This long and haunting meditation article by Matthew Remski is well worth pondering. QuoteI think the story is really about cruelty – unintentional as the weather, and as close as the flesh – toileted from parents to children and teachers to students. Diamond Mountain provides a diorama of a primal scene: children needing love, attention, and support, adult survivors of abuse both denying
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

You betcha. It's no great leap to the conclusion that people like Werner Erhard have figured out ways to dove-tail themselves and their programs into the normal to mild swings most of us feel. I suspect those more seriously affected by mood cycles -- whether diurnal, hormonal, nutritional, reflexive, deprivational, trauma or disease-related, pharmaceutical, etc., etc. -- are especially v
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Walter Berlin seems to be trying to expunge bad news of himself off the internet. He's going to be pretty busy considering there are a wealth of very credible newspaper articles about him. There's also a damning 60 Minutes report. Walter Bellin is credited with creating the Turning Point course. You can read plenty about this course here: In particular, he considers this minor
Forum: Coercive Persuasion and Undue Influence

I'm in the process of sorting myself out after years of experience with self-help and new age gurus. The last few days I've been camping out on the RR site doing research because I believe that knowledge is power. (A pity I didn't know about this site years ago and that I was naive and trusting for so long, but thankfully I now know better.) During my time on this site I've
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

22-30 Helen Crovetto, Azusa, CA From Tiruvannamalai to Prescott and Bozeman: The Western Baul Lineage The Western Bauls follow an iconoclastic form of Tantrism that incorporates many of the practices associated with both the medieval Bauls of Bengal and contemporary Baul communities in India. The guru-parampara runs from Yogi Ramsurat Kumar, to Lee Khepa Baul, to Purna Steinitz; with
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Lozowick claimed to have spontaneously enlightened while teaching Silva Mind Control. He supposedly got validated for his enlightenment by some guru dude named Ramsuratkumar (sometimes the name is Ramsurat kumar). He claimed to be a Baul guru and Lozowick went on to claim and present himself as a Baul. Ramsuratkumar had his ashram in the far southern region of India, not in Bengal, where the
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

How LGATs trigger bipolar symptoms – What we now know about the body’s response to stress and sleep deprivation: After doing an LGAT in 2010 I noticed very clear links between the structure of the course and the events that had led to my two significant manic episodes. Both the triggers of my two manias (excessive stress and sleep deprivation sustained for a period before suddenly removing the
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Yup, this New Wage stuff sounds more than familiar... But Anticult, you are forgetting one tiny thing. See, the ascension people say you can be like Jesus, but if you challenge them to make loves and fishies appear, they'll come back with: "it takes time for humanity to ascend and achieve that level. It's not easy. We're not there yet." Or: "you're interpr
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Brynhild, In addition to using Google, I would suggest that you also learn to read what is written, and not what you yourself read into what is written. Good luck in gaining your own experience. I will not be bothering with you again.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Stoic, I grew up in Christianity but found holes in that, so tried Paganism and was told, upon questioning it, that my beliefs were too fluffy and to go join the new age movement, which I did, but obviously found flaws in that. So I come here and am honest enough to ask for help, and when I am given information, I tell you what works for me and what doesn't. When I get information that do
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'It's almost as if they don't know what they're talking about. Well why don't they just admit that then? ' Brynhild, They very much do know what they are talking about and they use the words to bamboozle you. What they are banking on is that you don't know what they are talking about and will become confused enough to just swallow the nonsense, because it
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Hey Stoic, I do appreciate the bologna detection kit, but I can't understand it. The antecdotes and articles other posters here are giving me are much more helpful, and written in a way I can understand. I do not know what ad hoc, ad/post hominum, phallacies, etc. mean so I generally avoid articles with too much of that terminology. I'm just telling you what is the most easy-to-under
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Hi Brynhild, If what I wrote helps you or any other reader, that's a good thing. Too many people (not just New Wage gurus) are happy to play with our minds and make huge promises with the goal being not to help us, but to empty our minds so they can empty our bank accounts. If there's one thing I have learned during my years on this planet it's the importance of listening to
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Brynhild, 'For the reasons given above, that's why it's so hard to think critically about these things.' I gave the link to the baloney kit because it is helpful, at no time did I suggest that it was easy. ;-) The language it is written in is plain English. 'Bit simplistic for some people, but there you are. I am just pointing out which posts are helpful, and
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Hey Sunshine, Thanks for your posts. They are extremely helpful, especially when you ask "imagine if the LOA or the Silva method worked 100 percent of the time." The new age movement says it does and puts an all-positive spin on it, backing it up with their own selective evidence to support their claims and their own justification for why things are the way they are. That is part of
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

There's a Silva book out called You the Healer. The last chapter is called "Affecting the Weather" and someone shares her story about getting rid of fog. Seriously, I'm not making this up. She claims to have gotten rid of fog so that her plane could take off. In the same book there's a chapter called "Correcting Abnormal Behaviour." Some of the examples menti
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I'm embarrassed to admit that I took a Silva course several years ago. I can't remember much other than it being very long hours and taking up my entire weekend. We were told at the beginning that if we were not satisfied for any reason we could get a full refund. Part way through the course I was already thinking about asking for a refund because it was getting weirder and weirder. The
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Brynhild, This is intended in the kindest possible way: 'Have a poke around. Wish I'd done all this sooner! Well at least I'm doing it now.' Well, no actually, you're not. You're asking us to do it for you and then feed you the answers. Which is the same as expecting Tolle or any other 'authority' to feed you the answers. You can only learn s
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Brynhild, If you have to get past all the products then there's nothing worth reading there. The newage mumbo jumbo is only there to sell the products, selling the products is the entire point of the exercise, all the rest is window-dressing.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Wow, this is scary stuff! There seems to be a huge corrolation between these Silva/LGAT methods and mental illness. Maybe if you mess with people's minds enough, they become mentally ill... Would you all take a look at this site and give me your thoughts? This person was involved in Silva mind control and claims to have been a scientist so writes metaphysical articles and tried to use sci
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

There is a page of links here on Silva. search for Silva Mind Control
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

This is a quotation from a cached book on Silva Mind Control published decades ago. Note the use of the term psychosis, with no attempt to identify subcatagories. The authors are also operating from unrestrained attribution bias. They went in loyal to Silva Mind Control and found what they wanted to find and would have been able to ingore what did not fit their expectations. Anyone who
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Silva Mind Control has been influential to other persons in the commercial guru field. Here is this from pages 158-160 of W W Bartley's Quote[Werner Erhard: Transformation of a Man Bartley was a well regarded professor of philosophy who became an passionate devotee of both Werner Erhard and of est. So keep the devotional tone in mind if read the book, which is a quite interesting tour
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I watched this over the summer, interesting & very telling : For NLP, use the search function at the very top right hand corner of this page. I typed in neuro linguistic programming and selected all dates from the drop down. You'll have plenty to read. A word of caution as you're reading ....... don't do "the work" of byron katie. I did worksheets at home and i
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Hi all, In researching the backgrounds of new-age authors in order to not take their channeled messages at face value, I sometimes have a lot of trouble finding information on their past or the organizations they trained under (unless of course it is to sing the authors, praises with glowing testimonials." One of these organizations is something called Silva Mind Control, and a particular n
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Hi Pegasus, Wow, you're really making me think here... How have the teachings affected me? I was dependent on them, like I needed them, like a drug, like I would be doing my daily activities but my focus would be gone because my mind would be somewhere else, thinking about new-age stuff. Every problem or situation I had in my life, I'd rush home and constantly check to see if there
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

Steve989 posted this below on the PSI thread. I asked him via PM if he had any information on how Impact Trainings plugs into this historical network, but he said he was unfamiliar with Impact and would research it. It seems to me that Hans Berger was a Lifespring graduate. Also I have seen indications that Hans has had some poor health and may not be active in Impact any longer. Could anyone
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

"How Large Group Awareness Trainings such as PSI Seminars and Landmark Education/Forum/Est began: This movement born in the end of 1940's, when USA government funded a research aimed to create an educative system based on most functional parts of existing methods in the various traditions spread around the world. They gathered information from great religions, great philosophers and
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

If you want to really punish your brain, most libraries have the DVD You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. Its a rip-off of The Secret, New Age talking heads, all Hay House writers. Interestingly, there is a frame of Louise Hay's first booklet, Heal Your Body, which if you freeze the DVD you can read it, and it lists the seminars/trainings she attended in the 1970's. Silva Mind Co
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotecorboyMy guess is that that technique you mention where there's a commerical, and at the very end of it, something's included that seemingly 'makes no sense'-- is this a method of inducing a subtle shock or disorientation, designed to enhance susceptibility to the previous message? I have heard that one way to make people suggestible is to shock them, or stun them for an
Forum: Coercive Persuasion and Undue Influence