Here is a educational excerpt for analysis, of the text about the "Washing Machine" from the book "A Thousand Names For Joy" by Byron Katie. At the end of CD#3, 3 hours into the program, 3 minutes from the end, Byron Katie tells a long story-induction about a "washing machine" and her "doing the laundry" while in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The elegance of these types of Inductions is that they have multiple meanings.
There is the straight forward everyday meaning of the text.
And there is also the DEEPER symbolic meaning to the unconscious, when done in the full-context, and with voice-cues. That is what Ericksonian style hypnotherapy is all about, building these types of symbolic and metaphorical meanings into stories, with a purpose. Communcating directly to the unconscious mind and by-passing the conscious critical mind.

Its also very common in hypnosis to build imaginary "Mind Machines" to do "work" automatically in the unconscious.
And of course, in Stage Hypnosis there is the old comedy gag of making people act like a Washing Machine. [www.choosehypnosis.com]

So you see its layered quite elegantly, even including the fact that Byron Katie has an office in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

HYPNOTIC MIND MACHINES
(IMPORTANT: please do NOT buy any of these products, this is just for educational purposes only, to see what's out there).
"Mind Machine- Create an imaginary machine in your subconscious mind to perform a mental function, like math or spelling or computing complex information. You can create many mind machines for several mental functions and connect them to share information."
[www.wendi.com]

It would be very Enlightening to send the excerpt text below to some advanced Ericksonian style hypnotherapists, and see their comments.


[fair-use text excerpt for educational purposes, and textual analysis]
"A Thousand Names For Joy" (pp. 146-7):

Quote

...How fascinating to see me baffled by technology, for example. I’m in an apartment in Amsterdam and have been on the road for almost three months, living in hotel rooms. Finally, an apartment, for six whole days in a row! It’s near the park, and it has a kitchen and a big living room overlooking a quiet square. And, heaven of heavens, a washing machine! It can’t get any better than this. Hmm. With Fuchs’ dystrophy, sometimes I can see and sometimes I can’t, and it has been a few days now since I could see clearly. And I absolutely cannot read the dial on the washing machine. So I wait, thinking that maybe in a couple of hours my eyes will clear up. Later I notice, excitedly, that I can read the dial well enough to see words. Of course, the words are in Dutch. I call a Dutch friend, and she translates for me. I guess at what bin to put the soap in. Who needs fabric softener anyway? And, by the way, I hope this really is soap, and if it is, I hope it’s for washing machines. I was given a detailed lesson in how to run this machine yesterday, so I have an idea of what to do, but I’ve forgotten some essential instructions. Oh, well. I start the machine, and I’m thrilled. Clean clothes!

Three hours later, I take a peek. The machine is still going through cycles, and I have lost my vision again. Until the clothes spin and the correct cycle completes, the door on the washing machine won’t open. So now I’m turning the dial by sound, with my ear close to it, listening to the clicks, like a safecracker. After the cycle ends, the door still doesn’t open. I can’t see the dial, I can’t figure out the machine, I don’t know what more to do, I call Stephen in and he doesn’t know what to do, there’s a load of wet clothes in the washing machine, the door won’t open, I’m not sure if it was soap I put in or if it was in the right dispenser or if the wet clothes are even clean. And I notice that I’m feeling calm—tickled actually, always watching mind and the way of it. There’s nothing wrong, everything is right. The thought that the machine should work or that the clothes should get clean never even occurs to me. I’m just watching where reality goes next. It’s fascinating. Is the goal to wash clothes? Is the goal to wash clothes in the machine? You never know. In another hour or two we may be headed for an adventure at the Laundromat up the street.

Then suddenly I remember that the landlord told me there’s a little quirk to the washing machine: you have to turn the dial to a certain place to complete the cycle before the door will open. I turn it, the door opens, and finally, after five hours, voila! The laundry is done.

__________________________________(item reference)_____
A Thousand Names for Joy: A Life in Harmony with the Way Things Are [ABRIDGED] [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio CD)
by Byron Katie (Reader), Stephen Mitchell (Reader)
Audio CD
Publisher: RH Audio; Abridged edition (February 6, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 073934188X

A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are (Hardcover)
by Byron Katie (Author), Stephen Mitchell (Author)
Product Details
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Harmony (February 6, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307339238[/quote]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2008 02:04PM by The Anticult.

Just a random note...totally unconnected with the story about doing the "laundry" in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is in the Netherlands, which is ranked 7th in the world for money laundering.
Companies that work internationally, and take in a lot of undeclared cash income in one country, perhaps in personal gifts of valuables, could theoretically move money offshore internally.

"The most important money laundering channels are real estate investments, export under invoicing and import overpricing and money laundering through special purpose entities."
Money laundering in Netherlands
[www.finfacts.com]

That washing machine story is very odd. I dont know how to do what Anticult does, but will offer my two cents:

What kind of washing machine takes 3 hours to go through a spin cycle?

And..what is the actual likelihood that someone as well off as BK reportedly is would be doing her own laundry anyway?

(Cough, cough)

Two if, as she says in this laundromat vignette, she has Fuch's dystrophy, there is no reason to mention this and many compelling reasons not to--that is if she were a professional therapist who actually understood boundaries.

Professional therapists are not supposed to tell clients about their personal problems or illnesses, not unless the condition is such that it would hamper the therapist from keeping appointments.

The whole point is to keep the client therapist relationship clean and boundaried precisely so that the client will be spared any temptation to parent the therapist, for that would re-enact and entrench the problems that client is trying to get free from.

(Wonder how many followers race off to Google Fuch's Dystrophy and then get emotionally invested and protective? That is precisely why mental health professionals would not tell us about their illnesses!)

Here is a link. And dont worry, if it gets bad enough, it is treatable with a corneal transplant. Just as basal cell carcinoma is quite treatable, as well.

No need for anyone to go into mourning or dress in black.

[www.fuchs-dystrophy.com]

For perspective, one of my uncles had Type 1 diabetes, had to take insulin for 45 to 50 years, and earned his living building houses with his own two hands and later became an instructor at the vocational tech institute in his city.

He never said a word about having diabetes, except to the small number of people who did need to know. He told me that when he was a kid, they offered to give him a special room at school if he needed some place private to take his insulin.

He told them no way, leave him alone, he didnt want special treatment. He found his own ways of taking care of business--without turning it into a public performance.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2008 10:35PM by corboy.

whenever you hear someone like Katie constantly telling little weird "Stories", that is generally this brand of hypnotic symbolic persuasion. For those who have been exposed to the technical literature, it just LEAPS out instantly. Its totally blatant.

No different than for someone who knows a little about music, Mozart and Bach can be distinguished in a few seconds, but for a non-musical person...all classical music sounds the same...

the way Katie contructs those sentences shown above, betrays exactly what she is doing. Even though some of the Stories are strange and ambiguous, the sentence construction of double-binds, false-choices, embedded commands, and leading questions is hard evidence. That is being done very technically by the book, and at a very high level of skill, by Byron Katie.

and as noticed, Katie is constantly telling sad-sack Stories about her various illnesses, they are listed above.

Again, this is done as it impacts on numerous levels, one of them being it builds emotional sympathy and Rapport with her female and loving followers. She goes on and on about her "blindness", and her treatments and ultimately an operation she had for her eyes. (...was blind, but now I see...). But notice she also added in one of her followers literally offered her his corneas while he was ALIVE!! So that fits perfectly with her program of Giving Katie EVERYTHING. Even offer her your EYES...heavy stuff..

Dr. Milton Erickson did very similar strange Stories like that, but in an ethical way. Patients would come into his office with some problem, and he would go into these long strange "stories" that did not seem relevant, or even make sense. (he was doing what came to be called Ericksonian Hypnotherapy), and by all accounts it got excellent results. (but he was an ethical hypnotherapist, who helped people like a good therapist would).

So this type of Laundry Story is classic. It works on the conscious level, it works as a Distraction, it works beautifully on the Unconscious level when you hear her vocal delivery,and the way she ends it, and it also possibly works on a meta-level, as a type of arrogant in-joke.

She also uses certain patterns like saying "I'm baffled by technology". Then her next sentence tells you to go to her website and go "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" your SELF!. (Reboot the Self).
Its a terrific diversion to put people at ease, and make them feel more comfortable.

So these types of Stories sound absurd and crazy to the conscious mind, which is their INTENT, but to the Unconscious they make perfect sense. Its a type of Dream-Language, of symbols and processes.
So it really is diabolical to use it like this, as it appears virtually all people don't have any exposure to that area of hypnotherapy. She trolls the human population, looking for the FEW PERCENT of people out there who are HIGHLY SUGGESTIBLE to her brand of suggestions and hypnosis.
When seen as a hypnotic Sorcerer, which is what she is, Byron Katie is completely logical and pragmatic. Every "story" she tells, is a type of waking Induction, some are just Distraction, some are Suggestion, etc.

Its not hard to see how that kind of Power could go to a person's head very easily. Even normal healthy therapists experience counter-Transference, and can start to believe they are superhuman.
Never mind those who are pathological to begin with, the Power from this type of multi-modal Persuasion would absolutely go to their heads beyond what a regular person could even imagine.

The complexity and subtlety of this is why people need to do some serious study of these Advanced forms of Persuasion that are being used these days. It all started when the NLP guys studied Milton Erickson, and wrote all those books, and it went from there. Now they have fused it with Social Influence, Social Engineering, and advanced Sales techniques, and many other things. Byron Katie seems to be doing most of these techniqes.

For example, there is a book called TRANCE-formations by Grinder and Bandler, which has some good info. But its not pop-psyche, it can be quite technical, like all of these books.
There is information out there, but its not easy to learn.
But this tiny little summary below seems ok, at quick glance. I do hope people do some serious research into this stuff, otherwise somone might have you dancing like a chicken, metaphorically speaking.

(remember, these NLP hypnosis guys are ALWAYS running meta-level patterns on you..always...even when explaining what they do...they are always DOING something else TO you at the same time.)
_____excerpt quote__________
What Are The Differences Between Subliminals, Traditional Hypnosis, Ericksonian Hypnosis, and NLP?
[www.neuro-vision.us]
"With "Ericksonian Hypnosis," we use little stories, called metaphors, to present suggestions and ideas to the unconscious mind. This is a powerful and effective method, because it usually eliminates the blockage of and resistance to suggestions that is often caused by the conscious mind. There are two types of metaphors, "Isomorphic," and those of the imbedded command or "interspersal" nature.
Isomorphic metaphors offer direction to the unconscious by telling a story that offers up a moral. The unconscious draws a one-to-one relationship between elements of the story and elements of a problem situation or behavior. For example, if a child is telling a lot of lies, the parent might tell the child the story about the "Boy who cried wolf." The unconscious would draw a parallel between the boy in the story and the child and realize that telling lies could lead to disaster, so the child would probably stop lying.

With the Embedded Command technique, the hypnotist tells an interesting story that engages and distracts the conscious mind. The story contains hidden indirect suggestions that are usually accepted by the unconscious.

Process Instructions direct the unconscious to find a memory of an appropriate learning experience from the past, and apply that experience to making a change in the present.

With "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" (NLP), rather than using suggestions, we use the same thought patterns that are creating a problem, like an excessive appetite or stress, to eliminate the problems. ...
NLP Anchoring: Have you ever heard an old song and had it trigger feelings from the past? When you originally heard the song, you were feeling those feelings, and they unconsciously became attached to the sound of the song. So the song became an Anchor for the feelings. Now when you hear the song, it triggers the same feelings again.
...
NLP Flash: This is a very powerful Neuro-Linguistic Programming technique that can be used to "flip" things around in the unconscious, so that thoughts and experiences that used to trigger feelings of stress actually trigger relaxation instead.
...
NLP Reframe: Reframing is a potent technique for helping a person change their behavior. ...
____EXCERPT QUOTE_______________________

also, just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with this type of hypnosis, when done ETHICALLY, with consent, and if it empowers people. It can be very creative, and can work well.

But that is not the case with Byron Katie. Luckily, even just the public knowledge that she is doing some type of "hypnosis" is going to help people. That is why she conceals it so completely.
The only ones who seem to know what she is doing, are other hypnotherapists who are also promoting her material.

Just getting the WARNING out there that Byron Katie is doing a type of waking HYPNOSIS on people without their awareness, is a good first step.

I read somewhere that Byron Katie was successfully treated for the Fuch's Dystrophy. I've found some mention of it here: [[url=http://www.thework.com/Newsletter-Dec121605.asp]Newsletter from Dec. 2005[/url]]

Quote
corboy
That washing machine story is very odd. I dont know how to do what Anticult does, but will offer my two cents:

What kind of washing machine takes 3 hours to go through a spin cycle?

And..what is the actual likelihood that someone as well off as BK reportedly is would be doing her own laundry anyway?

(Cough, cough)

Two if, as she says in this laundromat vignette, she has Fuch's dystrophy, there is no reason to mention this and many compelling reasons not to--that is if she were a professional therapist who actually understood boundaries.

Professional therapists are not supposed to tell clients about their personal problems or illnesses, not unless the condition is such that it would hamper the therapist from keeping appointments.

The whole point is to keep the client therapist relationship clean and boundaried precisely so that the client will be spared any temptation to parent the therapist, for that would re-enact and entrench the problems that client is trying to get free from.

(Wonder how many followers race off to Google Fuch's Dystrophy and then get emotionally invested and protective? That is precisely why mental health professionals would not tell us about their illnesses!)

Here is a link. And dont worry, if it gets bad enough, it is treatable with a corneal transplant. Just as basal cell carcinoma is quite treatable, as well.

No need for anyone to go into mourning or dress in black.

[www.fuchs-dystrophy.com]

Its very interesting how Katie promotes her illnesses and sicknesses, real and/or imagined.
As mentioned above, any ethical person in a psychotherapeutic setting would never even mention an illness, never mind Blog about it in highly manipulative and exaggerated ways.

Just from the CD "A Thousand Names For Joy", Katie basically lists every illness she has ever had..false cancer scares, osteoperosis, face tumor?
-Blindness Stories: EYES, pain, surgery, disease, surgery, she says one of her followers offered to donate his corneas to her, while he was still alive. (give Katie your actual eyes!).

Katie is constantly talking about cancer, cancer, cancer.

Why is this?
Obviously because its so emotional, and scary, and also a lot of her customers are desperate emotionally, but also with health problems. So she seems to use the health scares as a way to get deeper into people's psyche.
The superficial presentation is that she is talking about being more "detached" from illness and literally LOVING CANCER. She literally superficially allegedly tries to teach people to love cancer.

From a healthy psychological position, that is utterly absurd. Cancer is result of biological systems running amok. One can take a somewhat detached position about it, when looked at biologically in general. But to do this with real people? It just makes no sense. It clearly is more about deeply messing around with people's minds.
When Katie is trying to teach people to "love cancer", if anything it seems to show how terrified she she knows people are of it. Its complete denial. Psychological health is about having appropriate assesments of the situation.

It just seems to be part of the larger program of manipulating people at the deepest levels, and nothing is deeper than a serious illness that could lead to DEATH. Katie constantly talks about DEATH. On YouTube, the first thing out of her mouth is about death, murder, etc. She is using it as a psychological weapon on people.

Recently, she says (no proof) she got a type of cancer which is 99% curable, and basically zero chance of dying. But instead of that, she writes a blog about DEATH and dying. Its just manipulation.

By the way, Katie has fabricated so many bogus stories so far, a person would have to be psychologically impaired to believe one word the woman says, unless she provides objective evidence for her claim.
In life, once a person lies to your face, more than a couple of times, then they have blown their credibility.
Its very typical of these NLP hypnosis folks, they lie like sidewalks, as in their mind they are telling "hypnotic stories". Well, when its presented as a true story, then its a lie.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 37 times...wake-up and smell the coffee!!


(Solipsism: its quite clear that Katie does NOT really believe in solipsism, but just wants to lure YOU into solipsism, as solipsism is the hypnotic state. When you are in deep Trance, the universe for you IS your inner world...solipsism...so Katie constantly pushing solipsism, as she is trying to make you go into hypnotic trance states.)

Future-Pacing:
The BK connection has delivered more BK materials...it will be interesting to see at some point the Byron Katie Training Manuals she uses to train her senior facilitators...that will put to the lie the idea that they don't know what they are doing to people. It will show how she teaches others to do some of what she does to people...thatwill be very interesting indeed...

Going through the book,

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie (Author), Stephen Mitchell (Author)

Its very unfortunate people seem to be quite easily taken in by systems like this.
The book begins with Stephen Mitchell repeating the "Story" from 1986. Why is Mitchell telling this Story? Was he there? Can he verify what happened? Why are no facts given? Zero facts.

This book is basically Byron Katie "Lite". That is, its the first process of seduction and grooming into her Katie-Universe. She starts with claiming she had her Enlightenment experience in 1986.
NOT ONE SHRED OF PROOF. Zero. Just a "Story". No facts at all.

She also presents what she is doing as some type of psychological method and theory, but doesn't anyone or any journalist or reviewer ask any real questions? The woman has...

- ZERO proof of her stories from her past.
- ZERO scientific studies done to back up her outrageous claims.
- ZERO credentials, education, or licensing.
- ZERO facts in the entire book, just anecdotes.
- ZERO references to any other psychological literature.
- ZERO references to NLP and hypnosis, which is what she does.
- ZERO bibliography

(she does all that totally consciously, as it means she can't get busted as easily!! Just make up vague stories, and that way everything is vague, and it makes for better hypnosis too)

Preframe:
She then does some Preframes about being "passive" and accepting the powerful Wind, like she did. Guess who is the "wind"? (Katie is A Mighty Wind that is coming to blow you away, and that is a pre-frame to be PASSIVE and ACCEPT it).

Stories: (hypnosis)
She then says that our Stories are just bogus Stories, and then tells a bunch of HYPNOTIC STORIES as if they are true. Its so blatant, its amazing people seem to just buy it.

4 Questions:
She presents them as if they are some type of valid psychological system.
The bottom line is that the Turnaround is simpy distorted thinking, its called Polarized Thinking, and that is not healthy. Cognitive Therapy is completely different to the 4 Questions, as CT is about ACCURATE thinking. The Work is about creating Polarized Thinking that is SELF-BLAMING for everything that happens.
The Turnaround amounts to...YOU ARE TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING. (that will create guilt and depression in the subjects).
So the 4 Questions are basically just a mental confidence-trick, to get a wedge into your mind, so then she can lure you into her world, one step at a time.

She then programs you to start doing her Worksheets, which will just lure you in deeper, day after day. Since the Turnaround will make you MORE depressed and MORE guilt-ridden..guess what? Then you need some FACILITATION from The Work people, who then soft-sell the 9-Day School to you, more books, DVD's, etc.

Nice upselling sales model, works well. Create more PAIN in the customer and then offer to HEAL their PAIN, and then create more pain.
Sales 101, and customers keep coming back for more.


TRANSCRIPTS: the alleged transcripts are just light-Trance Inductions she is using, doing the "Internalization of Voices" technique. It also works for Katie to distract the conscious mind of the reader with the Stories, while getting her Grooming done inside the stories, to slowly begin to shape your perceptions. These are the same methods used by the NLP guys in their books, like Bandler, and many others, to use "transcripts" as a way to do Inductions on people reading the book.
Very common technique.

Byron Katies kids:
Katies children Ross Robinson, and Roxann Burroughs, are mentioned in the book as being deeply involved with The Work, and obviously have a conflict of interest, and thus are not objective sources of information! So "journalists" should realize asking them for information is not credible.

Totalism:
Later in the book, Katie starts playing some hardball. She gets into the Underlying Beliefs. (watch out folks!).
She then sets out that The Work is a TOTALIST system, meant for your entire life. Marriage, couples, sex, work, money, family, self, kids, body, addictions. So that is where the totalist Thought Reform starts coming into play. Its meant to take over your ENTIRE LIFE.


Then, the uneducated, unlicensed Byron Katie starts getting into...

Trauma, rape, incest, cancer, death...
As far as incest and rape, she says she has dealt with HUNDREDS of women as of 2002 who had that happen to them.

(How can it even be legal for some person like Byron Katie with ZERO education or credentials AT ALL, to start "treating" people for rape and incest and trauma? How can that even be legal?
Don't people realize how dangerous it is to let some uneducated and untrained person mess around with you, and do their "experiments" on you?
What is going to happen to people who might get flipped into Traumatic flashbacks, and commit suicide or homicide after being mistreated by an unlicensed person who has no idea of what they are doing and no accountability?)

Its on par with going to an unlicensed plastic surgeon cutting people up in Mexico, who disfigure people for the rest of their lives, or worse.
Going to see Byron Katie for trauma, incest, child abuse, rape, is similar as going to get plastic surgery done by some unlicensed fake plastic surgeon in Mexico, who could disfigure you for life, and even end it.


Byron Katie then gets into some serious waking hypnosis later in the book, using False-Choice embedded commands to your unconscious.
here is an example.
---------------------------
page 244;
"Do all beliefs need to be undone?
...If your internal world is free and wonderful, why would you want to change it? If the dream is a happy one, who would want to wake up? And if your dreams aren't happy, welcome to The Work".
------------------------------
Notice in that one tiny area, she talks about UNDOING ALL YOUR BELIEFS. DREAM, WAKE-UP, etc.
That is all straight up hypnosis.
She is saying if you are not perfectly happy, then WELCOME TO THE WORK. That is an embedded command, right out of NLP.
See how it works? She says, if you are perfectly happy living in a Dreamworld, then stay asleep. Of course no human is happy like that, its impossible. So then you are FORCED into the next sentence...which says...IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY WELCOME TO THE WORK.
That is the command to the unconscious. She wrote that self-consciously...its a trick sentence.


So this is the wonderful Byron Katie.
Everything is a fabricated "Story", zero facts, zero evidence.
Supremely manipulative, using NLP and covert hypnosis, deception, and Love-Bombing, all the while claiming innocence.
Its very unfortunate something such blatant deception fools so many. We need much more education in critical thinking in our society.

Where are the journalists? Would they allow anyone else to just make up Stories, and try to pass them off as "facts"? Its time for them to investigate what is really going on here. Wake up and smell the coffee, as they say. Step out of the hypnotic dreamworld of Byron Katie, and wake up to the techniques behind what is being done to people.
the founders of NLP, Bandler and Grinder, wrote some books called "The Structure Of Magic",and many others. A large part of what Byron Katie is doing stems from that research into hypnotic language patterns and its effects on persuasion.
Are some journalists and writers goint to look into this and help people understand what is being done to them without their awareness or consent?









__(item reference)_________
Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life
by Byron Katie (Author), Stephen Mitchell (Author)
ISBN-10: 1400045371

Thank you so much, Anticult.

As someone who got sucked into the black hole of "The Work of Byron Katie", I think that you've given us an EXCELLENT overview of WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON.

I totally relate to what you said about the Turnarounds ending up causing guilt and depression... and then, as you say, "guess what? Then you need some FACILITATION from The Work people, who then soft-sell the 9-Day School to you, more books, DVD's, etc."

That is totally what happened for me.

I ended up having a bunch of sessions with a facilitator, as well as reading the books and watching the You Tube videos over and over. That's because I had high hopes that I'd be able to heal myself the way BK claimed she had.

In the beginning, I had gotten high on the promise that I could "end" my suffering. Also, asking myself the 4 questions had seemed to work - AT FIRST! But over time as I kept doing the work, I found that I was feeling WORSE than before I had started.

Unfortunately I tried to ignore feeling worse and would dive back into the work over and over. Thank goodness I finally had the presence of mind to search the internet for possible reports of people having problems with the work, and I'll be forever grateful to JJ and a few others (so far), who have dared to speak up on this message board about the harmfulness of BK's approach.

I really hope others will come forth to share their experiences. People need to know as much as they can about "the work" so that they can make INFORMED CHOICES. I definitely feel that I've been conned and hurt by the work. I'm just glad that I didn't get involved with it for more than the several months I did. I can only imagine what it might be like to have been into it for years.