Gnosis Retreat Center
gnosisretreatcenter.orgI became homeless due to the depressive phase of bipolar disorder and alcoholism. I did a 180 and now live a happy and productive life thanks to HVRP (Homeless Veterans Rehabilitation Program), which is similar in ways to this program. I'm sharing this for any veterans reading this that need help. Please contact the VA and receive the help you earned. There are people who want to help you.
Can you say what similarities you've noticed between the two programs?
Two sentences from the archive link made me cry: "Suppose you come to the end of your tether, can no longer cope, have a break-down, fall apart, go to pieces. To whom would you turn? Where would you go?... Our program offers a network of fellow travelers who aspire to cultivate skillful means of helping people whose relations with themselves and others have become an occasion of wretchedness and despair."
It's impossible to describe if you haven't been in such a state and don't know where to go. The contempt people have for you when you are on the street is unbearable. Compared to other places, people at HVRP loved me because many of them had been there. That turned out to the magic ingredient. The power of Love is remarkable.
Thank you for sharing. For one lucky enough to have found Love, I appreciate your courage.
Thank You. Life is good!
This seems organized around the work of the radical psychiatrist RD Laing. I've admired some of writing in the past, but his theories of psychosis are considered nonsense these days. From the website:
“Legacy of R.D. Laing,” Michael Guy Thompson, on Madness Radio. Is psychosis a journey and a breakthrough to somewhere more authentic? Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing was a fierce critic of the mental health system, and saw madness as a rational adaptation to irrational family and social constraints. How are Laing’s provocative insights about politics and culture still relevant today?
> his theories of psychosis are considered nonsense these days
They were considered nonsense when he first put them out, too. That's what happens when you challenge a field at its foundations.
Archive.org to the rescue https://web.archive.org/web/20190306154203/http://www.gnosis...
This is awesome! But so expensive. After traveling abroad in Costa Rica and Thailand, I imagine such a program could have 10-20% the cost, making it much more accessible. I wonder if such programs exist? Maybe I should start one...
And the people who are losing their mind due to lack of money lose again.
gruseom: This seems like an interesting initiative. Can you tell us why you shared it?
R.D. Laing is a major figure in the history of psychiatry and psychotherapy. His radical critique of how society treats the mentally ill, and advocacy for a more humane approach, are legendary. Laing was also a charismatic guy who became a celebrity of the 60s and 70s counterculture.
The most famous of Laing's experiments was Kingsley Hall, where patients and therapists (though presumably they didn't use those terms) would live together, and where the focus was on helping through simple presence and relationship rather than techniques or treatments. Here is a striking, even astonishing story from one of the houses Laing started after Kingsley Hall: https://www.madinamerica.com/2013/11/living-one-r-d-laings-p.... I posted it here years ago, where it didn't get one upvote (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259), but I still think it's one of the most interesting submissions I've made to HN.
The author of that piece, who at the time of the story was a young therapist enamored of Laing's approach, is now the founder of the new(ish) Gnosis Retreat Center in San Francisco, along with a bunch of other people who worked with Laing. Here he is talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4-lJWwwRc8#t=8m53s.
I think it's interesting that they are making a fresh start at reviving what Laing did, and that it's in San Francisco. That's why I posted this, though I certainly didn't mean to bork their server!
“Gnosis”, is this rooted in Gnostic or neoplatonic philosophy? Or just the name of knowledge.
https://www.facebook.com/Gnosisretreatcenter/
Gnosis literally means knowledge, but most often it is used to indicate mystical knowledge.
Also https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1MQyM14pcKhu96Zr5e2WA
> most often it is used to indicate mystical knowledge
Not in Greek, though. I've never seen it used in English before, so I couldn't say about that.
Gnosis is more than just a term and is often quite controversial, particularly to those that do not actively practice it. There are specific practices (generally not divulged in public, but on a one-to-one basis and always for free) on techniques that allow one to verify for oneself the truth of pretty well anything /everything.
This does not appear to be one of those, but rather is formed by a collection of psycotherapists, asking for rather sizable donations. Authentic gnosis will never have fees. These people have a 'free consultation' followed by $100 individual fees for family support, from what I can make out.
Database hosed.
Must be a rough monday if this is on the front page. Hang in there.
And we crashed the site too.