That is correct. My bad, and my most humble apologies to Barry. I only read the one paragraph, and since Barry demonizes both Ravi and Robin in very similar terms, I assumed he was referring to Robin.
However, my distinct recollection is that in at least one of Robin's posts he either mentioned or implied very strongly that he had considered suicide. He didn't use that term, but that isn't the only way to convey the idea. I know that when he mentioned it to me privately, it wasn't anything I was learning for the first time. And in fact, if I had thought it was only a private confidence, I would never have mentioned it publicly. Now I wonder whether Xeno wants to address Barry's ooooooopsie! about never reading my posts. In fact, while I'm grateful to Xeno for finding my mistake, I'm wondering whether he ever checks up on Barry's claims. I'm guessing it's only mine he checks out. That December 9, 2011 post by Barry is discussing suicide in relation to Ravi, not Robin. Robin, as maskedzebra, was also a part of the thread. My comment here is only in relation to this one item in this post. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote: This post is a superb example of why I said it really sucks to be Barry. Either he believes the delusional crap he wrote, or he knows it's crap but stupidly expects others to believe it. I'm going to start with a particularly embarrassing Barry-goof. He writes, "According to Judy, he told her he was 'near suicide' several times; does anyone suspect that he didn't tell that to anyone else because he perceived that as *her* weakness and samskara, and was 'tailoring' his spiel to her to make her feel 'special?'" Barry, in a post of December 9, 2011: "I don't think he was in any way faking the excesses of his early days on this forum, and how close he was to the ragged edge of insanity or suicide." IOW, Robin told us all right from the start that after his cult's collapse, he had been "near suicide." So much for his not telling anybody else but "tailoring his spiel" in private to me to make me "feel 'special.'" The rest of this post of Barry's is similarly preposterous and wildly illogical. The idea that Robin gave "different stories" to Ann and me is ludicrous. He never told us anything different from what he said in his posts to everyone on FFL, and the public "story" he told about himself here was rock-solid consistent.(*) And it wasn't just "a few emails." I was in near-constant communication with him starting at the end of December 2011 throughout his tenure here and beyond, including the periods when he wasn't posting. (Ann and I were in near-constant communication with each other as well. If he had told us different things, we'd have known it.) Pretty difficult for a person to "fabricate in the moment" and still be entirely consistent between two people privately and the membership of FFL publicly. No "cult indoctrination/recruitment" went on in his emails with Ann and me. What a stupid thing to propose. Robin had left his cult-leader days far behind (Ann herself had been the one to bust him publicly at the end of that period). And sorry, Barry, but it's entirely possible to have a genuine relationship with a person via email. However, Ann has been explicit that even with their emails and her personal experience with him 30 years ago, she only knows about 10 percent of him. I know somewhat more about the Robin of today because we exchanged more emails, but there's more of him to be known than any one person could fathom (with the possible exception of his best friend, who has been in constant "live" contact with him since his cult-leader days). Ann and I knew him better than the rest of the folks on FFL, but that's the case with anyone who has extensive email communication with another forum member. There are several FFL members with whom I've exchanged emails whom I know more about than the rest of FFL, and I suspect the same is true of Ann. Not a thing "cultish" about it. And neither Ann nor I would dream of saying "only we really know him." Neither Ann nor I think of his "beliefs and theories" as "oh-so-fabulous." We're both quite skeptical of many of them. Again, Barry makes the dumb mistake of confusing "X says..." with "What X says is true." Barry can't even get Robin's name right. His middle name is Woodsworth, not Woolworth's (apostrophe "s" sic). I could go on, but this should be enough to clue in anyone here who's inclined to give credence to anything Barry says about Robin (or Ann or me, for that matter). Why is Barry so fanatically obsessed with Robin nine months after he left FFL for good? IMHO, it's because Barry realizes deep down that Robin is about 10 times the person Barry is: smarter, funnier, vastly more interesting and insightful than Barry could ever dream of being. And I'll do a little more speculating: I think Barry's "friendship" with the therapist who specialized in NPD was in fact in the context of a therapeutic relationship: the therapist was treating Barry for NPD (obviously unsuccessfully). Goodness knows this current post bears all the hallmarks. Talk about making it up as he goes along! (*) The one exception was the whole business about Robin having "struck his students." Initially, Robin denied having done so, but the denial was Clintonesque. As he later said, he didn't deny the truth, he denied what he was accused of--having struck his students during seminars. He confessed at considerable length in January 2012 to having done so in private, residental gatherings early in the days of his cult, before he ever gave any seminars. Further, Ann (who is supposedly "near-psychotically" devoted to Robin) recalled one incident during a seminar in which a participant was apparently struck (LordKnows later confirmed this). Robin had genuinely forgotten the incident, blocked it from his mind because it was so painful. But he didn't contest Ann's recollection. I might also note that Robin's "story" of his cult days was unsparing in its self-denunciation of how badly he'd behaved and how many people he'd hurt, hardly the sort of thing one would make a major point of--and repeat many times--if one were attempting to recruit new cult followers. He was tougher on himself than anyone else here. Glad to hear it...I think it's an interesting series. Naturally, given the three-year tutelage I spent talking with my psychiatrist friend in Santa Fe who used to specialize in NPD (before he gave it up, experience having taught him that the disorder was untreatable), I think the series kinda nails it. Also naturally, I see some strong parallels between the TV show and what's going on lately on Fairfield Life. My friend understood immediately my interest in his former specialty, and spend considerable time talking with me and giving me textbooks to read about NPD, so that we could discuss my particular interest -- NPD and how it relates to the "spiritual teacher" or "faux spiritual teacher." They were great discussions, and I learned much from them. Now, of course, the Joe Carroll character in "The Following" is not a one-to-one match for Robin Carlsen (or Rama, or any of the other NPD-impaired teachers we discussed). Joe is a true psychopath, one who has allowed such free rein to his NPD that he's become a mass murderer. But it's all three of their *tactics* when dealing with their followers that interests me, and in which I see a strong parallel. The person with NPD doesn't *have* a fixed history or "story." He or she *makes it up as they go along*. They *tailor* what they say to what the follower or prospective follower wants to hear, telling them things "that they can't tell anyone else," making them feel "special," as if "no one really understands them" the way that the person being talked or written to does. Many people -- desperate for attention and "specialness" -- fall for this routine, and actually *believe* the stories being told to them. But none of them are true. They're just tactics to get -- and keep -- another person "in their fold" and on the hook. Now that it's finally been revealed that Robin conducted his cult indoctrination/recruitment number not only in public on FFL but individually (via "private email"), isn't it easier to understand Judy and Ann's near-psychotic devotion to him? Chances are in each of those emails he "tailored" what he said to each of them differently, playing off of each of their weaknesses and needs to make them feel "special," and thus cause them to develop an allegiance with him. According to Judy, he told her he was "near suicide" several times; does anyone suspect that he didn't tell that to anyone else because he perceived that as *her* weakness and samskara, and was "tailoring" his spiel to her to make her feel "special?" And, of course, it worked. He probably told different things to Ann to get *her* to feel just as "devoted." The thing about Narcissistic Personality Disorder -- ironically, given Judy's hangup about lies and truth -- is that the truly NPD-afflicted personality is *incapable* of "truth." EVERYTHING they say is a lie, fabricated in the moment to "tailor" their spiel to the perceived target they're trying to make feel "special." Judy is an "easy mark." There has never been a person who CARES more about what other people think of her on FFL than Judy Stein. Almost *all* of her posts are about trying to force other people to see her the way that she sees herself. In other words, she's budding NPD herself. Ann has more than a little attention-seeking driving her as well, so she became another "easy mark," even though *her own past history* with the guy should have tipped her off as to how meaningless anything he says to her really is. This is really my only interest in Robin Woolworth's Carlsen. Given my tutelage in NPD, its symptoms, and its unique ways of acting itself out, I nailed him as NPD from his first "wall of words" solipsistic posts. Had it not been for their weaknesses -- trying to find an "ally" in their silly "war" against their "enemies" here on FFL -- Judy and Ann might have seen these traits as well. But they didn't. Instead, they became followers. And they still are. Between the two of them, they have made 182 posts this "posting week," in just over 72 hours, all but a few of them about Robin Carlsen -- trying to "defend" him, trying to "explain" his oh-so-fabulous beliefs and theories, trying to "get" those who don't like him and somehow get other people on the forum to discount what they say. I call this cult behavior, and more specifically, behavior generated as the result of being "played" by a person suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Judy and Ann are the *victims* here, and as such (and as human beings) deserve our pity. Their *methods*, however, deserve to be pointed out and either made fun of or questioned. They *really can't see* how far gone they are into these Robin fantasies they try to share with us. Both of them seem to imagine actual *relationships* with this guy, based on a few chat posts and emails. One of these women never met the guy, and the other hasn't seen him in 30 years, but they've been convinced by his NPD spiel that "only they really know him." Sad, sad, sad.
