SES Forums

When I first entered the sparsely-furnished building at 7 Wilmot St, Sydney, in 1980 I thought it was simply the start of a philosophy course. It sounded harmless enough. Newspaper advertisements and posters on railway stations talked of "12 evening lectures in philosophy". What could poss...

The following articles about the School of Philosophy in Sydney were made by Tim Stott who joined the School in 1980 and were published in the Daily Telegraph, July 1985. Mounted on the walls of Sydney's underground railway stations is a plain blue poster which reads: "Philosophy. An introducto...

Thank you Malin for drawing my attention to the historical press articles reference site. I think the following articles should be added to them. There are three articles under these headings:- Bland poster led to life of 'menial chores and empty ritual' Cult's women and children starved and forced ...

Hi Ahamty, I've just found some articles that were published in the Daily Telegraph way back in 1985 about the Sydney SOP, under the heading, 'Cult enslaves devotees' makes interesting reading. They came out just after the book Secret Cult was published. Here is the SOP comment on the book, sound fa...

Forget Copenhagen,SES saves the world!

Would agree with Witness about the analogy with communism. Karl Marx's statement about people living in a communist society "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" in theory sounded great. However the Honecker and Ceausescu types took over and made it a joke. I...

I would agree with Ahamty about schools secret informers. The East German Stasi could have learned a lot from them! Being a secretary in school for a number of years I too was one of them. During the break you would circulate amongst the group collecting information about everybody and then at the e...

Had to laugh at HH giving guidance about unmarried ladies in school. The way it operated in the Sydney school in the 1980's was all the good looking ladies were reserved for the single tutors. For the rest it was open season. Men being what they are would go for the Britney Spears look-a-likes. Howe...

The philosopher Schopenhauer claimed that "woman is by nature meant to obey" and this view would be held by many men in the SES. Since leaving the SES and joining other spiritual groups the above view was also to be found amongst them. The leaders were all men with women mainly taking a su...

You know you have made the grade in the SES when you become a tutor. You can be brain dead but it doesn't really matter as long as the show goes on. And there are plenty of slaves to keep the show running. I once asked the leader of the school why they put idiots in charge, his answer was, because t...

Hi ingr, and welcome to the form. If anybody has worked with SES pupils doing maintenance such as painting the Schools properties, they would certainly agree with you that they were not very efficient in their work. I personally would not let them near my house because I know I would have to clean u...

The best non-duality book I've read is by Jac O'Keeffe. This Irish colleen may lead the reader to the state of stillness, harmony and peace. Check out her website http://www.jackieokeeffe.com . Her smile tells the seeker where she is at, and she offers clear pointers to that which lies beyond the mi...

The interesting thing was that when the Mavro's were kicked out of the SOP because people were no longer going to put up with them, they simply started another school under the name of the School of Self Knowledge. And some intellectually challenged people from the School of Philosophy followed them...

It may sound silly now but at the time all the work was done as service to the absolute. By putting school first in all our activities we were overcoming our own personal desires and working for humanity and and the world. The reality was that instead of following our own personal desires we were no...

Ah yes I remember those Mt Wilson leeches well! Before we got the Luna Park shed we used to sleep in a big circus type tent and after a hard day in the bush you could hardly crawl into your sleeping bag at night. The smokers in the group did us all a favour by burning off the leeches on our arms and...