A Fourth Way School and Disputed Accounts of Control

The Fellowship of Friends is a group founded in California in 1970 by Robert Earl Burton, teaching a version of the Fourth Way, the esoteric system derived from the early twentieth-century teachers G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky. Its central aim, in Fourth Way terms, is the awakening of a higher consciousness through "self-remembering" and the overcoming of mechanical, sleeping habit; the Fellowship has placed particular emphasis on the cultivation of fine art, classical music, and refined taste as aids to this awakening, and its northern-California property became known for its collections and vineyards.

The group has drawn outside attention and criticism chiefly through the accounts of former members and litigation, some of which alleged that Burton exercised improper control and made sexual demands of male followers, allegations he and the Fellowship have contested, and which have been aired largely through civil disputes and journalism rather than resulting in criminal findings. The Fellowship continues as an organization. It is frequently cited in discussions of the Fourth Way's many offshoots and of the general difficulty of evaluating a living group when the principal critical evidence comes from former members and unproven civil claims; readers should weigh those accounts accordingly.