LETTER  TO  ROBERT  WALTER  MP

This epistle to a British Member of Parliament was composed by Kevin R. D. Shepherd in November 2008. The content describes various anomalies represented by the Findhorn Foundation. The epistle was written in counter to a very misleading letter from the Findhorn Foundation Director Bettina Jespersen. The Jespersen letter is part of a significant correspondence with British solicitors that is reproduced in article 2 on this website entitled Kate Thomas and Findhorn Foundation.

CONTENTS  KEY
1.        Tyrannical  Officials  in  the  Findhorn  Foundation
2.        Significant  Dissidents
3.        The  Abortive  Reconciliation  Meeting
4.        The  Critical  Corpus  and  Evasion
5.        Communications  to  Public  Officials  and  Bodies
6.        A  Relevant  File  Unknown  to  the  Findhorn  Foundation
7.        Angus  Robertson  MP
8.        The  Findhorn  Foundation Trustees
9.        When  The  Vital  Issue  Was  Closed
10.      Commercial  Sentiments   and   Actual   Reality
11.      The  Unmerited  Stigma  Continues
12.      Suppression  of  Dissident  Account  Involved  Aggression
13.      UNESCO   and   the  DPI
14.      The  Chairman  of  FAIR
15.      Not  To  Be  So  Easily  Discounted
16.      Janice  Dolley  and   David  Lorimer
17.      Foundation  Trustee   in  Defence  of  Illegal  Drugs
18.      Pro-LSD  Versus  Anti-LSD
19.      Dismissal  of  Dialogue  and  Convergence  with  the  SMN

Introduction
 
Robert Walter, the Conservative MP for North Dorset, was one of those politicians who responded to the 2006 circulars of  Kevin R. D. Shepherd. At a later date, in 2008, he interviewed his constituent Kate Thomas (Jean Shepherd). Walter agreed that her complaint about the Findhorn Foundation merited due attention. On her behalf, Robert Walter contacted both UNESCO and the Findhorn Foundation, evoking a brief response from the former. More difficulty was encountered with the latter organisation, who were very slow to reply. Statements from the Findhorn Foundation proved unconvincing.

The letter to Robert Walter, from Kevin R. D. Shepherd, is reproduced below. This letter, dated 27/11/2008, was composed by way of commentary on a recent and inadequate response to Robert Walter from Bettina Jespersen, the Findhorn Foundation Director. See further articles 2 and 3.7 on this website, meaning Kate Thomas and Findhorn Foundation Problems. The letter from Jespersen is reproduced at Inaccurate Response.

LETTER  TO  ROBERT  WALTER  MP  ON  THE  FINDHORN  FOUNDATION

Dear  Robert  Walter  MP,

RE  FINDHORN  FOUNDATION

My mother Jean Shepherd has asked me to reply to your kind covering letter of 21/11/2008 along with the enclosed response from Bettina Jespersen (Findhorn Foundation Director) dated 18/11/2008. This is because I am closely acquainted with the documentation and events involved.

The response from the Findhorn Foundation to yourself is very misleading and basically deficient in the coverage of relevant events. I here propose to list the contradictions and undisclosed complexities which you may find helpful for future reference:

1.   Tyrannical  Officials  in  the  Findhorn  Foundation

There is indeed an extensive correspondence dating back to 1988.  Yet Jespersen misleadingly states that “several attempts were made on both sides to resolve the situation.” Many attempts at reconciliation were made by my mother (Jean Shepherd, alias Kate Thomas), but the resistance from the Foundation staff was extreme, especially the Director Judy Buhler-McAllister, who was in office for several years during the 1990s. That former Director arbitrarily expelled my mother from Open Community membership in January 1994. This was a drastic form of suppression, occurring in defiance of the legitimate concern about another woman who had been harassed by Foundation staff (and who had needed medical attention as a consequence).

An accomplice to this tyrannical  measure was  Eric Franciscus, the influential head of “Education” at the Foundation. An extant tape recording, dating to March 1994, is confirmation of the extremist tactic. The tape recording was made at a cafe in Forres, and profiles a conversation between Franciscus and my mother. That dictatorial official would only consent to see her once, and in a public place, not within the Foundation precincts from which she was arbitrarily banned by him.

This was deliberate segregation for dubious reasons, with Franciscus contriving behind her back a stigma which she was unable to openly confront because of management tactics. His attitude does not fit rational standards. Franciscus was the major source of the distorted profile of my mother that became current within the Findhorn Foundation. It was this man who had formerly blocked her associate membership.

2.    Significant   Dissidents

Much of the earlier correspondence is detailed in the book by Stephen Castro that was published at Forres in 1996. The volume was entitled Hypocrisy and Dissent within the Findhorn Foundation. The response of the Foundation staff to this book was irrational and proscribing. The content was unofficially banned by them. That book depicted in detail the events of preceding years concerning my mother and other dissidents and victims of the Foundation.

Jill  Rathbone

One of those victims, Jill Rathbone, was successful in a legal action against the Moray Steiner School, who were in such close collaboration with the Foundation that they had excluded Rathbone from her rightful post in their establishment due to the hostile intrigue of the Foundation staff. The sole reason for the intrigue was that  schoolteacher Jill  Rathbone was a friend of my mother and vouched for the latter’s integrity. 

Stephen J. Castro was a disillusioned ex-member of the Foundation. He produced an annotated and indexed book that has since proved of substantial use to academic and other investigators. He eventually became a civil servant with the Inland Revenue. His book has been endorsed by a favourable review in the ICSA  journal of international renown. This despite the ignoble attempt of the Foundation management to snub that book on the  internet as being unworthy of review.

3.   The  Abortive  Reconciliation  Meeting

The only two members of the Foundation who made any serious attempt to conciliate with my mother were the late Jeremy Slocombe and Ken Hills (a Trustee). Their concessions were made after the Castro book was published. Slocombe proved superficial, being more concerned about political repercussions of the adverse publicity gained by the Foundation in the press. Hills was more consistent, but betrayed his own sense of scruple in January 1999, when an abortive event officially known as the “complaints and reconciliation meeting” entailed the categorical blacklisting of three dissidents who were present with the collaboration of Hills.

The accusations of the Foundation official  in charge were based on new age beliefs about “energies.” The “energies” of dissidents were depicted as hopelessly negative. The criteria for indictment were preposterous. Hills backed down and remained silent, being in fear of management disapproval.

This event involved the unrelenting stigma of a distressed woman who had years earlier been victimised by Eric Franciscus for daring to speak out about the injustice perpetrated against my mother. The revealing event of Jan. 1999 has been described in a published book (Shepherd, Pointed Observations, 2005, pp. 183-9) and on a website (Reconciliation  Mockery).

4.   The  Critical  Corpus  and  Evasion

In addition to the correspondence file and 1994 tape recording, there are also related documents, published books, and website materials. The Findhorn Foundation have customarily ignored this corpus, and have instead preferred to adopt an evasive policy for nearly twenty years. At the end of the 1990s, my mother’s health suffered because of Foundation hostility, and she moved south from Forres to Dorset.

In 2001, she was misled by a telephone conversation with Foundation staff to believe that all would be well if she visited them once more.  Despite warnings from others, she was prepared to believe this message, only to find upon arrival that there was no goodwill, instead continuing hostility and indifference. She became ill and returned home after a week (Shepherd, Pointed Observations, 2005, pp. 180ff).

Her efforts at reconciliation were further rewarded by what has been viewed as a diabolical gesture of the Foundation management in 2002. That year they chose to mount an internet endorsement of a very hostile report by one of their zealous supporters, namely Bill Metcalf. The Castro book was declared by Metcalf to be unworthy of review. My mother was denigrated as a troublemaker and also mistakenly described as an “ex-housemate.” This libel was never corrected. The misapprehension has furthermore been appropriated by an extremist sectarian [Gerald Joe Moreno] in America connected with the controversial guru Sathya Sai Baba. The Findhorn Foundation are responsible for serious misrepresentations, and have complicated their position to an appreciable extent.

5.    Communications  to  Public  Officials  and  Bodies

The Jespersen letter to yourself evidences a major inaccuracy in the second paragraph. She there says that my mother has written to many public officials and bodies. It was not primarily my mother who was involved in that capacity, but myself. The sole exception was the Letter of Kate Thomas to UNESCO  (see 11 below).

Furthermore, Jespersen gives the impression that 2004 was the endpoint in these matters, whereas in fact they commenced in 2006. Her brief and erroneous five line account of those occurrences can, to  say the least, be strongly faulted. She does not refer to any documents, and gives the impression that “others may have chosen not to respond after an initial assessment of the situation." The truth may eventually win over the misrepresentation. Amongst the documents I composed in 2006 were the following:

First  letter  to Tony  Blair (Prime  Minister)
Second  letter to Tony Blair
Letter  to  BBC Radio
Letter to  the  Home Office: About  the  Findhorn  Foundation  and  UN
Letters to  the Office of  the Scottish Charity Regulator

6.    A   Relevant   File  Unknown  to  the  Findhorn  Foundation

The abovementioned documents can be found  at www.citizeninitiative.com. The circulation of two of those documents, in printed format,  aroused an  interest  that is ongoing. This extends to the Letter of Complaint to David Lorimer, which was also circulated, relating strongly to the Findhorn Foundation. Several hundred recipients were initially contacted, and since then, many more have read the website continuation. Some parties like Moray Council were resistant to disquieting information, and failed to make any acknowledgment or reply. The known reasons are not particularly in their favour. There were numerous responses from politicians and academics, including university role specialists in different countries. Your own generous response was dated 28/04/2006.  

One may believe Bettina Jespersen’s statement that “a few have asked us for clarification and were satisfied with our response and have dropped the matter.” Yet  she implies that the dissident cause (or critical project in my case) exists in a vacuum. She might  be shocked at the relevant file unknown to the Foundation, one which steadily grows, having at the core a strongly analytical component resistant to the overtures of "holistic" commercialism and evasive "intentional community."

The Findhorn Foundation long ago relinquished the analytical mode in preference for the "workshop" technique and new age holistic venture. Perhaps that is why their Director cannot identify the author of certain documents, and why she totally fails to cite various relevant critical sources.

7.    Angus  Robertson  MP

Jespersen invites you to approach their major political supporter, namely Angus Robertson, MP for Moray. Unfortunately, insofar as victim dissidents are concerned, he is at a strong disadvantage. Robertson emerged as a Foundation supporter only in very recent years, jettisoning the sceptical approach of Dr. Winifred Ewing MSP, the local politiician who for long complained about Foundation tactics. His version of my mother will be in the idiom of Jespersen, inherited from the Foundation elite who have continually suppressed protests at their dictatorial and evasive tendencies.

Like Jespersen, Angus Robertson never met my mother or other dissidents. He has doubtless been cued to believe that the strategy of avoiding “personal dialogue” is appropriate for the intentional community. Yet those people have been advertising for many years their prowess in “conflict resolution” and presumed achievements such as “unconditional love.” Those claims are regarded by critics as facesaver myths.
 
8.   The  Findhorn  Foundation  Trustees

An alternative is provided by the Foundation Director. You are given the contact names of two longstanding Trustees of the Foundation, namely Edward Posey and Lady Diana Whitmore. Unfortunately, their abilities of  objective appraisal are in strong doubt. These two entities are named in Castro’s Hypocrisy and Dissent (see the index, pp. 238, 240) as  being  amongst the elite Trustees who failed to respond to pressing requests for a democratic internal enquiry and  the investigation of complaints. The intentional community had no room for due investigations, only the intentions of the dictators. The panel of  Foundation Trustees were a totally useless resort in cases of emergency, following a party line that was extremely rigid. 

Five  dissidents  could  get  nowhere by contacting  the Trustees, who referred all matters to the unyielding management. Everything was decided by the management. There could be no appeal. The Trustees merely enjoyed status roles. Dissidents described them as callous, unfeeling, and irresponsible. Both Posey and Whitmore have strong "new age" associations that do not necessarily command credence elsewhere. Their elevation (by Jespersen) above a protesting victim in this instance, may be considered very questionable in view of published documentation.

9.    When  The  Vital  Issue  Was  Closed

The Jespersen dismissal casually states that “from our point of view this issue was closed many years ago.” That is accurate enough. The accompanying prohibition on “further personal dialogue” is more than slightly suspect. The reasons why the issue was closed do bear close inspection, and are sufficient to shatter the myth of holistic expertise and “spiritual community.”

The issue was effectively closed when my mother was ruthlessly excluded from Open Community membership in January 1994.  She was originally stigmatised (a few years earlier)  because she opposed the excesses of new age entrepreneur Stanislav Grof, who strongly infiltrated the Foundation during the years 1989-93. Grof Transpersonal Training Inc. was championed by Foundation Director Craig Gibsone, who became an ardent convert to that form of alternative therapy in 1989.

The objector Kate Thomas was proven entirely correct when the Pathology Department at Edinburgh University produced (in 1993) a negative report on the Grof  therapy known as Holotropic Breathwork, a blatant form of hyperventilation. That authoritative report (from a Regius Professor in forensic medicine) galvanised even the Scottish Charities Office into extending a recommendation to suspend the hazardous activity.

The Findhorn Foundation management reluctantly complied, an event nevertheless attended by a defiant fringe contingent of diehard Holotropic Breathwork practitioners. The thwarted Craig Gibsone subsequently resorted to "sustainability" as a career pursuit, which may mean that ecobiz is another superficial exercise for the elite excluders of dialogue. Expect only the commercial monologue of the workshop programme and CIFAL Findhorn Company  Ltd.

Gibsone was glorified, despite his major error as an influential practitioner of Grof therapy, while Kate Thomas was stigmatised and suppressed for daring to to criticise the "spiritual" hierarchy. Gibsone has even persisted in conducting occasional Grof therapy workshops in more recent years, being actively assisted by other Foundation personnel, including Trustee Michael Shaw.

10.   Commercial  Sentiments  and  Actual  Reality

“We will be instructing our lawyers to respond directly to Mrs. Shepherd” (letter from Bettina Jespersen to Robert Walter). The difference between commercial sentiments like Conflict Resolution and the actual reality of stigma, suppression, and sustained conflict, is sufficient to warn against acceptance of any slogan improvised by the Findhorn Foundation. Some close analysts say that the basic issue stands so clearly revealed that the Foundation will never be able to escape the grave implications of their bad treatment of stigmatised dissidents.  

11.  The  Unmerited  Stigma  Continues

The facesaving last sentence from the Jespersen response is a reminder of the acute deficiency in Findhorn Foundation policy. “We wish Mrs. Shepherd well in her advancing years and hope that she can finally put this matter to rest and find peace.” Jespersen fails to mention or cite the Letter of Kate Thomas to UNESCO (2007), composed by my mother.

The UNESCO epistle made clear that the victim was no longer seeking reconciliation (impossible with such an evasive community as the Findhorn Foundation), but instead wanted her name cleared of stigma. The last paragraph of  the relevant epistle states: “I no longer seek reconciliation, but merely clearance of my name from unmerited stigma applied by devious Findhorn Foundation personnel.” 

Kate Thomas should not be expected to conveniently die and remain silent while the unmerited stigma continues. The stigma has been in part maintained on the internet. This version has been mentioned in a Wikipedia talk page by Grof partisans, and from that source borrowed by an increasingly notorious sectarian web harasser (Gerald Joe Moreno), who recently added five copyrighted images of my mother to his brief but hostile reference inspired by the Findhorn Foundation. As one writer has pointed out, the Foundation are now inseparably associated with the internet terrorist, which is an unenviable prospect for any NGO.

[Kate Thomas died in 2017. The Findhorn Foundation aborted any attempt at reconciliation, proving the deficiency in their attitude. Memory of the deficiency will for long survive. The Foundation staff also did nothing to counter Gerald Joe Moreno, who died in 2010. This cyberstalker is now related, by strong association, to the "unconditional love" hypocrisy at Findhorn. Moreno stalked and attacked many victims in his apologist cause of defending Sathya Sai Baba, the paedophile guru who was celebrated and "channelled" at the Findhorn Foundation for many years]

12.   Suppression  of  Dissident  Account  Involved  Aggression

The reprehensible policy of the Findhorn Foundation against dissidents has for long concerned observers. I can here mention my own firsthand experience of this anomaly. For many years I have been a witness to the extremist policy, which during the 1990s manifested in a severe repression of my mother’s side of the argument. In 1992 her book The Destiny Challenge was published. Chapter 14 detailed  the discrepant behaviour of Foundation personnel in her direction. 

The Foundation staff attempted without success to place a legal interdict upon her book, maintaining that chapter 14 was defamatory. A very different interpretation has been expressed elsewhere. The relevant chapter is indeed critical, but  stays within bounds. The author there relates her valid disagreement with Craig Gibsone over Grof therapy, touches upon  various questionable  features of attitude and practice within the community, and details the aggressive tactics of Eric Franciscus and his unpredictable accomplice Loren Stewart.

Subsequent events confirmed that  her  complaints and observations were  justified. Her book was angrily suppressed within the Foundation. The Foundation Trustee Alex Walker erroneously denied in the local press that she had ever been a member. Kate Thomas was nevertheless conciliatory, accepting Open Community membership in July 1993, though the general situation imposed by the staff was abortive (Castro, Hypocrisy and Dissent, pp. 112-114). Only six months later, the conspiring Director [Judy Buhler-McAllister] capriciously terminated her Open Community affiliation. The only role permitted her on Foundation premises was that of a toilet and sink cleaner.  She had to live with continual stigma and ostracism. This despite the fact that she was a close neighbour and resident of Forres.  

There was a protracted phase of hostile aggression from an American member of the Foundation staff.  I intended to get the local police to intervene in the aggression. However, my mother did not wish for this, saying that intervention would only increase the aggression. So I was obliged to desist. 

All such events were concealed by the “spiritual community” image of the deceptive organisation, who were intent upon gaining UN sanction and the advantages conferred. To such an extent indeed that they also concealed their dire economic problems incurred through mismanagement. The existing management team were obliged to resign in covert disgrace, at the time when NGO status was secured in 1997.

13.   UNESCO  and  the  DPI

The response recently sent to you by UNESCO is significant. It is obvious that UNESCO wish to steer clear of the Findhorn Foundation problem. Their explicit disavowal of a connection implies that the Foundation should not be able to claim the auspices of UNESCO, as they have been known to do in the past. However, for the terse UNESCO reply to yourself to make any lasting sense, that bureaucracy will have to omit glorifying references to the Findhorn Foundation from their website. Observers believe that the overall response of UNESCO has been deficient, and one meriting a separate investigation.

By comparison, the Department of Public Information (DPI) has a more routine status in the UN bureaucracy. The Findhorn Foundation have constantly invoked DPI associations as a sanction for their commercial programme. In 2002, Dr. Winifred Ewing MSP attempted to elicit a reply from the DPI (in New York) on that vexed local Scottish issue of sanction. She was unsuccessful (letter of John P. Greenaway to Nicol Stephen  MSP, dated 16/09/2007). Dr. Ewing asked the DPI how the Foundation had managed to acquire UN affiliations, but she could not even get a formal acknowledgment. (Dr. Ewing was very critical of the Foundation, having received so many complaints about this organisation, over many years, that she knew something was wrong in their operation]

14.   The  Chairman  of  FAIR

The Jespersen epistle refers to the “many public officials and bodies” involved in correspondence which is largely misattributed to my mother. “Others may have chosen not to respond.” That remark implies failure for the largely misattributed correspondence, but more accurately indicates the facile manner in which the Foundation hierarchy conceive of events with which they are unfamiliar.

One of the eminent persons who responded to the Letter of  Kate Thomas to UNESCO was the Hon. Tom Sackville, former MP and Home Office official, and more recently Chairman of FAIR. He sent Kate Thomas a hand-written letter of sympathy dated 01/10/2007. Sackville even expressed his conclusion that the Findhorn Foundation “should not be classed as an NGO.”  He  also urged that the Home Office should be tackled on such serious issues, himself being intimately familiar with the degree of laxity prevailing in that disputed department with regard to the incorrect behaviour of suspect organisations.

15.   Not  To  Be  So  Easily  Discounted

A number of analytical observers have considered the “dissident Kate Thomas” case to be one of the most remarkable instances of suppression within the new age or “alternative community” field of activity. The details will not vanish so obligingly for the Findhorn Foundation management and their proliferating commercial interests.

16.   Janice  Dolley  and  David  Lorimer

A closely related matter pertains to the presence of a Foundation Trustee in a set-up associated with the Scientific and Medical Network (SMN). This is an alternative organisation creating suspicion amongst orthodox scientists. Trustee Janice Dolley features in the later phase Foundation correspondence with my mother, being notably concerned to pardon the negligence of the Foundation in not making due rectifications, and employing in this respect the new age jargon preferred in those circles. That Foundation Trustee has also been an official in the Wrekin Trust, yet another alternative organisation based in England, having  a close connection with the SMN. The presiding influence for both of these organisations, over many years, has been David Lorimer. 

The Findhorn Foundation membership are strongly implicated as subscribers to Wrekin Trust and SMN. Dolley’s mediating role is accordingly significant. She is currently described on zoominfo.com as a Board Member and Trustee of the Findhorn Foundation. Dolley has not responded to two relevant protesting documents that can be found on the internet, both written by myself in support of my mother. There is also the report in the Letter of Kate Thomas to UNESCO that, in 2005, “this Foundation Trustee [Janice Dolley] now transpired to be in strong support of a policy to discriminate against me, including my objection to the use of illegal drugs.”

17.    Foundation  Trustee  in  Defence  of  Illegal  Drugs

My Letter  of  Complaint  to  David  Lorimer  (2005) amounted to a critique of certain alternative organisations, mainly the Findhorn Foundation and SMN. That document included reference to Janice Dolley, whose telephone conversations with my mother in 2005 were alarming. Dolley had become an official in the new University for Spirit Forum (USF), a branch of the Wrekin Trust. That enterprise has since been twice renamed, apparently meeting with problems. It is currently known as Wrekin Forum. The Letter of  Complaint  reported the following emphases of Dolley to my mother: 

In an official capacity for the USF, she [Dolley] spoke as a staunch partisan of the Findhorn Foundation (abbreviation FF), and informed Thomas that  she  is a Trustee of the FF. The FF are said to be represented and affiliated in USF membership.  Dolley added that certain prominent members of the FF were also USF associates, and would not wish Thomas to become an associate....

There was  no scruple  in  the argument of Dolley, only  the  standard ‘new age’ refrain of nonjudgmentalism, reflected in the policy of the USF. She specifically referred  in  this context to the issue of drug ingestion, which covers illegal drugs. Such drugs are effectively legalised by her argument, as Dolley said  that the USF must not criticise any ‘alternative’ approach. She even mentioned Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) in a validating context, as having had a mystical experience after taking LSD. Thus the Ram Dass trend and all other suspect activities and claims are validated by the USF approach, which downgrades an intending member who is critical of the drugs lobby and the breathwork commerce of Grof and his supporters. (Letter of Complaint, printed booklet version, p. 2)

18.   Pro-LSD  Versus  Anti-LSD

Another factor of grievance is that the SMN have been featuring for several years, on their website, an article by the leading American LSD promoter, namely Dr. Christopher Bache. That article  was written  in response to a protesting contribution in the SMN journal from my mother (Kate Thomas). David Lorimer has neglected to include the relevant articles by Kate Thomas (written before she resigned from the SMN in 2004 on a point of principle). The pro-LSD argument has thus been effectively glorified for internet reception at the expense of the Thomas protest.

The total evasionism of Janice Dolley and David Lorimer (who are close colleagues) converges with the Findhorn Foundation evasion and stigma in relation to Kate Thomas. The adverse components of this disconcerting situation are too closely linked for them to be regarded as separate (in the case of my mother). The Findhorn Foundation are accordingly open to accusations of complicity with regard to the grave social issue of LSD support. Meaning in this instance, the description and promotion of the danger drug LSD as a "spiritual path" inspiration and therapy.

The trite SMN disclaimer of responsibility, for website articles featured, is regarded as a ruse by critics. The SMN surely do have an ethical responsibility for so visibly suggesting, to a public audience, the priority of the pro-LSD argument over the anti-LSD argument. For the two relevant articles by Kate Thomas, see Neglected Papers Against Grof Therapy .

19.    Dismissal  of  Dialogue  and  Convergence  with  the  SMN

The Findhorn Foundation do not promote drugs. However, their link via their Trustee and Board Member Janice Dolley, with subscription activity in two closely associated organisations, is a contradictory matter. The overall situation is sufficient to cast  grave reflections upon the Foundation dismissal of Kate Thomas (Jean Shepherd) as a subject not  fit for “further personal dialogue,” to quote Bettina Jespersen in the letter to yourself. That factor of contempt can be viewed as supporting (however indirectly) the Dolley veto on my mother’s objection to the use of illegal drugs (sections 16 and 17 above).

The veto was expressed within the sphere of  Foundation Trusteeship, a role category elevated by Jespersen in her recent letter, in such a manner as to imply the clear superiority of that category to Kate Thomas. This matter alone would be sufficient reason to repudiate the strategy of the Foundation in relation to my mother. 

The fact that Bache is a very influential disciple of Grof, and that my mother first learnt of Grof therapy problems at the Findhorn Foundation in 1989-90 (due to the hazardous activities of Foundation Director Craig Gibsone), is further cause for due reflection. Grof doctrine and therapy extends not merely to hyperventilation, but also to the implicit (and explicit) practice of LSD “therapy” and MDMA “therapy,” both of which became illegal many years ago.

Wherever Stanislav Grof is in favour, there is always the question of LSD usage and sanction (as demonstrated by Bache), not to mention the consumption of MDMA (Ecstasy), regarded as mere confectionery amongst psychedelic enthusiasts. See further my Letter of Complaint to David Lorimer and Kate Thomas, SMN Events 2000-2004.  

David Lorimer, described as a new age impresario, has catered strongly for Foundation subscribers, also Grof supporters in America. These sectors are thus interlinked in the pursuit of economic advantages. Some analysts infer that this pecuniary factor is the basic reason why Lorimer and his close associates did not reply to my lengthy letter of Complaint to David Lorimer (circulated in 2006, and to which other parties responded).

In conclusion, I would like to thank you warmly for the support and consideration that you have extended to my mother.

All  Best  Wishes,

Kevin  R. D. Shepherd

27  November  2008

Copyright © 2020 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved. Uploaded August 2009, modified December 2020.