What is ASTARA?

Wonderful on the outside Treacherous on the inside....! Cults have millions of members around the world who also thought they were immune.
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G2G
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What is ASTARA?

Unread post by G2G »

I've been doing a lot of "spring cleaning," and have come across a very old issue of an "ASTARA" newsletter. This was long before I'd ever heard of RSE, and of course, in reading it and googling, I was stunned to see I was reading this stuff way before! Good grief! Joe, anyone, what exactly is ASTARA?

I've stopped "the search" for Truth and decided to just live every day as best I can, trying every moment to be the person I want to be. Searching had interfered with living the truth, it seems. ;-) ;-) ;-)
"I never really understood religion - it just seemed a good excuse to give" - Ten Years After circa 1972
Whatchamacallit
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Unread post by Whatchamacallit »

G2G,


I haven't heard of Astara before. Perhaps this is it ? http://www.astara.org/home.shtml

There are tens of thousands of channelers in California alone. This org is based in CA. I don't even know if the Ostara principles are based on alleged channeled material or not, so that fact may not even be relevant.

We've been spring cleaning, too. My husband pointed out to me that one corner of the basement....alllllllllll of "those" boxes....are filled with RSE materials along with some related New Age materials. I'm sure he'd be tickled pink to just have a big ol' bonfire and get on with it. I figure if he has his collection of workshop tools and half used paint cans (just in case he needs them !), then I can keep my RSE Stuff in storage in case it comes in handy. Actually, it has come in handy as reference material.

Well, maybe Joe or someone else will know more about Astara, especially if it isn't the same as the link above.
joe sz
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Unread post by joe sz »

I had a file on Astara many years ago. I looked on wiki to jog my memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astara,_Inc.
I think of it in the category of an 'I AM-lite' new age group, kind of like most small New Thought groups or the Unarius Society.

The 22 lessons they offer is in the same category as I AM lessons and the prior Psychiana movement founded by Frank Robinson who really capitalized on a 'mail-order religion approach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiana
Robinson was the pioneer for this approach, blending mail-order with New Thought and Spiritualism into the "we represent the truth of all religions" in Theosophy.

Whenever you mix everything on the menu together the meal begins to look and taste real bad,
or,

you are merely getting a large greenish spiritual pill that claims to have all your needed nutrition in it. :roll:
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G2G
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Unread post by G2G »

Thanks Whatcha and Joe. ::banging head:: Who knows what else I'll find (have already found Ruth Montgomery books...!) :roll: :roll: :roll:
"I never really understood religion - it just seemed a good excuse to give" - Ten Years After circa 1972
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ruth "walkin"

Unread post by joe sz »

G2G
You are digging into the deeper layers of the new age compost heap 8)

Ruth Montgomery was a journalist turned New Age/occult author/psychic based on her belief that she had intimate contact with 'aliens', esp one called Lily [a male entity].
Her alien contacts endorsed Frederick von Meiers [aka Mierers] who led the cult Eternal Values. Frederick based some of his teaching on the old I AM cult founded by Ballard. Montgomery's "masters" said that EV was legit in one of her chapters in "Aliens Among Us" thus bringing a lot of high profile people under von Mierers influence including Ford Agency models and Ivy League grads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyt_Richards

The leader sold very overpriced rings and jewelry for occult protection to members. He had sex with many men and women in the group while he had AIDs, a disease he died from in 1990. He was a con-artist/narcissist par excellence.

My colleagues and I had worked with ex-members of EV including the above mentioned Hoyt.

Journey, you will recall this group EV very well, eh ;-)

btw, back in that compost heap, I have a good lead that Baird T Spalding was in a California mental institution in 1930 under that name. "Spalding" may have used a nom de plume, however. When I can confirm this directly I will post.
See&E
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Compost Heaps circa 1930 that proliferated books followers

Unread post by See&E »

Joe,

Interesting lead on Spalding. I also had heard some time ago that he had met with and/or had dinner with
another popular spiritualist-guru who claimed not to be a guru... that I'm sure you'll recall ... Krisnamurti.
The infamous DeVorss publishing era and the spiritual marketing of it's authors, like the old marketing of
hollywood 'stars' and contracts.

Plumber? Reverse psychology... "not a guru, not a world teacher" denounced... which created a following...
where have we heard this before? heh heh



http://www.kinfonet.org/Biography/latimes.asp


See&E
journeythroughramthaland
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Unread post by journeythroughramthaland »

Hi Joe,

Yeah, Frederick. Somewhere I have a tape of his appearance on I believe the Jerry Springer show? I tried to google it to see if it was on youtube but got nothing. Freddy lived over the apartment I grew up in in Manhattan. It would be an interesting video to post because of the many parallels to JZ as I see it.

He had a very strange affect, he had a sort of walleyed look that appeared to look through you not at you. He certainly attracted attention to himself. He also prided himself on being "Outrageous" Sound familiar yet???

He was so outrageous from the get go that one would be listening with disbelief and at first thinking "this can't be true" then wanting to hear more just because the disbelief was so extreme and the next thing you know one could be engaged. Yet, if one was on the other-side of a room and saw him one might think "Who is that weird guy and why are all those people around him?" Sort of the same way people who may not have ever hear of entertained the idea of a 35,000+ God coming back to teach in out times would react when hearing there is a school headed by such a character.

I could dig out my copy of the program but it is among some unlabeled tapes and each time I have dug it out I had to go through a few hours of tapes. It is not a great copy. Joe, if you have a decent copy would there be any reason not to post it on you tube or do you think we would need to ask permission?

In any event, while looking on the internet for the Springer video I came across this blog of sorts that has a lot of info about him that is consistent with what I know.

There also was a vanity fair article about him that detailed life in the group more.

http://www.geocities.com/mikelscott/fred.htm

Freddy died and I was amazed at some of the email entries at the end of the piece where he is supposed to be "seen" in varying places as if he is still alive and living in secret somewhere. If this goes on after someone passes, it makes me wonder what happens when someone passes who is already someone who has come back from 35,000 + years ago??? What will the stories be after that happens?
:roll:
"I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education."
-William Mizner
joe sz
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Unread post by joe sz »

see&e
Good article on Krishnamurti. I remember when he was in Los Alamos, NM--I read the news about it in Santa Fe papers at the time. I would not waste a day driving to hear him---found his autodidactic approach to teaching to be a bore. Like he said, "Aristotle will lay down certain principles and the Aristotelian people talk about what he said. You understand, they talk about talks and write about what has been written. So I am not a philosopher." Duh! Diogenes would have danced circles around him. What in Greece's name are "Aristotelian people"?:lol:

The only "gurus" I knew of that Spalding met were Guy Ballard around 1929 in CA and Paul Brunton later in the mid-30s in India. I am not aware if he met Krishnamurti.

Journey,
I might have that Springer tape with Freddie and the EV cult--it is a clear look at just how invested he was in his grandiosity and doom prophecy delusion. That was back when Springer actually tried to have a credible talk show. maybe I can get it onto dvd and send to David.
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David McCarthy
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Unread post by David McCarthy »

maybe I can get it onto dvd and send to David.
Sure Joe,
I will be glad to add it to our EMF video collection if you find it.

David
But he has nothing on at all, cried at last the whole people....
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