One session of papers presented at the annual conference of the Communal 
Studies Association was on ‘the end of community’ with three in depth papers 
given on three different communal groups. One of the groups was a 19th Century 
group something like our own in Fairfield and the others were of more secular 
communal groups of the earlier 20th Century and late 19th. 

 The commonality in their three narratives was what came as diffusion of their 
core values in time as there came along arrivals of newer outsiders in 
membership and fewer of generations born to the older founding generation would 
stay on in community. These trends were supplanting to founding generations 
then in time. Hence, the loss in perspective of foundational core communal 
values over time as those values came to not be so well spoken to (championed) 
or lived in these groups. 

 Evidently once core foundational values diminished in time within each group 
example there came in a mundane to the workload of sustaining ‘community’ as 
resources of energy and altruistic goodwill ebbed and dried. The cohesion of a 
communal ‘shakti’ generally went down, people leave, people stop coming.  Each 
group then arriving to point whence their assets of what had been built up to 
facilitate their core values are then auctioned off. The sale. 
 
 Within the examples in these papers was the group of Zoar separatists, 
something like our own in transcendentalism, seems something of a template for 
how it goes with spiritual practice groups as our own:  Diminution of the 
cheering of core values, administrative rigidity setting in, loss of people, 
loss of altruism towards the community, loss of donors, loss of critical mass, 
financial crisis, and finally an auction of assets attendant to the dispersal 
of community.  

 . Checklist:  
 “..something of a template 
 for how it goes with spiritual practice groups as our own:  
 Diminution in the cheering of core values, 
 administrative rigidity setting in, 
 loss of people, 
 loss of altruism towards the community, 
 loss of donors, 
 loss of critical mass, 
 financial crisis, 
 and finally an auction of assets attendant to the dispersal of community." 

 Eroding Core Values and Loss of Communal Critical Mass

 

 A long declining arc of the Dome meditation attendance numbers in what is the 
Fairfield, Ia. meditating community seems far along on this path.”

 ..
 Unseen, 
 for as large as our communal ‘artifacts’ here in meditating Fairfield appear 
to be, a tragedy which people coming from the outside will not be able to see 
is the collapse in aggregate numbers attending the communal group meditations 
inside the Domes.
 

 /

 A driving tour yesterday around meditating Fairfield again for a visitor, this 
time an old SRF (Yogananda) meditator visiting Fairfield.  
 The scale of our whole facility of communal meditating is remarkably stunning 
 when visitors get to see the whole scope of it. 
 It is fun to see and be with people when they 'get it'. 
 
 ..

  

 In TM community it is said: “The Past is a lesser state of evolution.”  But, 
financial planners warn cautioning us otherwise,  “Past performance is not a 
guarantee of future returns” .  Towards becoming something else like a historic 
site to visit, according to these histories evidently things may not look the 
same as what we may see now as community.


 Already we are hearing grumblings in TM from what is an elder International 
Council of Rajas that the Domes in Fairfield, Iowa are too expensive to 
maintain.  While at the same time the University being without endowment 
requires active and substantial donor cohorts every year to make budget for 
what all they should like to do to keep on.  With prospect in communal core 
values, the hopeful in re-developing community are constrained in reality by 
budget and human resource right now. The complexion of the core group that is 
remaining quite evidently is not what it once was in youth. May providential 
blessings from the superradiance in the Nature of the Unified Field support a 
magnanimous prosperity to our continued journey here in community.  
 Jai Guru Dev,   
 




 As related point of reference like this template shown of how groups like ours 
end, 
 Life-cycle within Communal Spiritual Groups
 See: 
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/communal-studies-forum/ChNcesJm1Cs 
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/communal-studies-forum/ChNcesJm1Cs

 

 Yep, the Dome group meditation attendance numbers in Fairfield seem are at 
catastrophic low levels.

 Srijau notes:  there is no adequate superradiance for America now that's 
obvious to everyone. a good pocket of good influence for Fairflield and some 
other pockets of good influence elsewhere where in some cities there is a lot 
of people doing TM
 

 
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote :

 The Loss of communal superradiance mass.. 
 There are mornings here more recently with only 160 meditating in the men’s 
Dome. 170 or 180 is common now in the mornings. Double that and roughly you get 
totals between the Men’s and Women’s Domes. Evenings are more typically 200, 
220 or 230 in the Men’s Dome.
 From the later 1980's and 1990’s and on to present there are old communal 
narratives about excluded memberships in group meditation and the attendant 
aggregate numbers.  Folks were actively separated by policy. Some withdrew, hid 
within the Dome, or have moved away taking their resources with them and now 
the reduced group is left inside. So it is. 
 

 

 
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote :

 So I was glad enough to get these people to the jaw-dropping point as to what 
is the scope of the facility that we have communally resourced and built up to 
facilitate meditating and group superradiance as a community. It is pretty 
stunning really when you see it. They got it.  
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote :

 

 email reply:  
Thanks Doug. Good work!  Coming here (to Fairfield, Iowa) is experiential. 
There is nothing like the glow or consciousness from an individual and the 
power of a community presence. That is the difference people feel when an 
intellectual concept meets real human transformation. It’s a powerful thing. I 
always admire those seekers that “get it” when they are in the midst of it. 
They were all beautiful people. Thanks for including me.

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote :

 The Scholars' Fairfield Tour   
 Thanks so much for helping with this. In a very limited amount of time it 
worked on them. They got it: the incredible scope and gravity of what we have 
here. It is way Utopian what we have here and from the tour they were bowled 
over by the scope of it.
 

 In the next couple of days over at the conference with them other attendees at 
the conference were coming up remarking having heard how great the tour of 
Fairfield was from those people who came over to Fairfield. 

 Incidentally, the guy who was of the founders of The Farm, back in the 1960’s 
to present, came to me the next day remarking he had ‘no idea’ of the size of 
it here. This guy lectures all over the world. The Auburn and the U. Kansas 
professors too. The others too. It worked. In a very short tour we got it to 
them. Bravo.
 

 Thanks for helping with it.
 

 Kind Regards,
 



 About this group:
 

 In the group I see there is a professor from U. of Kansas who for decades has 
written books or edited journals on intentional communities in America and 
elsewhere. Also author, lecturer and widely published, one of the early 
founders of The Farm in Tennessee and other interested academics visiting too. 
There is a chair of university humanities department also, etc., coming in the 
group. These are social scientists, historians and educators.  

 http://www.communalstudies. org/annualconference 
http://www.communalstudies.org/annualconference



 

 
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote :

 The Communal Studies Association.  
 http://www.communalstudies.org/ http://www.communalstudies.org/

 

 

 This year’s conference is being hosted nearby Fairfield. Over at Bishop Hill, 
a historic village in Illinois, Oct 5 & 6. 

 

 An annual scholarly conference w/ academics who study groups like ours. 
Intentional communities past and present. Historic or contemporary. 
 

 Typically the conference is two days of papers being delivered by social 
scientists, historians, historic preservationists. 

 

 People can come and attend for one day as they may wish. There is a whole 
program but the sessions with the papers can be attended without doing the 
whole conference.  
 

 There are categories for different level attendees. One day attendance is $65. 
Student and grad student rates too.. 
 Link:  http://www.communalstudies. org/registration-2018 
http://www.communalstudies.org/registration-2018
 

 Conference page:  http://www.communalstudies. org/annualconference 
http://www.communalstudies.org/annualconference
 

 This is my tenth year attending. I find most any of the papers presented to be 
interesting. I put the CSA conference on my calendar every year now. Because 
this year’s conference is so near at hand I would urge any scholarly types to 
come over and sit in, even for a day. 
 

 Kind Regards, 
 .
 

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote :


 Unseen, 
 for as large as our communal ‘artifacts’ here in meditating Fairfield appear 
to be, a tragedy which people coming from the outside will not be able to see 
is the collapse in aggregate numbers attending the communal group meditations 
inside the Domes.
 

Checklist:
 “..something of a template for how it goes with spiritual practice groups as 
our own:  Diminution of the cheering of core values, administrative rigidity 
setting in, loss of people, loss of altruism towards the community, loss of 
donors, loss of critical mass, financial crisis, and finally an auction of 
assets attendant to the dispersal of community." 

 A long declining arc of the Dome meditation attendance numbers in what is the 
Fairfield, Ia. meditating community seems far along on this path.”


























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