Hi vlinden, I am breaking my own rule for myself, as I don't want to distract this thread, or any thread by going off-topic.
Someone would have to make a new thread in the context of cult-abuse to explore the subject of the "paranormal" and cults.

It also does not appear that selling Supernatural Powers is part of the Byron Katie salespitch, maybe she gets into it later, they usually save that stuff for the Secret "advanced" mind-control stuff, like Scientology.

But suffice it to say, if any of that "paranormal" stuff were possible, I would be the first one to prove it, and claim the James Randi 1 Million Dollar Prize, go on Oprah and jump on a couch...etc.
Some of us have actually worked with many others over many years to actually try to "prove" any of it. So far, it has never worked. Never, not once.

1 Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge
[www.randi.org]

again, don't anyone be offended if I don't respond to that subject anymore in this thread.
Its very important to keep threads on subject and not cluttered, for future reference. Many people Google and read these threads over time.

One last thing on Byron Katie,

Even in the video I saw of the interview with the Israeli woman, it was obvious that the goal was for BK to lead this women to accept BK's reality, there was nothing else that was allowed to happen, no other goal of the interaction. Until the woman "got it" -- up on stage in front of a rapt audience -- BK would not be satisfied. That's a lot of pressure to put someone under, I'm sure people feel it in her "school" as well. BK is right -- I am here to learn what she knows, I must listen and try to understand why she is right.

And despite all the "honeys" I did not feel a kindness emanating from her.

Really, it seems BK goes one step beyond Landmark and is reaching into the realm of the completely insane, attempting to fully destabilize people's thought processes and sense of identity. There should be a name for this crime.

Sometimes the truth does slip-out....when Byron Katie was asked by a reporter what she does...

Byron Katie.. "fixes her aquamarine eyes on me, smiles and says, "I clear people's minds." She illustrates the statement with a flick of those fingernails, as if brushing crumbs from a tablecloth."

Right from the horses mouth. Just like a flick of the finger...Byron Katie...as her Step #1...

CLEARS PEOPLE'S MINDS.

Byron Katie gets people to not eat as...

"You take away people's chewing and their mind goes nuts, they start getting angry, feeling like little children. They feel deprived. It gets really radical and that's what I want."

"No sex, please," says Katie.. "We separate husbands and wives so they can focus on their thoughts about that".

and she takes your cellphone away from you, and does the full LGAT Thought-Reform experience.

She CLEARS PEOPLE'S MINDS using Thought Reform, increases their pain and misery, and then replaces their Minds contents with Byron Katie International products and services.

Another "Crazy Guru" selling "Crazy Wisdom" for "Crazy Profit-margins".
Gurus have always acted "crazy" as a method, as it gives them a free license to act abusively toward their followers..."for their own good".

The Work gets Worse and Worse...
it seems that Byron Katie also likes to blame victims of child-rape for the abuse.
This is very common with sociopaths, they believe that if a child is raped, they asked for it, they wanted it to happen.

So if you get scammed out of your house and give all your money to Byron Katie when she tells you to do so...then you were ASKING for it. Right honey?
If Byron Katie hurts you, and scams you, because she is ONE with you, then YOU wanted her to do it to you. Right angel?

She is only commiting Mind-Rape and Thought-Reform on you, as you want her to do it.

See how it all works? (sarcasm alert)



---------Some QUOTE excerpts from relevant Amazon reviews below-----------

A 9 year old is responsible for being raped?, Jan 11 2006

I have never felt compelled to write a review in my life -- but I found this book completely offensive.
She speaks to a woman, Dianne, a suvivor of incest, and gets her to do the "work" and "turn it around" getting her to say "I abused him" and admitting that "after it happened... I could basically get anything I wanted from him" somehow making the conclusion that she was responsible for the abuse. Incest is a complex issue and people spend years trying to get rid of the shame of feeling that they brought on the abuse-- when the reality is that an adult was taking advantage of their power over a child.
...
The transcripts in the book are nothing more than watching a cult in action. Cults are known to use any rationalization in order to use their methods. Byran Katie seems to work very hard to make everything add up finding excuses for bad behaviour. I suggest to take a look at "what is" in this book.
_______________________________________________

Ghastly, May 18 2003

If no stars were available, I'd choose that. This self-help book is aimed primarily at helping the author. I found it preposterous, and downright dangerous. I don't think this woman has any credentials; rather, she seems to tout her qualifying experience as the fact that she had a nervous breakdown when she was 43 years old. Katie's "help" is presented as a series of questions that branch from her initial query of "Is it [the situation, feeling, etc.] true?" Nothing intended to help people break out of lifelong conditioning works as fast as Katie would have one believe. Especially annoying parts of the book are the intro by her husband (who has no more credentials than his wife) where he belabors Katie's lecturing on the ideas in her book for free (the book certainly is not free; thank goodness I borrowed it from a library), the many times Katie showcases her approach in a cult-like way as "The Work," Katie pretending to be an objective participant when she is clearly steering people toward her sometimes-dangerous ideas, and Katie using endearments that just seem patronizing with her interview subjects in the dialogue transcripts (e.g., "Nice Work, honey"). I was muddling through the book and wondering when I'd get to something helpful when I read her exchange with a woman who was repeatedly raped as a child (around age 8 or 9) by her stepfather. Then the author, through a series of questions, ended up turning the blame for the rapes around on the victim, culminating in the idea that rape was the woman's way of receiving love. All this was done in front of an audience. Brainwashing and abuse in the guise of therapy. Ghastly.
_____________________________________________________

Oh, my, God., Jun 6 2007

...
I was busy gagging on the pretentious, overblown name The Work, when I realized the whole thing is just transcriptions of conversations with clients (or devotees, or disciples). She talks and talks and talks at them, until she arm-wrestles them around to her way of thinking. Even implying that a child sexual abuse survivor had anything to do with causing the abuse is heinous and morally corrupt, but Byron doesn't care. It sells books to make provocative statements, and if you don't get it, then there is something wrong with YOU.

Even more cloying and sickening is her insistence on calling these people "sweetheart" and "angel". Just what is she trying to do here? It's a massive breach of boundaries to use a personal endearment on someone you don't know very well. But it implies, to me, that she is exempt from all these rules, and that Byron (I refuse to call her Katie, even though everyone else does)believes she is bestowing a great gift on them by calling them these insulting names. Hey, what if one of them called HER "sugar-lips" or "sweetie-buns"? (Or how about Oh, Great Master? How about God Incarnate?)I think she's trying to convey the fact she "loves" these poor little, unenlightened people, but it is so condescending as to border on the contemptuous.

A psychotherapist recommended this book to me, and I did try, but I gagged on it from the introduction. To say we create reality is only true in a very limited way. The Jews did not "create" Auschwitz, and anyone who even implies that they did is horrifyingly insensitive and even racist.

If we approach life with the belief that everyone creates their own problems, then we have no responsibility towards the poor, the disenfranchised, hungry children, women forced by dire poverty into prostitution, and too many others to name. We don't really need to do anything about the environment, because these slobs did it to themselves, so leave them to it. It is this kind of infantile, utterly selfish thinking that has got us into this mess, and practicing it now will only lead us into disaster.

The truth is, we only have a partial hold on reality. Things can suddenly fall apart, through absolutely no fault of our own. To me, it is much more courageous to face our lives on these terms: no, I didn't create this, it happened to me for reasons I'll never understand: but nevertheless, it is part of my life, and I must face it to the best of my ability. To even imply that we create every situation through our own thoughts is childish, egotistical, and just plain wrong.

Ms. Byron, I am sorry so many people have made you into a god, as it feeds your massive ego needs and insistence that you have All The Answers. When something overwhelming happens to you (and it will), I think The Work will fall down like the house of cards it really is.
____________________________________

I have a family member who attended one of (or all of) the 9 day workshops or whatever they are. On the last day, they are allowed or encouraged to invite family, friends, etc. I had never heard of this deal before and it was very narrowly described to me before I went to go "visit". Given this family member's propensity toward gullibility, I figured that this would be some sort of a sham. I showed up and within the first few minutes, I felt like it was a cult, then I started feeling sorry for these people, then I wanted to run like hell out of the building. I'm not an expert on cults, I just don't buy into bs as quickly as this particular member of my family does.

This is what I recall from my half day visit:

I was lead back to one of the conference rooms in the hotel where there was a stage set up, a lot of cameras and some video projection screens. The two people on stage, BK and "friend" were being projected on the screens. When I sat down, I was given some type of worksheet to fill out with these extremely screwed up questions. I believe you can find this worksheet on BK's website. After reading the first question which was something like, "I hate______ because_____", I immediately disengaged from my friendly persona I had walked in the building to one of investigative skepticism.

I sat through a few of the participants and was absolutely shocked, amazed and appalled that these people would get up in front of a crowd, go through this intimate exercise in front of a multitude of people without any doctor / client privilege and allow themselves to be videotaped. I immediately thought that everyone who was buying into this bs had lost their minds. I saw a guy who hated his brother's attitude, another guy who had cancer and had lost an eye, and some other folks. But after witnessing the dude with cancer, I was morally compelled to take my leave of that room. I left the room and I wanted a cup of coffee. They don't serve coffee. I think it had something to do with caffeine and stimulants. They served tea (because we all know that tea doesn't have any caffeine - yeah right).

I lingered around outside until my family member had come out and many other participants made it over to the bar. They all wanted to drink (don't blame them one bit) and I decided to have a couple of beers and cigarettes with them. Here are some interesting things I learned from them about their time spent with BK:
They were required to stay at the hotel during this 9 day deal.
They weren't allowed to stay in the same room as their spouse, if their spouse accompanied them.
They were not allowed to use their cell phones or have contact with the outside world during this time.
They were on a limited and restrictive diet; it sounded like calorie deficient and low carbohydrate to keep your brain from functioning properly.
All of the men reported zero erectile ability during their stay. They were laughing and joking about it, but I didn't think it was so funny. Either their diet was engineered to limit this ability or potassium nitrate was put into their food; probably the later.
One of the exercises that I remember being recounted to me was: they were taken by bus to an a large public place (marketplace, promenade type deal), dumped there with no money, and instructed that they were only allowed to say one phrase (or they had a small group of 3 phrases that they could utter... something like that) in order to get from people the things that they needed, desired, wanted, whatever. I remember one phrase was, "I'm hungry. Feed me." So basically, these folks were instructed to go become panhandlers for the day. I did that once too voluntarily, during my college days, at an all day rock festival where I sat with some fellow hippies and panhandled shamelessly for beer money.

All throughout the time I spent with these people at the bar, they spoke in a very unnatural phraseology. For instance, they were asking permission for every little thing. Instead of the more familiar, "dude, you got a cigarette?" (which implies that they would like one from me), they would all phrase this as, "Hello. May I please have one of your cigarettes? It is OK to say no." It was this way for every little f'n thing! WTF? I was really growing ape-sh*t mad with their whole 'newspeak'.

On another exercise, they were instructed to gift wrap (or something like that, but it was "wrapped") something of perceived value to them that they felt that they couldn't live without and give it to 'the work'. My retarded, gullible, insanely stupid, mentally ill family members (there was my blood relative and their spouse at this place) handed over near $100,000 worth of jewelry..... When I heard this, I almost punched my family member square on the kisser.... I still can't get over the stupidity.....

Anyway, this leads me to my final observation. Pretty much everyone I met at this thing was very wealthy, my family member included. It was an international crowd, and a crowd that seemed not to have any money troubles. My opinion of these people is that, they all had a lot of money and couldn't figure out why people didn't like them as much as they thought they should be liked and came to this place in an attempt to relearn what it means to be a human being. I believe that what they were learning was the opposite though as 'the work' basically seems to say that everything is about you and other people do not matter nor do they fit into the equation that is you. I think this kind of perspective actually distances you further from those around you rather than catalyzing positive social interaction. The people there really did seem lost and it felt to me that they had success, and it wasn't buying them happiness so they decided to spend a little more money to see if they actually could buy happiness. [Just to qualify -I am successful as well - I'm just not stupid, nor do I lack self worth.]

I wonder if it would be a good idea to write a letter about this and send it to organizations that deal with rape crisis and incest. Perhaps professionals would begin to make public statements about the EXTREME dangers of these twisted teachings.

Obviously if BK is to promote her 4 questions and reversal techniques as the ultimate truths, it must be applicable in every situation. That it becomes patently insane and criminal when applied to rape, incest, murder, genocide, etc, is apparently not slowing her emergence as a New Age guru.

Okay... Lots of stuff here. Still trying to integrate it and get back to reality.

First of all, I want to say that I resent the implication that those of us who attended her school are "gullible, insanely stupid, mentally ill", blammo. I realize that you are talking about your family member, but you sure make it sound like everyone there is the same way. Are you trying to help, or hurt here? Because saying things like that to someone whose been abused by an LGAT certainly isn't going to help or support them in their recovery. I hope you don't talk to your family members like that.

I'm not wealthy, mentally ill, or generally very gullible... and I hope not insanely stupid, either. If everyone who got involved with LGATs fit those qualifications, then I don't think they would be such a serious problem. I was not educated or informed about Thought Reform or therapy, or any of this stuff prior to attending... probably like a large percentage of the population. I knew something was wrong, but I had no information or point of reference for identifying it, and my curiosity led me on... but not to take all the blame for it... my mind was seriously being yanked with.

Hello? We are talking about viciously aggressive and deceptive recruiting here. Congratulations to you for being so well informed that you were able to recognize it for what it was. You're so very lucky... now will you please show a little compassion and respect for those of us who were not as fortunate as you? I would appreciate that.

I was thinking about the exercise where we were asked to think of something of value to us that was up in our rooms. Just think about, she said... now go get it. I didn't have anything valuable in my room. My wedding ring was on my hand, and I thought of that, but this exercise happened on the last day and I wasn't feeling very trusting by then. Someone had given me a stuffed animal during the School, so I got that and wrapped it up like a gift... because that's what we were told to do. Then, all the "gifts" were laid out on the floor. It wasn't until we had given them up that we were told that we would never see the item again.

There was no explanation to where the things were going... people asked, and BK (I want to stop calling her "Katie") told us "they are in good hands." Some people gave their wedding rings, jewelry, identification, and plane tickets! We were told to write about what that item meant to us and question it. My item didn't really have any meaning... so I watched everyone else. People were crying about their Grandma's wedding band... or panicking about how they were going to get home without ID or tickets. Some were mad. Others seemed to be loving it... most loved it.

BK told us that those items meant absolutely nothing to us. When the exercise was over, she asked if there was anyone who wished they could have their item back. I raised my hand... not that a stuffed animal from a stranger meant anything to me, but I wanted to openly defy her. Those few of us who raised our hands (about 5 out of 300) were told to go get our gifts back, and we did.

Then she asked if anyone still wanted to get their items back, now that they had seen us do it... a bunch of people raised their hands, and she basically told them it was too bad. The items were gone. Some people speculated that it was all going to go to benefit homeless people, but somehow I seriously doubt it.

blammo, it's sad that your family members gave all that away... I don't understand why they would have that value of jewelry with them in the first place, but still...

Anticult, I appreciate all the digging you are doing. Your commentary on things is really helping me get myself back. I'm still amazed... that even though I remained skeptical, I still lost so much of myself through the process...

At the time, "clearing my mind" didn't sound like a bad idea... but then, I didn't know what that meant.

One thing that always struck me as really odd about people leaving The School was how many of them were divorced afterward. In fact, I met two men there at The School who had come there because their wives had been and were leaving them. One was spitting mad... but was "in love" and blissed out when he left. The other had already been doing The Work and came to support his wife during the divorce.

I heard a woman introducing herself to a staff member on the first day...and saying that she just got divorced... and the staff member said "What a wonderful opportunity!" I'm sure my mouth dropped open.

There's so much about The School that I forgot, but I'm remembering now. We spent a few hours doing this exercise on learning to receive criticism. We all wrote ten things on a piece of paper that we would like to hear someone say to us, and ten things we would not like to hear. Then, we passed the pieces of paper around to each other until everyone had a little pile. We partnered up with another person and went off to question the criticisms and compliments we had received. The instructions were to take the phrase on the paper, such as "You're stupid", and repeat back "I'm stupid." Then, we were to tell the other person three ways that could be true... examples from our own lives... without getting defensive, of course. I had "You're a bitch" twice, so I had to find 6 different ways that I'm a bitch, and tell this stranger about them. I made some of them up.

It just occurred to me how that exercise was actually tearing us down, rather than helping us. Sort of warping our self-image... to accept and admit to every insult that we were given. Of course, there were compliments too... but some of those didn't fit either. I had one that said "I appreciate your gayness." I'm heterosexual. I had to repeat back "You appreciate my gayness" and then give 3 real life examples of how my "gayness" could be appreciated. It was impossible.

After doing each one (we each had about 30), we were supposed to turn each one around and do the same thing with the opposite. So, "You're a bitch" became "You're a sweetheart", and "You're stupid" became "You're smart." I have to admit that my heart wasn't in it. Now that I look back on it... I wonder how that might possibly destabilize a person and wear down their sense of self? The message was that no matter what someone said to us, it must be true... especially if we didn't like it.

Which is why ralpher doesn't seem to get that while he's criticizing us all... we're supposed to "take it in" and find how true it is... and smile and say "Thank you." (That's how we were to respond to being criticized.)

I don't like to be criticized. I'm not an expert on anything psychological... but I think it's called verbal abuse.

When I think about having to sit there thanking this woman for telling me that I'm a bitch... twice!... I feel pretty angry about it.

-jj



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2008 10:22AM by jj52.

From Louise Samway's "Dangerous Persuaders"

INDIVIDUALS

Call them what you will, gurus, masters, leaders or faith healers may operate on
their own or with the backing of small or extremely large international organisations. The
guru business is now a booming industry worth billions of dollars a year.

The one thing that stands out with all gurus and leaders is how much they love the
job! Very ordinary people can gain exceptional incomes, recognition and power in these
roles. For people whose life may be fairly bland and seem insignificant the role of guru
can give them an extraordinary emotional high, a reason for being, an income and power
over others all at once. Frequently leaders come to believe their own publicity - that they
have some divine mission in life or gift of healing.

For the followers, the feeling that they are one of a group that has been ‘chosen’
for some special mission immediately makes their ordinary human lives more important
and special. This need to feel valued, special and recognised acts as a powerful motivator
and is easily exploited by the leader. Approval of the member and personal recognition
by the leader, and consequently the group, becomes an extremely powerful reinforcement
to ensure compliant behaviour. As a person becomes increasingly dependent on and
addicted to this approval his or her behaviour can become more and more at odds with
their old beliefs and values. If the leader’s approval is withdrawn then the follower can
suffer physical and emotional feelings similar to those experienced by addicts
withdrawing from drugs.

Many leaders I have observed and spoken to have studied neurolinguistic
programming techniques extensively so that they can use minute body cues (like eye
movements) to ‘read the patient’ They can then reprogram the ‘patient’s’ (recruit’s)
values and beliefs just by the way they use language (see Chapter 3).

Louise Samway's description conjures up the image of host-parasite relationship.

Its truly unbelievable what is starting to come out about Byron Katie. She has even sent one of her alleged unpaid staff lovinggoonsquad, (who might even PAY to work for her), to mess with people's minds in the other thread. So just be cautious. They come sounding like sheep, but they want to do internet propaganda, and also upset and make former members feel bad, guilty, depressed, etc. Don't let their tactics Trigger things in your mind to overwhelm you, it might be better to not deal with them at all for now. Trust your own judgement on that.

But from an outsider's point of view, I didn't take what 'blammo' said as putting down Byron Katies victims. He stated that he was not an expert on cults, and that this stuff has little effect on him, so some folks don't understand how powerful it can be. There are certain folks for who all these hypnotic mind-control stuff bounces right off. Similar to how blammo stated, its just irritating, and they leave the room in an agitated state. BK knows this, its a filtering process.

So lets all remember that Byron Katie and Co are using extremely powerful and highly sophisticated TECHNIQUES of Thought Reform, (aka: brainwashing) that have been refined for decades. They are using dozens of them, flat-out, without one shred of remorse of empathy. They are utterly ruthless.

As far as the $100,000 "gift" or other valuable cash-grab from Byron Katie and her hubby. This shows just how utterly perverse Byron Katie and her people are. That would make the worst televangelist blush. One can imagine them in their hotel room that night, opening the "gifts" and howling with laughter, dancing on the beds. They could easily clear a million bucks in loot right there on a good night. That could bring in more than the entire LGAT seminar!

But that is also a filtering process, you ask for your stuff back, they know you are too strong, and they let give you the cold shoulder . (jj, it is so great you got out when you did!)
You give them some nice loot, and then you go on The List, which means they will give you special attention, to get the rest of it.

But for those who have been ripped-off by Byron Katie...its not too late to seek redress.
(this is a personal comment and not legal advice, always see agood attorney first).
For example, maybe you could get an attorney, and get together all of your insurance documents that prove you own the jewellery, or valuable. Then perhaps (check with your lawyer) have your lawyer contact them, and say that you want it back immediately. (If its an heirloom, they probably just keep it in a safe to retain CONTROL OVER YOU EMOTIONALLY). (these BK people are really really bad folks).

If they won't give it back, then one can go to the attorneys general, or IRS. After all, if one gave a gift worth $50,000 did you get a receipt from the tax-exempt charity for the full value?
Does Byron Katie have a receipt to prove she owns your property?
Was the gift taken from you under duress and peer pressure? (BK copied this peer-pressure "gifting" strategy from others).
Did Byron Katie Inc declare that as income to the IRS?
Does Byron Katie want the IRS and Attorney's General coming down on her and her companies?

What about the labor laws, and those who are called "STAFF" who appear to PAY to WORK? That spells serious trouble too.

What about the press and newspapers?

Its clear that Byron Katie is directly TARGETING wealthy people, who are vulnerable to being milked of their assets. She goes into La-La land mentally, as if you are willing to follow her there, you will follow her almost anywhere, and do what she says. Like hand over your jewellery, wedding rings, Rolex's, necklaces, diamonds, property deeds...


The next step is to look into the Byron Katie "Turnaround House". That one stinks to high heaven, it appears to be the ultimate, or close to it.
Sounds like the Byron Katie costing $1,000 a day MONTH LONG Brainwashing House, leading to mental breakdowns, and then signing over of large assets. Can you imagine a wealthy vulnerable person being under the control of these people's systems 24/7 for a MONTH?
These groups all target wealthy people, often with inherited wealth who are vulnerable to easy exploitation, that is the filtering process of the seminars, to find those Targets.

Byron Katies Turnaround House slogan is "the end of suffering".

There was another slogan used for slave labor... "Work makes you free".

Keep posting links to these threads around the internet, the truth about Byron Katie is coming out. Many of those under her spell will eventually start to wake-up and come out of it.
If there are improper or even illegal dealings going on, formal complaints to the authorities can produce results.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2008 12:17PM by The Anticult.