the sand.
I looked for the thread from years ago when I defended John to post this there but couldn't find it in the search engine.
Today I'm sharing all of this stuff here to help sort some of it out (or try to, at least) and so that others are aware of what happened there.
