Ann went to the newspaper to expose me as a cult leader. She wrote a stinging letter to me after I had attempted (1991) to apologize for my behaviour--I wrote to each person within the cult (as Bill Howell comments upon in his book). She thought me to be lying in my sincerity.
She has said things to you personally, and on this website which would indicate her perspective on Robin Carlsen has altered over time. She has even commented on the book before deciding to reread it. The point is not what you would have it, Lord Knows: the point is: is Ann Woelfle Bater's point of view on Robin Carlsen at this time valid, existentially honest, true--and at least as meaningful to her as the point of view she had when she was exiled as an "evil being" and spilled her story to the newspaper in Victoria? She opposed me, despised me as much as anyone has--at a particular point in her life; and she sent that personal letter to me (which I still have somewhere) dismissing my sincerity in those letters--she was adamant about refusing to grant me any good faith in my actions at that time. She learned during a funeral in Victoria that I was posting on FFL. She posted. I wrote her a personal letter of thanks, since what she said there, although not contradicting in the main any of her actions against me in the past, exhibited a kind of sophistication and mercifulness that had allowed her to view me with more of a mixture of feelings. In our correspondence she proved to me that she knew me as the person Robin quite independently of the mask of the enlightened man--and she made comments to this effect, proving, to my surprise, that she had not entirely lost sight of something about me which remained true for her despite the grave actions she had taken in her attempt to shut down the cult. It is not a question of simple moral calculus here, Lord Knows. What you and Bill Howell have to take on is the person Anne Woelfe Bater as she lives her life at this time--and to determine whether in modifying her position regarding Robin Carlsen she has in effect betrayed a level of truthfulness for which she felt accountable when she endorsed Bill's book. The point, Lord Knows, is that you have already learned of Ann's position vis-a-vis Robin Carlsen. Bill making this book available does not change anything on the ground in your relationship with her. If in principle she was expressing sentiments which you deemed morally and psychologically inconsistent with her testimony in the past, you surely would have raised this with her in your many conversations with her before now. The availability of Bill's book does not alter things simply on the basis of what it says about me, nor that Ann in the past actually contributed to and concurred with what was said in that book. If you truly sense that Ann has traduced herself--or that she is somehow being deceitful or hypocritical in what she has already said about that book, or what she may say about that book, then it is your own responsibility to raise this matter with her. You would make Ann a liar then with the dissemination of this book? Ann is fearless and honest and she will tell the truth. As she experiences it as deeply as she can at this point in her life. She will not flinch in her remembrance of all that was so terribly wrong in the past--nor the wounds that remain. But for you to make her behaviour in the past (and what it implied about her judgment of me) invalidate the veracity of her present judgment of Robin Carlsen--that is something which can't work here, Lord Knows. I have not attempted to challenge the facts or incidents Bill Howell describes in his book--not that my memory agrees with his narration; I doubt Ann will do this either. But the whole point here, Lord Knows is: Does Bill's book capture the person Robin Carlsen in some definitive way that would make his portrait there an objective judgment of the person he is now--or even the person he was then. I am confident that Ann, should she read the book, will come to her own autonomous conclusions in regard to both of these questions. I am not expecting her to adhere to my own point of view as she once adhered to Bill's point of view. But I think she must be given the freedom to express her judgment of the book's relevance to 1. the truth of what actually was going on in those three years in some fundamental sense, and 2.the truth of Bill's portrayal of the cult leader as he existed 26 years ago, and as he exists now in November of 2012. Ii do not fear her judgment of those years, nor her judgment of me. She is extremely thoughtful and even profound in her judgments about people, about is true for her, about what life means for her. I am sure she will make an honest and searching judgment of the book as she finds its application to both her experience at that time, her experience now, and her perspective on her experiences then--from the vantage point of the person she presently is. She has already done this numerous times on FFL. Her judgment will not affect my own judgment of the book, however. Let us just see what she does, and then you can determine whether she is being true to her conscience, her past history, and her sense of what counts for her now. I don't think Ann could countenance any falsification of either her experience or her beliefs. Are you warning her that she faces some kind of tribunal of justice here? She can say and write whatever she wants to say or write. You will know that in the example of her you have something which does not go to proving the case that Bill Howell has made in his book--Else you must call her a liar--and her characterization of her past with me during the time described in that book (as viewed in the present) a deliberate and culpable act of treason--to herself, to Bill, to all of her friends whom she loves so deeply. You want a public lynching, Lord Knows. But what is at stake here is something much more important: What is the final truth of those Ten Years--and what is the way that time should be viewed in the present? And is Robin Carlsen who Bill Howell would say he always will be even in this moment? Let's just see what Ann ways--if indeed she says anything beyond what she has already said here on FFL. Where it is apparent she looks upon me in quite a different light than Bill Howell does, than you do, and than the book CULT would have me be. I am not, by the way, the person depicted in that book. Ann will do what she does heedless of anything but her own conscience, Lord Knows. And you already know this. --- In [email protected], "lordknows888" <lordknows888@...> wrote: > > Robin, > You have put Ann in a very difficult position; she can not possibly > truthfully agree with your judgement on the book "Cult" as being > essentially false. She read the book years ago and added whatever > comments and/or corrections to William at that time. She did not object > to his essential portrayal of the cult experience in the book at that > time,and she can not very well go back on what she stated then and now > state, so many years later, that the book is essentially false. Even > more personally, I can not imagine that Ann could look William or myself > in the eye and tell us that this book is a lie, that it does not > represent our very real essential experience of the cult. > Lord Knows >
