"The truth will set you free"

April 16, 2002
By a former long-term member of the school

A great reversal has taken place and you are not even aware of it. You believe that your happiness and well-being is derived mostly, if not entirely, through obedience to a more conscious being. Consider, that you know very little about her, really. And consider, it is actually she who derives her well-being from your suffering and labor.

What if Sharon gave a class and nobody came?

What if there were no "sustaining reports," awaiting her and her closest assistants? What if there was no dinner? No flowers? No little snacks? Think. What would she do then? How would she display her powers without you? Now think some more. What could you do with the rest of your life?

Perhaps the last question is quite frightening. That is, life without school.

I have gone through that transition and thank heaven daily that I did. I am convinced that what kept me in school for many years was willful ignorance (no forbidden books, no newspapers, no Internet etc.), suggestibility (well-wielded by those in authority), wishful thinking (makes me ashamed how much), and being the victim of a rather effective method of strategic intimacy that rendered me sheepish. At times even worm-like. And some magician convinced me I was otherwise.

And I know, that most if not all of the people still there are not too different from me. I became involved to become free. To conduct an inquiry into the truth.To learn how to practice what my religion tells me I must do. And I did. At first. Then, the great reversal took place. I became enslaved alongside all of the other students. I learned to pervert the truth, mostly by keeping silent out of fear, alongside everyone else. And the system came to be collectively treated like a religion unto itself. It developed its own group of high priests and priestesses to whom, along with everyone else there, I gave authority to mediate communication: With the Divine. With the world. With my spouse. With my children. With my bosses. With my parents. With my oldest and dearest friends. With my brothers and sisters. With almost every stranger I ever met. And even with other students. So much so, that now this posted letter is my only way to communicate with members of my former class and school.

I remember an odd little anecdote once shared within my school about the "Yezidis," which appears in "In Search." They were a people who, if you drew a circle around them, could not get out. Unless someone made a gap in that circle. Now I realize that this story explains my former school and classmates. Perhaps this letter will help to make a gap in their circle now.

My hope is that others still within my former school will be open to questions. Questions cannot harm anyone. A truly religious person questions everything, according to Tolstoy.

Here are some questions you may have forgotten to ask. Perhaps you were even taught not to ask such questions. See if they have any relevance. See if you can answer these questions for yourself. See if you can truly conduct an inquiry into the truth. Because, the truth will set you free.

See More Questions for Students at the Gans School