As Richard himself admitted in post #368186, nothing he says is to be taken seriously.
Especially this post. What it amounts to is Richard trying to tell as many lies as he can come up with. He seems to be in competition with Barry in this regard. This is the sort of thing that happens, BTW, when the kind of corruption I've been warning about is allowed to flourish by the rest of the community. Commitment to the truth is thrown to the winds, and there are no limits on the expression of deliberate untruth. I knew basically nothing about him, his silly posturing back in the day being long after my time in the TMO. So pretty much the only things I had to judge him by were his posts. And the posts, from Day One, were insane. Stark, raving bonkers. I don't think I've encountered a more classic example of abusive Narcissistic Personality Disorder in my life. Robin is one of those figures that is frequently mentioned in TM lore - the first fully enlightened man to come out of the TMO. Apparently Robin hired a helicopter to distribute leaflets over the MUM campus announcing his state of enlightenment to all the residents and students. There was a query posted years ago on Google Groups asking if anyone had heard anything about Robin, but there was no reply. So, he seemed to have dropped off the radar. As far as I can tell, Robin formed a group up in Canada for awhile, but it apparently blew up in his face. Ann would probably know more about this. Apparently Ann was under his spell for quite some time. According to what I've read, Robin became enamored with the Ayatollah Khomeini over in Iran, and wrote a half-dozen small booklets in praise of the cleric. That alone would lead any intelligent person to question Robin's state of mind. When that didn't pan out, as he expected, he joined the Catholic Church to become a priest. Then, for some reason we don't know, he came here after thirty years and started posting long messages about Catholicism. He was almost completely self-absorbed, and didn't seem to give a shit about the people he was supposedly conversing with (the "wall of words" being a classic example of both). And he was manipulative to the max. The more stories that came out about his past, and how manipulative and abusive he'd been as a minor cult leader, the more obvious it was that *nothing had changed*, and that he was still trying to run the same numbers on naive FFLers. So I wrote him off. I've spent far too much time with crazy, abusive people to want to spend any time conversing with another one. You may be correct about this - Robin seemed to be attempting to recruit some informants for his own use. He easily recruited Judy and Ann to help him form a new Robin cult. There was some resistance from you and I and from Steve, but he mostly ignored us and concentrated mainly on Judy and Ann, who seemed to be his main enablers. They probably looked like easy prey to Robin. Judy seemed to be really in thrall at his postings and engaged him on many levels, seemingly to encourage him in his recruiting efforts. That is, until he turned on her and exposed her in a long farewell message, which Judy took to be a spoof. The thing that surprised me, however, was how some people on FFL *fell for his act*. Some actually seemed to be able to plow through his narcissistic stuck-in-his-mind egobabble, and some seemed to actually like it. I wrote that off as, "There's simply no accounting for taste." Robin is a master manipulator that's fer sure. But, it's not a matter of taste - it's a clear case of mind control. We've seen this in several cases before, and nobody could see this more clearly than yourself. You seem to be a master yourself - at recognizing master manipulators. All those years of studying the tactics of mind controllers has really paid off in your case! But a few -- most notably Judy and Ann -- actually fell for his act enough to become *disciples*. They fawned over him like teenagers stalking a rock star, seemingly unaware that the only rock star Robin was the counterpart of was "Fat Elvis." I felt mainly embarrassed for these people, and fearful for what their failure to see how crazy he was said about what TM had done to them. The *lack* of discrimination was downright scary. This still remains the case. Just read some of the messages posted in Robin's defense by Judy and Ann. Apparently Ann is still in communication with Robin up to just a few days ago,via email exchanges. I wouldn't be surprised if Ann didn't invite Robin back over here to discuss his "spoof" message about Judy. He'll probably return any day to pick up where he left off. Go figure. *From my point of view*, Robin barely tolerated his groupies here. He almost never had any long conversations with either Judy or Ann, preferring to "save himself" for more classic NPD goals. He wanted to "win over" those he perceived as having some charisma or personal power, and "convert" *them* to become his admirers/disciples. Most of the time Robin seemed to be carrying on a conversation with himself and with a few comments thrown in from the peanut gallery. Mostly just soft comments, nothing that would really challenge his sophistry. Judy apparently thinks Robin was brilliant and Ann seemed to be still in his control most of the time. He didn't post anything I'd be interested in, like yoga or meditation or stuff. About the last thing I'd want to post comments on would be orthodox or even unorthodox Catholic doctrine. I can't think of anything more boring! But, it is remarkable how Robin sucked several of our informants into a long dialog about Saul's supposed experienc on the road to Damascus. At this he failed miserably, and they laughed at him. Not able to handle that, he switched over to Abuse Mode again, and tried the same act Judy has been running for years -- yell at people and insult and abuse them and accuse them of things *until* they respond by arguing with him. He failed at that, too, and then when Curtis blew him off and he realized how badly his act was bombing, he ran away and hid. Again. Curtis certainly made some valid refutations of Robin's spiritual views - but I could tell that Curtis was just not all that interested in what Robin had to say. Most of the conversation seemed to revolve around Judy and Vaj, with a few comments by Ann and Ravi. Another remarkable thing about this subject is that Curtis got drawn into the mind control attempt - even Curtis seemed to fall for the manipulation. Robin's is a master at drawing people into his orbit, even if they are opposed to his mind control efforts. Running away and hiding seems to be the only thing Robin Carlsen was ever good at. The very *idea* of anyone being "jealous" of Robin Carlsen just doesn't compute, if you any degree of perception going for you. How could someone possibly be jealous of a dangerously disturbed psychopath? I'm pointing this all out again for the benefit of possible newbie lurkers. Quite a few people on this forum thought Robin was crazy as a loon. Some of them knew him "back in the day," and agreed with my assessment that *nothing had changed*, and that he was as abusive and manipulative in the present as he was in the past. They made their views of him -- both past and present -- very clear. There' nothing quite like a cult leader scorned. Sometimes they will go to great lengths in order to recruit new members to the cult: flattery, threats, revisionism and ego reinforcement. The gullible are highly susceptible to these kinds of suggestibility - the quality of being inclined to accept and act on the suggestions of others. So don't fall for the sugar-coated fantasies of him trotted out by his remaining two cult groupies here. They're still trying to find some way to justify why they glommed on to and defended a psychopath, and to put down the much larger number of posters who figured out he was one within a few days of his arrival on the forum. Usually, suggestibility decreases as a persons age increases. But, sometimes an individuals levels of self-esteem, if very low, can make them even more susceptible to suggestion. Psychologists call this a "spectrum of suggestibility" which can last for decades or longer. When confronted with the reality of their condition, these types of people often resort to lashing out in order to defend their cult leader. Go figure.
