Gafni, part 2

After doing a bit of poking around in the blogosphere, I'd like to say a bit more about the Gafni controversy and Wilber's response.

But first, a little bit of background about Gafni. DashH first brought this to my attention last year. The Jewish Coalition against Sexual Abuse/Assault (aka The Awareness Center) has a page that details the case against Gafni. In short, it was alleged that 20 years ago, Gafni sexually abused a number of women. According to the history presented at the awareness center, Gafni admitted to having a sexual relationship with a 14 year old girl (when he was 20), but that the other charges were unsubstantiated. Several other prominent Rabbi's suggested that the claims had been thoroughly investigated and were not true. That claim has been disputed. (see the comments)

A number of Jewish blogs have reacted to the news. See here, here, here, and here. Their responses are mainly concerned with the role that senior figures within the Jewish renewal movement played in defending Gafni when the original allegations surfaced. However, one makes mention of Wilber:

The hypocrisy of all this is just so disgusting…and it’s not just within the renewal movement. Major neo-spiritual icons like Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen gave huge face time and coverage to this guy.

That's not to say that I-I should have immediately disassociated themselves with Gafni after the initial allegations were made. After all, it was claimed that they had been fully investigated and found to be untrue. The trouble is, Wilber's response reads like there is no history of controversy with Gafni, and it makes some cloying claims (to be fair to Wilber, he did add this disclaimer to his statement: At this time, these are my personal opinions, and are open to immediate revision in light of any further evidence. What follows is a response to the initial post).

Wilber said: These are my conclusions at this time:

1. There is substantial truth to some of these allegations.

2. This has caused something of a feeding frenzy for the mean green meme, which is understandable but I believe inexcusable. Frankly, some of these have reached pathetic portions.

Woah. For starters, a lot of the criticism of Gafni (about the initial allegations and otherwise) was made by Jewish sexual abuse support groups and neo-orthodox critics of Jewish renewal (for example, Luke Ford). Hardly the 'mgm' at work. Of course, Wilber could be referring to other reactions, but I've been unable to find anything that looks or smells like an mgm reaction to the charges against Gafni.

Just to make it clear: the fact that Gafni has admitted to a problem now doesn't mean that past accusations are true, it does, however, raise plenty of red flags, circumstantial or not. Thus, the completely understandable reaction. I don't even think the most virulent of these responses could be called pathetic, in light of the circumstantial evidence.

My second issue is related to the gravity of the charges that now surround Gafni. Perhaps Wilber is unaware of them, perhaps they've been fabricated (I certainly don't think they have been) but they are definitely more serious than the term 'sexual misconduct' suggests. If they do come to trial and Gafni is found guilty, no amount of faciliated meetings or whatnot will be enough.

Furthermore, I think there's something problematic about the assertion that whilst Gafni is unfit to teach, he's still fit to continue writing. Wilber frames this as a 'levels and lines' argument, like the classic 'if Einstein beats his wife, E still equals mc squared'. The problem with this assertion is that there is such a close connection between the subject of Gafni's writing and the problem he has admitted to. He is known for writing and teaching about divine eroticism, tantra and the like. Surely any writing in this area would bear the taint of this association? Even if it didn't, wouldn't it be counterproductive for Gafni to produce anything in that area at such a time?

Again, to clarify, I'm not suggesting that I-I should have had the knowledge to divest themselves of Gafni prior to these new accusations. To do so would impose an unfairly high duty to investigate. Nor am I suggesting that Wilber's suggesting is inadequate in the scope of its condemnation and how it recognizes Gafni's victims:

most of all, the parties directly involved have been hurt.

It's just that such a prominent reference to the mgm, right up the top of the statement, when the allegations against Gafni could turn out to be incredibly serious, and when they could involve a serious criminal investigation, such a reference comes across as fairly blunt and inappropriate.

It all seems to be part of a wider problem, the inability to properly assess or deal with charismastic spiritual leaders. There's the whole business with Andrew Cohen and the way allegations against him have been almost completely ignored (other than Don Beck dropping by to call the people at whatenlightenment.blogspot.com 'bottom dwellers'), the way in which Zaadz interacts with WIE? as if Enlightenment Blues and Mother of God had never been written. Again, not that I-I has to spend every waking minute answering every individual criticism that is posted on the internet (an impossible task) but when the same questions keep coming up, surely it wouldn't take much to properly and thoroughly address them? It's not enough to make reference to the fact that some spiritual teachers are advanced in one area and deficient in another (no shit!), but what does that mean for new spiritual movements in particular? Why is it happening to so many teachers who are familiar with Wilber's work and should be able to click to their own unbalanced psychograph? what other factors are in play? Da, Cohen, Trungpa, Gafni....

Regardless of whether you like Falk or not, at least he's done the legwork:

Incredibly, most of the “enlightened” individuals and ashrams included herein would have been considered to fall close to the “safest” of the categories in the typologies of Dick Anthony (1987), et al., via the Spiritual Choices book.

Is it too much to ask for an updated response, given the promotion that is given to Cohen et al via Integral Naked, Zaadz, and other Integral repositories? Has it been covered recently, and I've just completely missed it?