Atma Jyoti Ashram: Sannyasis or Snake Oil Salesmen? – Swami Devananda Saraswati » Fr. George Burke is the abbot of Atma Jyoti Ashram. He is known on the Internet as Swami Nirmalananda Giri.

George Burke

8 Responses

  1. I would think he must be, given his history of a sort of evolution in his spiritual thinking over many years.

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  2. Indeed, this is the same Abbot. I stayed in their garage guest room while I waited, and waited, and waited to be trained in their Magnetic Therapy technique. My friend’s child had a head injury from an auto accident and we each tried every therapy possible to assist the little girl who had hemispherical brain damage.

    I had come across his book on Magnetic Therapy and was impressed enough to fly to Oklahoma in the heat of the summer to receive training. Instead, I was ushered into many services and worship of various icons, and went with him and his devotees to a psychic faire in Norman where they read Tarot in their red-embroidered black robes. Not quite orthodox.

    Anyone leaving the grounds had to touch the ground before him, and he would bless their heads – possibly protection from the bad neighborhood we lived in. I was warned about going outside but it was too hot to bother anyway.

    Having never been trained, he managed to keep me at the last service until I was too late to catch my plane to NYC to meet with the Mother of the child. Perhaps he thought I would return but the plane itself was delayed, so I managed to go on to New York as planned.

    His various incarnations in several religions is fine, but his story of the origin of his Orthodox Monastery was totally bogus, as I was able to learn later. He also could not locate his source materials at the monastery which he claimed had inspired his book that brought me there. I asked many times and there were many excuses.

    A total fraud.

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  3. First, the title Gnostic Orthodox appears to be a contradiction in terms. You are either one or the other, not both together.

    Fr. George’s writing and thinking are mediocre. He is a kind of theosophist mixing and matching bits of religion here and there to suit his purpose.

    The Atma Jyoti website exposes him and his boys as hippies who have become New Agers of a kind.

    None of this has anything to do with authentic spiritual practice.

    Thank you for the references.

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  4. I knew him. He was originally a Gnostic Orthodox Priest. See http://drj.virtualave.net/other/religio/goc.html

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  5. He is one and the same. I knew him at that time.

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  6. Don’t know but would be interested to find out. Apparently Fr. George is a Greek Orthodox priest not a Catholic.

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  7. Is this the same person who headed the Holy Protection Monastery in Forest Park, Oklahoma in the 1970’s and 80’s? He is a very interesting man.

    JLd

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