Damon Brink has a website dedicated to not being me –letsnotbefrank.com.
And since the website is about not being me or anything like me, it is fair to see what it is that is not like me.
In this case, it is Brink’s view of V-Week, the 10-day celebration of the Nativity of Keith Alan Raniere. It would be ongoing right now, with Raniere at its center. But alas, Raniere lives in USP Tucson and is not allowed to go out for celebrations.
V-Week is going on somewhere, but not at Silver Bay, where NXIVM held it for many years.
So, with fair use, I reprint Brink’s article about V-Week for educational purposes. Since Brink wants people not to be me, and since this is the Frank Report, I must publish it.
If you take his view, you will not be Frank. But if you disagree with him, you are in danger of being Frank or like Frank.
By Damon Brink
It’s that time of year. If you’re an ESPIAN of any experience, you can feel it. Can you feel it? Do you remember?
Keith Raniere teaching at V-Week
We’d be in the middle of meeting rights now, a real pain in the ass, but we loved it. No matter the bullshit, the bigger, deeper thing was always being connected to doing something, or taking action to grow something beautiful in the world. Everything is a hassle, everything all the time. It’s only a question of what you’re getting for the hassle.
With ESP and Vweek, we were getting a lot.
The man was so great that a week in the life of a Vanguard was 10 days not the normal seven.
Committees had been formed and were working to enroll people into different activities. The local Albany crew was pulling their hair out with last minute sign ups, cancellations, questions, changes. In some ways, V-week was a break in the regularly scheduled programming, and it came as a relief, in the form of sleepless nights and endless work.
But like I said above, it was work that was meaningful. At least for me.
Game show at V-Week
Silver Bay is a dream.
The attendees at Vanguard Week
The beautiful grounds of Silver Bay where V-Week was held.
And for families looking to spend time learning, playing, and meeting people who shared value, it was a dream come true. Where else could you practice at the ideal world? Where else could you actually say, we’re practicing at what it might be like in a world that was closer to the world we all wanted to see?
Don’t laugh.
Don’t make fun.
If you make fun, you’re cursed by the Devil.
Not really, but if you make fun of people who are serious enough about wanting to see a better world, that they spend most of their time and resources doing it and actually create something that is real and different, if you make fun of these people, what are you saying about yourself?
Paine Hall, where V-Week gathered for their big events.
Yourself who is as potent as the ability to sit on your couch, read something and ridicule it. That is the extent of your potency.
So be careful making fun.
I loved V-week. I loved it even more when I had a family, because family means so much to me. I loved it even though I hated it at the same time. Hate might be too strong a word, but there was plenty of dislike. Vweek ran like ESP with plenty of hypocrisy and double speak, lies and manipulation.
But what doesn’t run like that? And like I said before, the cause was noble and honorable, and people, more likely than not, wanted to behave as if they were already their better self. This alone is such an accomplishment.
Vanguard Week was held at Silver Bay resort on Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains.
One of the best things about Vweek, besides all the beautiful women (and men) walking around and all the delightful children, was the way so many decided to be vulnerable just walking around in everyday life. People you hadn’t or had met, it didn’t matter.
It was most everyone making the commitment to learn about themselves, to stretch out of their comfort zones and discover more about their humanity, to connect with their humanity and ultimately connect with others in that human space.
Vanguard on stage at V-Week.
Make no mistake, there is a human space. It is only accessible when opened by at least two people. It’s a space where exploration is encouraged and shared, where I will take your hand as you walk into the dark, and I will not leave you. This was an experience you could have with a total stranger or a close friend. These were the types of experiences we all had.
This was my V-week.
How about yours? Please share, contribute, question – all with honor!
Lunch at V-Week
Note: Damon has asked you to comment with honor on the experience you had – or would like to have had at V-Week.
To enjoy the honor, you would have paid $2,000 to celebrate the marvelous man’s birthday. So great he was that God could not contain a week into only seven days. He needed to extend it to 10 to celebrate the great one’s nativity. Funny, God created the world in six days — but to make this ethicist genius, God would need an extra four, with no Sabbath.
Please comment kindly and with honor, and try not to joke or mock anyone out. Especially not the guest of honor at V-Week, the birthday boy gone missing. The brander of women and collector of collateral, the regal Raniere.
May have many more birthdays in warm and healthy Tucson.
From the modest cabin called the Bayview on the Silver Bay Campus, the royal born one would rest and entertain.
Raniere now lives in this gated community in Tucson.
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