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What Is a Thought Reform Program?
In essence, a thought reform program is a behavioral change technology applied to cause the learning and adoption of an ideology or set of behaviors under conditions. It is distinguished from other forms of social learning by the conditions under which it is conducted and by the techniques of environmental and interpersonal manipulation employed to suppress particular behavior and to train others .

Six conditions are simultaneously present in a thought reform program:

Obtaining substantial control over an individual's time and thought content, typically by gaining control over major elements of the person's social and physical environment.


Systematically creating a sense of powerlessness in the person.


Manipulating a system of rewards, punishment. and experiences in such a way as to promote new learning of an ideology or belief system advocated by management.


Manipulating a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in such a way as to inhibit observable behavior that reflects the values and routines of life organization the individual displayed prior to contact with the group.


Maintaining a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure in the organization.


Maintaining a non-informed state existing in the subject.
The last two conditions work because there is no effective way for the subject to influence the system and because the program moves along in such a way that the subject is unaware of being changed for a hidden organizational purpose. In a closed system of logic, criticism or complaints are handled by showing the subject that he or she is defective, not the organization. Observations may be turned around and argued to mean the opposite of what the critic intended. When a subject questions or doubts a tenet or rule, attention is called to factual information that suggests some internal contradiction within the belief system or a contradiction with what the subject has been told: the criticism or observation is turned around and the subject made to feel he or she is wrong. In effect the subject is told, you are always wrong; the system is always right. The system refuses to be modified except by executive order. In addition, by keeping a subject in a non-informed state, he or she functions in an environment to which he or she is forced to adapt in a series of steps, each sufficiently minor so that the subject does not notice change in him- or herself and does not become aware of the goals of the program until late in the process (if ever).

The tactics of a thought reform program are organized to destabilize individuals' sense of self by getting them to drastically reinterpret their life's history, radically alter their world view, accept a new version of reality and causality, and develop dependency on the organization, thereby being turned into a deployable agent of the organization operating the thought reform program.

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However, there is a certain irony to this prescription for enlightenment. (read below)

From what I have read, neither Cohen nor Wilber ever formally submitted to Rude Boys. It is odd, therefore, that both seem to believe that spiritual hazing is beneficial. Cohen, himself, has a reputation for being quite a Rude Boy although is own teacher, H.W.L. Poonja, was not a Rude Boy (for what it is worth, Cohen became fully enlightened in two and a half weeks).

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Mind fuck gamesIn a foreword to Andrew Cohen's book, Living Enlightenment, Ken Wilber gives us an interesting look at the kind of spiritual teacher he thinks we will need if we really want to climb to the top of spiritual mountain. Here is an excerpt.


"When it comes to spiritual teachers, there are those who are safe, gentle, consoling, soothing, caring; and there are the outlaws, the living terrors, the Rude Boys and Nasty Girls of God realization, the men and women who are in your face, disturbing you, terrifying you, until you radically awaken to who and what you really are.

And may I suggest?: choose your teachers carefully.

If you want encouragement, soft smiles, ego stroking, gentle caresses of your self-contracting ways, pats on the back and sweet words of solace, find yourself a Nice Guy or Good Girl, and hold their hand on the sweet path of stress reduction and egoic comfort. But if you want Enlightenment, if you want to wake up, if you want to get fried in the fire of passionate Infinity, then, I promise you: find yourself a Rude Boy or a Nasty Girl, the ones who make you uncomfortable in their presence, who scares you witless, who will turn on you in a second and hold you up for ridicule, who will make you wish you were never born, who will offer you not sweet comfort but abject terror, not saccharin solace but scorching angst, for then, just then, you might very well be on the path to your own Original Face."


Wilber is telling beginners that if they really want enlightenment they need a Rude Boy or a Nasty Girl guru. In other words, we have to find a tough spiritual guru, sort of like a spiritual version of a Marine Corps Drill Instructor whose job will be to strip away our ego. Only when our egos have been sufficiently humiliated, abused and stripped away, will we finally see the jewel of enlightenment.

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It this kind of unmitigated hype which is so pernicious in Wilber's
writings and it shows up in lots of places. Wilber lacks the nuance
and the attention to the odd fact and the limitations of scholarship
to convince both skeptics and those who know their area better than
he.

On one level this may sound quite nit-picky on my part since we all
exaggerate to some degree when writing. However, the reason it is
important to call Wilber's exaggerations into scrutiny is because he
represents much of why transpersonal psychology is dismissed and why
it has as a field more or less floundered.

It flounders because even one of its most heralded theoreticians is
liable to over-generalize and make sweeping generalizations that are
not only inaccurate but downright untrue.

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When it comes to guru appraisements, Wilber is just plain naive. He
is as gullible as the rest of us and given his track record with Da
perhaps more so.

What is perhaps so worrisome about all of this, of course, is that
Wilber does not show the kind of level-headed discrimination that is
necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff. It would be one
thing to admit to a bit of "greenness" (e.g., "Hey, I am a sucker
when it comes to Perfect Masters"), but it is quite another to pose
like you are a seasoned veteran of the guru wars.

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Before participation, are you required to sign a release of liability form in which you sign away your citizen/resident alien rights to sue or mediate for damages in case you incur harm as a result of participating in that weekend?

Here are examples of release of liability forms, used by other LGATs.

Does Mankind project have any form resembing this? If you signed such a form, you may feel like a free thinker, but are no longer free to use your citizen rights to sue or mediate for compensation in case you incur harm during the MP weekend.

Any group that tells you to accept responsibility for your actions, but uses these forms to disown its responsibility for the powerful effect of its techniques is failing to be consistent.

And dont try to say that Mankind project is better or is different than the organizations whose forms are mentioned here.

If (IF) mankind project requires participants to sign away their rights to sue or mediate for damages then by having such forms and requiring subjects to sign as a condition of participation, this demonstrates that MP is similiar to these groups by using this type of legal strategy to protect itself from its own subjects.

Here are examples of what these release forms issued by other LGATs look like.
Find out from former BM participants if they have ever seen or signed this kind of paperwork.

Discussions of these release of liability forms as used by other groups. If MKP uses these forms, there goes its claim to uniqueness.



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Find out whether participants in Big Mind (trademark) must sign a release of liability form that looks anything like these. I have attended several sesshins and vipassana retreats and have never in all my years, ever had to sign anything like this.

James Rays Release of Liablity Form—The Anticult October 10, 2009 5:31 PM

[forum.culteducation.com]

Landmark Education’s liability release by vlinden February 3rd 2008

[forum.culteducation.com]

PSI Seminars Waiver steve989 –January 3rd 2009

[forum.culteducation.com]

Byron Katies release of Liability form

From Garden of Even, February 14, 2009
[forum.culteducation.com]

(note
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this is a discussion of Byron Katie, but you can substitute the name of any other entity using a form resembling the one her org (also tradmarked to death) uses)
(quote)the buzz-word that they use for all of these techniques. VOLUNTARY. That is the same buzz-word they used when the details first came out about what went on in these seminars.

No one is saying people are being forced a gunpoint to do anything. Its all about very sophisticated PERSUASION, much of it unconscious. There is social pressure, emotional pressure, philosophical pressures (unquote
)
(A tiny excerpt from a longer analysis of the Work release of liablity by The Anticult, given February 15..read the entire thing)

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took the course in San Francisco and before you decide to take this course, let me save you the $2500 so that you can spend it elsewhere. The seclude you in a room for 8-10 hours continuous and during that process you are emotionally brainwashed into their world that you think you've taken the best workshop since sliced bread.

The weekend basically begins with a bunch of AMP women so to speak, and they only appear on the third day where all you do is stare at them and your suppose to increase your consciousness and be present, both of which would be better done with some coffee and a good sense of social intuition.

The first day they make you sign a waiver for an breathing exercise, in which you breath hard constantly in and out for an hour while playing this loud corny music which is supposed to make you vivid imaginations and during this process the room is dark and everyone is screaming and crying because they're supposed to follow the emotions of the music (presumably due to their tiredness in breathing). This is then followed with a series of exercises where they force you to cry or become angry.

The next day there is an exercise where you basically assume that there is only 1 parachute, and there are 5 members, and they have to choose between them who survives. In this process, the only way your authentic as they call it, is if you take the exercise up to the point where everyone starts crying.

The final day a bunch of men stand in a circle and the AMP girls from earlier are in the middle, the room is dark with no light, and they are howling, screaming, and crying at you, and presumably your suppose to be enlightened so you'll know what to do in this situation.

All in all, this was definitely some feel good ripoff gig to get a bunch of older men to cry together, and it will teach you nothing that they claim on the website such as

How to eliminate neediness and shame, once and for all. (Hint: Your neediness may be destroying your chances with women, and you don't even know it!)
What you need to do to have her her surrender completely in bed - And why she can't be that vulnerable with you, until you get this right.

How to avoid the "Just Friends" category by accessing your masculine, sexual power -- even with the most intimidatingly beautiful women.

How to penetrate her outer facade and connect with her on a deep emotional level.
How to have your dates feel like you're already making love (And have her feeling exhilarated and alive, just by being around you!)

The picture currently on the website, the guy with the beard, is known as Bryan Bayer. I personally saw him along with several others standing around 111 Minna (a club in SF) with his drink and for the WHOLE night he did not talk to a single woman, so if the above claims are so true, he should have been able to use his seduction process to charm the women in that bar? Spend the money instead on improving your life or better yet save it, or if you really want to take a workshop, look elsewhere.

Anonymous
San Francisco, California
U.S.A.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 5/8/2008 8:13:13 PM and is a permanent record located here: //seminar-programs/authentic-man-progra/authentic-man-program-amp-sf-2ccd4.htm. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.

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1 Consumer Comment

AMP was the best workshop I've ever taken
AUTHOR: Amp Graduate - Berkeley (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Monday, June 09, 2008

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POSTED: Monday, June 09, 2008
I've taken a number of courses on relating with women and the Authentic Man Program was by far the best. A number of my friends have taken this course as well and we all had incredibly powerful, life-transforming experiences there.

My experience doesn't match that of whoever wrote this negative report. No one forced me to “cry or become angry.” In my experience, the work at AMP is all about authenticity and I didn't feel like anyone working there had an agenda about what kind of experience I had, other than that they wanted me to get more in touch with myself and to have more freedom in my life.

This was an intense course, and there is a good chance that you will have some emotions come up if you take it. If you don't want to deal with any of that stuff, then this is probably not the course for you. I personally found it to be one of the deepest and most empowering experiences of my life. Before I took this course, the work I was doing to get better with women was like putting sugar coating on the problem. AMP helped me get to the core issues that were in my way and were running my life. I had totally new and exciting ways of connecting with women open up to me as a result.

The descriptions given in this report of some of the exercises don't match my experience at all. They are misleading or false and seem to miss the point of the exercises all together. I had a really profound experience doing the breathing exercise, for example. I remember feeling totally alive and ecstatic afterwards, and thinking that this exercise alone made it worth coming to the course, even if I didn't get anything else from it. But I actually got a ton more. The best part was the exercises with the women on Sunday. I couldn't believe how perceptive they were it was like they could see right through me. They were also totally supportive and I really got how much they cared about me even as they pushed me beyond the limits of my comfort zone.

In fact, what really struck about the Authentic Man Program was how genuine everyone seemed to be. These guys were not in it for the money – they didn't try to pressure us to buy anything else at the end of the course. They obviously really cared about the men taking the program and really believed in their work.

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#2 Consumer Comment

Put simply, Authentic Man Intensive was the best workshop I've been to
AUTHOR: Anon - New York, NY (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Tuesday, January 13, 2009

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I don't know the man who posted this report, but after going through the AMP intensive myself, and then reading his crude description of it, I can see some vague resemblance to what happened there for me and for the others who were there with me. I can even laugh at his rough caricature skills---his description is a mildly funny caricature, and a very misleading one. He makes the workshop sound like a joke, which it wasn't.

But it seems to me that this guy was disappointed not because of the quality of the workshop but due to his own lack of sophistication, openness, and curiosity about his own psychology---a fear of his own depth.

The AMP intensive that I attended was the best-run, most "on," most focused, most powerful, most effective, and most potentially life-changing workshop I've ever been to, by far. They told us at the beginning to be proactive, to demand that we get what we came here to get, and to give it everything we had in us, and they kept reinforcing that over and over. Those that demanded the most of themselves and of the facilitators got the most out of it.

It was more than worth the money and if anyone's on the fence and can kind of afford it or even almost afford it, and really, really, REALLY WANTS to do it, I'd push them to do it. You more often regret the things you didn't do than the things you did. If you have money in savings and want to keep it there because of recession fears just remember a smart investment in yourself keeps growing, if you keep growing. I spent more money on it than the poster of the ripoff report, because I flew in from NYC; I'm not rich, and I have no regrets.

Everyone at the workshop I attended came out thrilled at what they'd discovered about themselves, and about their possibilities for the future, each guy for different reasons. There was a lot of individual focus and they had a kickass arsenal of psychological techniques to address every central issue and many of the peripheral issues of each, very different participant. What's more, while we learned things that influenced our relationship skills, I've also noticed obvious improvements in many areas of my life, including my ability to make money by delivering my own kick-ass product, which has a large human-relations element.

Decker Cunov and Brian Bayer, the assistant coaches, and all the guys working in the background, were pushing themselves constantly, to give everything they had every single minute of the workshop to try and open and help us relate in amazing ways with women. Everyone there totally believed in the value of what they were doing and were dedicated to seeing it happen. Even if they were scratching their heads over how to handle something, or getting frustrated, pissed at each other or at us, whatever (which was hard for me to tell but I'm just guessing, as I imagine must happen time to time in running such a tight ship with a fair amount of improvisation based on what came up for each guy) they never stopped bringing it to us for a single moment with intense professionalism and dedication and HEART. The same can be said of the women that came in on the third day.

I'm still amazed by what happened there, and I'm still experiencing the benefits, and I'm still learning from the brilliantly thought-out and brilliantly applied principles of relationship that these people have put their hearts into creating and making available.

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AUTHOR: Lucky L - (USA)
SUBMITTED: Sunday, August 30, 2009

POSTED: Sunday, August 30, 2009
I agree w/ this report. I took the AMP Intensive course and a hard time making the initial 2300 dollar investment. These guys have done an excellent job developing a money machine to enable Bryan and Decker to run around and play business owner. Both Bryan and Decker are ONLY interested in making money and steal all of their content/techniques from other teachers w/ real integrity.

If you are looking to connect with a group of highly dysfunctional men who wallow in their own self-pity - this course is for you. Ask Bryan and Decker to provide some REAL success stories - not testimonials from their "life-coach" buddies.

Bryan is especially full of "it" and makes false claims about a "book" he has in development on men's circles - Bryan claims "integrity" but spends the entire course being pushed around by "Decker".

Decker thinks he is jesus and can't stop talking about how much money he makes from life coaching.

BEWARE: Everything costs money with these guys. At the end of the course - while they have you in their NLP grasp - they look to upsell you on their worthless "integration" program for another $150 dollars.

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POSTED: Tuesday, September 08, 2009

#4

Whoa...
AUTHOR: Tom - Louisville (USA)
SUBMITTED: Tuesday, September 08, 2009

I found this review while thinking about taking the AMP Intensive, and even then several things struck me as odd. Having now taken the course, I can tell you the anonymous writer misrepresents specifics, goes out of his way to misunderstand fundamentals, and, well, misses the scoop, like someone who comes away from Red Sox-Yankees game kvetching about grown men making a fuss over a little ball.

The AMP Intensive was a big experience in half a dozen ways for me and for all of the other guys in my group, including men from Norway and England. I won't go into it more than that; the Authentic Man Program site seems to cover participants' reactions pretty well. But a few words about this anonymous review...

First, the writer jumps right in with what he sees as spoilers, presumably to save us our money or prevent us from being brainwashed. But AMP isn't est or Reverend Moon or a Sigma Chi Hell Week, and purporting to reveal its Truth is a disservice to those who can and do get juice out of legit experiential course work. (It's no big secret many exercises work best if participants haven't planned out their responses in advance.) One of the three big foundations of AMP involves integrity, which involves keeping your word to yourself as well as others. The reviewer, who in participating in the AMP Intensive certainly took a verbal oath of confidentiality, seems to have forgotten this point.

Again, if there was a scam involved here, I'd understand the need to spill the beans. But the program is powerful and sound, and 99% of its grads will tell you that, without a glazed look in their eyes. What I detect is a customer who wasn't the right fit for the program in the first place. He doesn't mention that AMP plainly and emphatically offers a refund if you don't feel you got value. Did the writer ask for his money back? I bet he didn't, and it's for this same reason he now makes his anonymous snarky complaint instead.

One last thing. The writer makes a deal out of spying one of the founders hanging at a bar with his male friends, not talking to any women. I don't know about you, but for me, talking to women, even at its best -- especially at its best -- takes energy and attention. That's why we have guy friends, and that's why we have beer. I truly wish I could buy the writer a beer and find out what's actually bugging him.

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#5 Consumer Comment

Worthwhile Course
AUTHOR: Sethb - Minneapolis (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Tuesday, October 12, 2010

POSTED: Tuesday, October 12, 2010

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I took the course and found it worthwhile. The original poster describes a course whose resemblance to the one I took is at best partial and superficial, and in part wholly distinct.

The longest we were in a room continuously was maybe 2-3 hours (with lunch, dinner, and snack breaks).

As for his descriptions of the exercises, the best I can say is "there's something that's true that has a lot of the same words in it."

Bryan also teaches a course on approaching women, and if he was in a bar with his students, I'd expect him to spend his time observing and talking with those students and not chasing women for himself.

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When I first started creating with Bryan, I learned that stuff happened when he was around. Even though he didn’t demand or expect any credit for this, it was pretty clear that when he wasn’t around, less cool stuff happened. It was a couple of years in before I “got” him.

In the middle of a dust storm on the playa at Burning Man, he only half-jokingly demanded, shouting to whoever may answer: “Take me to your leader — What the hell is this existence, really?” Maybe someone will answer. It never occurred to me to just yell and ask, like anyone can just ask at any point, but no one got around to it. Bryan is the one who actually gets around to doing that very thing. It’s his desire and creativity that moves most of what I do and what everyone creating with us do. His appetite guided us to San Francisco; that same appetite led us to the crest of this wave of human consciousness. And Bryan isn’t even satisfied riding there. He floats past the rest into the frothy flecks where chaos prevails and the most novelty arises.