June 17, 2002:

    Having recently received a threat of legal action by a person associated with a "spiritual group", which I will not here name, I am removing reference to that group's name and founder (who is deceased) from this web site. Whether I am legally bound to do so or not I do not know, however, I do not wish to argue with this person or any other members of that group as it exists today.

    That I have the greatest respect for that group's founder and am thankful for the inner direction I gained from him is a fact of my own inner life and I feel no obligation to defend my feelings about him or his teachings as I understand them. That I am being threatened by a person associated with that group, seems to me entirely out of character when compared with my own memory and assessment of the character of that group's founder. That I was a member of that group for a short period of time many years ago is a fact of my life which I have never tried to hide and I believe that I can still legally refer to this fact in private. When I have referred to that group here and in postings on the Spinoza Slow-Reading lists at Yahoo I have used the name of that group and that of its founder. It is with regret that I cease to do so now (June 17, 2002).

    Terry Neff

August 19, 2002:

    After discussion with and encouragment from a number of people I have included in the "Personal Notes" section a reference to my history [written in September 2000 and published at www.spinoza.net] as it relates to the above group.

    Terry Neff

February 24, 2004: (modified 6/4/2004)

    In case anyone might be confused as to how it is that I chose to quote from those particular sources found in the "Related Thoughts" section of this web site, it went something like this (as far as I can remember): Prior to my becoming aware of XXXXXXX XXXXXX and attending his XXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXX Group I had, as explained in the Introduction/Personal Notes/Personal History essay on this web site, read some of the writings of nearly all of the authors quoted including Gurdjieff (through Ouspensky) and many others of course. I had, however, not read anything by or about Spinoza. By attending XXXXXXX's group I became aware of Spinoza's writings and ideas and, as anyone can probably guess, I continued to study Gurdjieff's ideas. That was more than twenty-some years ago. Since that time I have continued to study Spinoza, Gurdjieff, Thoreau, Emerson, Blake, etc. and I do see in my own mind a relation between many of the ideas expressed by them. I did not come up with the idea of studying these particular authors together any more than I came up with most (if not all) of the particular ideas involved in my life's activities.

    I would also like to point out that XXXXXXX XXXXXX was a student of Frederick Kettner and I believe that XXXXXXX learned much about the above mentioned author's ideas from that experience. I have read several writings by Frederick Kettner and quote from them here. All of these books show the author as "Frederick Kettner" and so that is how I have referred to him. Having met face-to-face in a wonderful meeting, which included a few of Frederick Kettner's students (who knew XXXXXXX when he was a student too) and which meeting also included a few of XXXXXXX's long-time students, I learned that he was referred to lovingly as "The Doctor." I believe that he did have a PhD in Philosophy though for whatever reason he did not identify himself as "Dr. Frederick Kettner" in the writings that I have and so I do not include the "Dr." title here.

    Terry Neff