There are two topics, then, in this week's waylaid roundup: The Gafni Imbroglio & The Salzberg Sham.
The Gafni Imbroglio
Controversies stemming from inappropriate sexual conduct by Rabbi Marc Gafni, a charismatic frequent Integral teacher and close personal friend of Ken Wilber, roiled the Integral blogosphere this week.
Ken Wilber, writing on May 15 in the multi-blog, KenWilberBlog at his webspace, offered a sketchy overview of the impropriaties, his thinking, and what he hoped would be the next steps.
Three women at Bayit Chadash, a spiritual community in Israel, founded and headed by Gafni, filed complaints of sexual misconduct with the police. A fourth woman associated with a community where Gafni had previously worked, also put forward testimony of sexual misconduct.
An investigative group at Bayit Chadash was convinced of the veracity and gravity of the complaints and was adamantine that Gafni must sever his association with Bayit Chadash, saying the group members themselves would resign from the organization unless Gafni left voluntarily or was removed.
[Subsequent news reports tell us that Gafni fled Isreal before he could be charged for any crime. He is reported now to be in the Denver area where Wilber resides.]
In his blog post, Wilber offered a ten-point list of his conclusions re the situation. Wilber agreed with Gafni’s self-assessment that he suffers from an illness – or some sort of pathology. Wilber put together a plan for extensive therapeutic work and oversight of this aid to help or cure Gafni. Wilber determined that Gafni should continue to write, but would not be allowed to teach at the Integral Institute “at this time.” Wilber wrote harshly of critics of Gafni and had little to say of the victims of Gafni’s misconduct.
Bill of Integral Options Café was at first persuaded by Wilber’s assessment and plan forward, but by the next day, after reading others’ blogs, his thinking had changed. He wrote, “Matthew Dallman was especially hard on Wilber, and as much as it pains me to say so, I think MD is right to a certain extent.”
Dallman, who blogs The Daily Goose, wrote, “I find [Wilber’s post] neither balanced nor compassionate. I find it obnoxious and a thinly-veiled attempt to cover his ass as well as make him and his outfit [Integral Institute] look better.” And later… “This whole thing reeks of narcissism, self-importance, and grandiosity, typical of 70s-style spiritual/sexual revivalism of the American New Age.” [It should be noted that Dallman is a disgruntled former employee of Integral Institute's Integral University.]
Tuff Ghost of Vomiting Confetti wrote five times on the Gafni situation, and proved to be highly analytical and persuasive with thoughts and commentary that gathered support from others and seemed to reflection the gathering opinion of the Integral blogosphere. He wrote this in reaction to Wilber’s post:
…a lot of the criticism of Gafni (about the initial allegations and otherwise) was made by Jewish sexual abuse support groups and neo-orthodox critics of Jewish renewal (for example, Luke Ford). Hardly the 'mgm' at work. [Wilber wrote that the accusations against Gafni had "caused something of a feeding frenzy for the mean green meme, which is understandable but I believe inexcusable. Frankly, some of these have reached pathetic portions." [The mean green meme ("mgm") is a thinking pattern that is attached to explaining the world as filled with all-good victims pounced upon by completely evil victimizers.] Of course, Wilber could be referring to other reactions, but I've been unable to find anything that looks or smells like an mgm reaction to the charges against Gafni. ... the fact that Gafni has admitted to a problem now doesn't mean that past accusations are true, it does, however, raise plenty of red flags ... I don't even think the most virulent of these responses could be called pathetic, in light of the circumstantial evidence.ebuddha in his Integral Practices blog wrote to suggest that a formal Code of Ethics be adopted for spiritual teachers, likening it to the Code of Ethics signed off on by therapists. He, then, posted a big chunk of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors Code of Ethics, which calls for integrity by the professional and that he/she maintain a proper relationship with each client.
…
... I think there's something problematic about the assertion that whilst Gafni is unfit to teach, he's still fit to continue writing. …The problem with this assertion is that there is such a close connection between the subject of Gafni's writing and the problem he has admitted to. He is known for writing and teaching about divine eroticism, tantra and the like.
[And later in his post, re the expanding discussion of troubled teachers and Wilber’s association with several of them …]
It all seems to be part of a wider problem, the inability to properly assess or deal with charismastic spiritual leaders. There's the whole business with Andrew Cohen [publisher of What is Enlightenment? Magazine] and the way allegations against him have been almost completely ignored … Again, not that I-I [Integral Institute] has to spend every waking minute answering every individual criticism that is posted on the internet (an impossible task) but when the same questions keep coming up, surely it wouldn't take much to properly and thoroughly address them? It's not enough to make reference to the fact that some spiritual teachers are advanced in one area and deficient in another (no shit!), but what does that mean for new spiritual movements in particular? Why is it happening to so many teachers who are familiar with Wilber's work and should be able to click to their own unbalanced psychograph? what other factors are in play? Da, Cohen, Trungpa, Gafni....
Following from the idea of a code, Tuff Ghost was particularly praise-giving of a quote ebuddha posted from a book by Geoffry Falk:
Only three things are really needed in order to begin creating a closed, toxic environment—whether that be a “cult,” a bad marriage, a prison or a dictatorship. And those are (i) a significant power differential between the leaders and their followers, (ii) a lack of checks and balances on the leaders to keep them from abusing their existing power and grabbing for more, and (iii) sufficient psychological, financial and/or physical (e.g., locks and bars) constraints to keep the mistreated followers from simply leaving. The increasingly “cult-like” nature of the environment will then follow straightforward, simply via the presence of basic human psychology in both the leaders/guards and their followers/prisoners.Jay, The Pagan Bodhisattva, demurred from ebuddha's idea, writing, “…the idea of a spiritual teacher bound by a ‘code of ethics’ is about as appealing as an artist whose works conform to a ‘manifesto.’”
But from the comment thread, and in a follow-up post the issue of tying a spiritual teacher to a code as opposed to freeing a teacher to confront and challenge his/her students was explored. Too, the matter of how a teacher without institutional constraints can be restrained from abusing power was examined.
Ryan of Integral Awakening explains why a properly constructed and administered Code of Ethics might be possible. There are some stark abuse-of-power situations that can easily be identified as unethical. However, situations are likely to occur where a teacher believes he is utilizing skillful means that others interpret as abusive. Understanding these gray-area situations through the prism of a rule-riddled code hold the potential of being counterproductive.
ebuddha also posted in Integral Practice more specifically on the Cohen problem/connection which, with its comment thread, is encyclopedic with factoids, observations, interesting connections and prime, reliable gossip.
~C4Chaos, in his eponymous blog, explained his position on Cohen and at the end of his post expressed his agreement with Jay, The Pagan Bodhisattva, on the Gafni imbroglio. In Jay’s words: “My heart goes out for the suffering inflicted on the victims of Gafni’s behavior. But I can’t help but feel Gafni’s suffering as well.”
'polgies that my reporting is deficient here, with the timeline a bit kaflooey and important points and posts left out, but this section does provide a bit of an overview of how the major discussion this week in the Integral blogging world has been flowing.
The Salzberg Sham
In the sole post Sharon Salzberg has put up in her TricycleBlog, dated 4/12/06, she celebrates herself and her achievement in founding the Insight Meditation Society. Her post is titled "Thirty Years and Just a Dream." Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstien who were there, too, don’t get a mention. But who knows, maybe Sharon really did it all herself.
Curious thing. In the Winter 2004 issue of Tricycle there is an article celebrating thirty years of teaching by the troika of Kornfield, Salzberg and Goldstein of IMS. You can barely see on the small picture of the cover that the article is mentioned [the third bulletted item]. The cover blurb reads:Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg &It makes you wonder how long Sharon intends to have this 30th Year celebration, or if, perhaps, her blog post is just some old yellow thing she pulled out of the back of her files.
Jack Kornfield on 30 Years of Teaching
Perhaps the text of her blog post is as old as the picture that accompanies it. We know the picture is old since a more-current picture of her appears in the Winter 2004 Tricycle [page 42], where she is enormous. Perhaps she was ill or just very, very hungry, but she must weigh 250 pounds; she is practically spherical.
Shame, shame, shame on Salzberg and the Tricycle editors for foisting crap on we readers in the form of some old, deficient bit of text. It is not sufficient to differenciate the Winter 04 thirty years as the anniversary when teaching began and the Spring 06 thirtieth anniversary dating from the start of IMS. This is self-congratulation gone amok!
Another thing that is interesting: The first commenter to Salzberg’s post is super kiss-ass. The first line reads, “An evocative, tender, and resonant comment on life, Sharon!” One might suppose that it is written by a bubbly fan. It is signed by Lila and the commenter is identified by Tricycle as LWheeler. It turns out that the name “Kate Lila Wheeler” appears on a class schedule for the Barre Center [IMS] as a new teacher. Funny thing.
Ironic thing: Salzberg is listed on the schedule as teaching a class called The Power of Right Speech.
