FYI to all my readers. My next project on AMORC will be emerging at some point in 2012.
I found this book to be quite interesting. No matter what one's opinion of AMORC is (and it seems everyone commenting has a strong opinion on AMORC) Freeman's journey seems typical for someone who feels marginalized and believes they will gain self worth by joining some kind of group.
He was an immigrant with some education and couldn't understand how to move up the American ladder of success. Most of us have decent networking skills or just due to being raised in the American middle class culture we have been brought up to be good little corporate drones and groomed to play the part.
Immigrants and people raised in the lower classes don't have it so lucky, sure they may have gone to college and acquired "book smarts" but still don't have the skills to present a good resume or get past the initial interview with human resources. Maybe they are just socially awkward. Whatever the reason, the rungs of the success ladder are out of reach. These are the people most easily lured into pyramid "get rich quick" schemes as well as religious cults, not to mention the ones who keep "The Secret" a best seller.
Freeman was one of these people. Perhaps he saw an ad in a tabloid that promised he'd discover the meaning of life or that prosperity would be in his reach - he just needed to align his thoughts cosmically. He was sold on being part of a fraternity that would unlock secrets that the general public would never understand. Everyone, especially a lonely soul, wants to feel like they belong. Many of us want to feel exclusive hence country clubs, fraternal orders, street gangs, and religions that claim their way is superior and everyone else is on the fast track to hell.
So he sent away for the info, gave AMORC their $400 annual fees and for awhile felt like he was taking charge of his life. He followed every lesson, perhaps even went over board with the studies like any newbie zealot does. After awhile, he realized he was still in the same dead end job. Money that could have gone towards building a decent corporate wardrobe was being spent on esoteric books and more annual fees, time that could have been used on developing interpersonal skills useful for networking or interviewing was being wasted on meditation experiments. Instead of getting out and meeting people already in his career field of choice, he was only associating with AMORC members.
When he would try and break away, something bad would happen and he would attribute it to AMORC's powerful brotherhood jinxing him.
He could have easily joined anything else and I believe the results would have been the same, I don't necessarily think that AMORC is powerful enough to control someone's mind. It's more that people who have a disposition to join groups such as AMORC tend to feel powerless already and will blame all their short comings on external factors rather than own up to them.
Read this book more to get an idea of why someone would be desperate enough to join AMORC not to discover some evil AMORC conspiracy.
COMMENTARY:
FYI to all my readers. My next project on AMORC will be emerging at some point in 2012.
Although I have to confess that this reader is largely right- about how poverty and desperation propelled me towards AMORC. But I think he underestimates the power of Mind Control in forwarding the process and eventually tragically disrupting the functioning of the rational mind.
He says, “He could have easily joined anything else and I believe the results would have been the same, I don't necessarily think that AMORC is powerful enough to control someone's mind.”
That statement is a profound misunderstanding of how a cult works and the way the human personality can be totally submerged in the web of hypnotic conditioning by a cult. Yes, to some degree, I was a victim of my own self. I admit it. But I can assure the reviewer that most AMORC members I have met in the States are not driven by poverty and are not deprived of work like I was. And, yet, it is my belief, they are every bit as programmed as I was- if, indeed, they rigorously practiced what they were told to practice (admittedly, many do not).
The Open Letter to Christian Bernard Venerated Imperator of the Rosicrucians is available in French, Portuguese and English
French http://www.theprisonerofamorc.com/lettre-a-christian-bernard/
portuguese http://www.theprisonerofamorc.com/carta-aberta-a-bernard
English http://www.anopenlettertochristianbernard.com/
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