Posted on behalf of a contributor: J.C.

This is an excerpt from Christian Teaching on the Practice of Prayer: From Early Fathers to the Present, edited by Lorraine Kisly, who is an editor at large for Parabola. It’s by William Law (1686-1761). I think it’s one of the most clear statements about what was inherently wrong at East Ridge [and that which led the march to self-cannibalization of the community]. See The Decline and Fall of East Ridge

“Would you know why it is that so many have deceived themselves with false fire and false light, laying claim to information, illumination
and opening of the Divine Light, particularly that they are to do wonders under extraordinary calls from God? It is this: they have
turned to God without turning from themselves; they wish to be alive to God before they are dead to their own nature. Now religion in the
hands of self, or corrupt nature promotes vices of a far worse kind than nature left to itself. From this come all the disorderly passions of religious
men, which burn in worse flame than passions about merely worldly matters; pride, self-exaltation, hatred, and persecution, under a cloak
of religious zeal, will sanctify actions which nature, left to itself, would be ashamed to own.”

Christian Teaching on the Practice of Prayer