newagesurvivor, thx for the info.
Yes, Carol Skolnick has now pulled her "story" about how she met Byron Katie off the internet. They even got it out of the search engine "caches" which requires some work.

The article was...
Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie by Carol L. Skolnick
It clearly was meant as a Byron Katie recruiting template.

She even had the Bathroom Love-Bombing scene in that article.
[forum.culteducation.com]

She probably just passes it on person to person now through email, or changed the title, or is rewriting it, or something.

There are notes about that article in this thread, and here.

Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie by Carol L. Skolnick
[forum.culteducation.com]

Someone must have the full-text of that article?

And yes, the techniques being used by Byron Katie are the same ones being used by countless others in that business. They study it, learn it, apply it. Its a series of specific techniques.
For example, the metalevel NLP stuff is a direct skill thatis taught like anything else.

For those with some experience and training its as plain as day. This is why they target the new age crowd with no previous exposure to these techniques from the metalevel of DOING it to someone.
People need to learn to step back out of their painful feelings, tears, happy feelings, and all the rest of it, and even step out of the "philosophy" being taught. That is all mere "content".

That is what one can learn in NLP and persuasion methods, about what people are DOING to people outside of the content. People need to learn to step back, and look at what is being done to the group as a whole. Just imagine you are a backstage fly on the wall in the LGAT seminar.

For those who have worked in the LGAT business for years, backstage, watching the SAME SEMINAR over and over, you start to see the process and technique. If a person worked for Byron Katie for 6 months, and saw her do 10 LGAT seminars, they would start to see how it works.

and yes, I agree these methods are being refined to a greater degree every year, and being made mroe invisible and subtle. There needs to be some specific books and textbooks written mapping the entire thing out.

Its all about persuasion, in the end. Very sophisticated persuasion techniques.

Call it rumour or whatever you want.

But put Byron Katies name in one slot on google and do plastic surgery or face lift in the exact phrase slot and though she doenst officially confirm it, it has certainly been mentioned and she has not seen fit to deny it.

But let us not distract this from the way her facilitators and those taking the Work have to sign (or mouse click away) thier rights as citizens to sue for damages if they feel they have incurred harm.

And that BK has used none of her talent and energy to take responsiblity for her life and work by getting trained and licensed as a mental health professional and by carrying malpractice/liability insurance.

BK runs a double standard.

We are supposed to consider our stories unreal, while BK talks about about her story including the cockroach and discloses info about her private life (health issues) that no professional therapist would ever mention, because its the therapists job to keep the client from feeling any need to nurture or parent the therapist.

A lot of us are in distress because as tiny kids who had no autonomy to set limits or remove ourselves from bullying by persons on whom we were emotionally and physically dependent for surivival, we felt the need to parent the adults who were scaring us, so as to get the adults to control their own moods and stop scaring us.

The nature of this kind of childhood trauma is that a powerless child fends off despair and denies the shattering experience of GENUINE POWERLESSNESS by convincing herself she actually has power to control the moods of the Big People who are supposed to be parenting her but are acting like out of control children.

Rather than admit the Big People are as childish as she is, but more dangerous because they are in adult bodies and control her life, the child feels responsible for a situation that existed BEFORE SHE WAS BORN and that SHE IS TOO LITTLE AND SOCIALLY POWERLESS TO CHANGE.

An abused kid tries to get a sense of agency in a context of actual social powerlesseness. Remember, the little kid cant leave home. She is too small to shove a perpetrator away. She may even have been seduced by a perpetrator who knew the child had a lousy homelife anyway---many perps single out kids who are already in trouble.

When a child feels shattered by powerlessness, its like feeling your clothing being ripped off in a hurricane. One tries to cling to a shred of fabric. All she can do to hold her fragile self to together is get some sense of agency by hating and denying her own childs powerlessness by clinging to a belief that the crazy stuff her parents are doing is FOR HER OWN GOOD and that she is obligated to feel responsible for what is done to her. The perp may even tell her that.

Or she must nurture these scary people who should be protecting and caring for her and are instead, scaring her. Some perpetrators will, after violating someone, suddenly get maudlin and weepy and con their victim into feeling sorry for them. The victim is then left, feeling more responsible for the perps welfare than for her own--and comes to feel she colluded. This sense of lingering shame can be exploited by the perp or by later perps which is how victims seem to attract abuse again and again--its an unconscious preformatting that often starts with traumas incurred before one can even engage in adult insight and while one lacks social autonomy needed to fight back or leave.

One cannot even imagine it possible to leave. Even in adulthood, a trigger can send a person suddenly back to a state of mind that is pre-adult , pre-verbal, rather than an application suddenly crashing and shutting down on ones computer.


So in real therapy the first step is for the therapist to make sure to keep boundaries and not allow the patient or client to feel responsible for nurturing and parentng the therapist--to allow this to happen would would re-enact the original trauma.

So that is why real therapists dont disclose their worries or health problems to patients and keep that information private.

The therapists are there to take care of the clients and not use the clients to take emotional care of them.

Thank-you very much, corboy.

You sure lay it out thoroughly and clearly! You kind of summarized the whole thread in one posting; I think it's really good you did that. It's such a travesty what is being done in the name of right-ness; this forum must be helping tremendously, as I am now a witness. I see folks coming in fresh and scared and confused and I know now that there is hope for all of us who were previously in captivity. I'm living proof.

Just recently, I received an automated reminder that my 'Work On The Web' was soon to expire. There were two offers: one for 3 months and one for 6 months more, at discounted rates. It's so clear now that I was actually paying Byron Katie International and Coaching Online for the 'privilege' of hypnotizing myself to do their ultimate bidding. (which I'm sure was going to be WAY more than the $39 I paid or the discounted rate of $27)

I'm really glad that Rick Ross and folks like yourself have given people like me an opportunity to take a second look at what is going on behind the scenes, in these newage camps and clubs.

In any case, I don't know the anniversary date for my stumbling upon this forum, but it was a sweet moment to delete the email offering from BKI without another thought. (I mentioned in a thread, weeks ago, that I had deleted all the 'work' I had done and unsubscribed to all emails and notices)

Here's one thing I've learned:

>Thought "BYRON KATIE'S ORGANIZATION IS DANGEROUS FOR ME"

>Is it true? YES
>Can you be absolutely sure that it's true? YES
>How do you react when you believe that thought? VERY CAREFULLY
>Who would you be without that thought? A SITTING DUCK

I hope to continue to come to this forum and learn more; it's actually a lot of fun for me.

qd

Byron Katie's partner in crime, Neale Donald Walsch, has been mentioned before in this thread, as he was promoting Byron Katie, and saying how he fell in love at first sight with her, blah blah blah. (that's a pre-frame to try and make people fall in love with Kate at first sight!)
He just made a bunch of stuff up, saying how Katie never lies, etc...meanwhile he just said he doesn't even know her! Utterly shameless and dishonest, and very creepy.
[forum.culteducation.com]

well, well, well.
Now Neale Donald Walsch has been busted for plagiarism by the New York Times.
Followed by outright self-conscious fabrication, and then a cover-up and denial.
People have no idea of the kinds of people who go into this field. They will just make stuff up, they will lie. Over the years they get more cynical and lazy, and once in a while they get busted.

Carol Skolnick was also promoting Neale Donald Walsch. Are they now going to criticize him for his bullshit? Of course not, just more spin, lies, and fabricating.
If even just a tiny shred of journalism is turned on any of these people, their house of cards collapses, the problem is that there is not much journalism anymore, just celebrity puff-pieces.

But this story exposes the real Neale Donald Walsch.

___________________________________
[www.nytimes.com]
Christmas Essay Was Not His, Author Admits
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: January 6, 2009

Neale Donald Walsch, author of the best-selling series “Conversations With God,” recently posted a personal Christmas essay on the spiritual Web site Beliefnet.com about his son’s kindergarten winter pageant.

During a dress rehearsal, he wrote, a group of children spelled out the title of a song, “Christmas Love,” with each child holding up a letter. One girl held the “m” upside down, so that it appeared as a “w,” and it looked as if the group was spelling “Christ Was Love.” It was a heartwarming Christmas story from a writer known for his spiritual teachings.

Except it never happened — to him.

Mr. Walsch’s story was nearly identical to an essay by a writer named Candy Chand, which was originally published 10 years ago in Clarity, a spiritual magazine, and has been circulating on the Web ever since.
_________________________________________

____________________________________________________
[blog.oregonlive.com]
The Truth and Neale Donald Walsch
Posted by Steve Duin, The Oregonian January 08, 2009 20:22PM

Charlatans have been passing themselves off as official spokesman for the Almighty for thousands of years, but Neale Donald Walsch set record marks for chutzpah -- and, book sales, of course -- with his Conversations with God. God had a message that only Walsch could hear and He was gracious enough to allow the author to either tape record him or quote him from memory.

But -- as The New York Times reported Wednesday -- we now have some new information about Walsch's memory: He has admitted that he tried to pass off another author's Christmas pageant story as his own in a blog post at Beliefnet.com.

This story is extraordinary in a variety of ways, particularly in what it reveals about Walsch and his disciples. Even as he copied a story by Candy Chand almost word for word, Walsch claimed in a Dec. 28 blog post that he was the lucky guy in attendance at a Christmas pageant 20 years ago in which -- let me quote the Times -- "a group of children spelled out the title of a song, 'Christmas Love,' with each child holding up a letter. One girl held the 'M' upside down, so that it appeared as a 'W,' and it looked as if the group was spelling 'Christ Was Love.'"

On his own blog, Walsch now admits, "I have made a serious error and this note is to apologize for it." That "apology" is amazing: Walsch contends the story was filed away on his computer, "written in the first person, describing an experience that occurred with my son 20 years ago. As I read the old story I smiled, actually experiencing it as a memory in my mind, from my own life."

And when Ms. Chand informed him that he'd stolen her anecdote?

All I can say now -- because I am truly mystified and taken aback by this -- is that someone must have sent it to me over the internet ten years or so ago. Finding it utterly charming and its message indelible, I must have clipped and pasted it into my file of "stories to tell that have a message I want to share." I have told the story verbally so many times over the years that I had it memorized...and then, somewhere along the way, internalized it as my own experience. I am aghast at how improbable this sounds, even to me, yet I can find no other explanation for how this story came out of my mouth in Candy Chand's words.

I can certainly think of one.

Chand told the Times she's not buying Walsch's apology: "I have strong issue with anyone who would appear to plagiarize my work and pretend it is his own," she said.

But for the topper, gentle readers, go to Walsch's blog and read the comments by his adoring fans:

Neale, you are so awesome and so real. I don't see the big deal in what happened ...

If you have 9 or 10 children, how do you know it didn't happen?...maybe the 2 of you were at the same children's concert. No, I don't think Chand should be offended at all. Isn't that what the cosmic consciousness is all about? Minds and thoughts merging ...

For those who are addressing the severity of Neale's mistake and the fact that it questions everything he has written and words about "living with the consequences"... You are begging the universe to put you in a position where you will be asked to show the kind of courage and candor that Neale has ...

Courage and candor? Maybe the reason so many people traffic in delusion is that so many others are willing to swallow it whole.
_____________________________________________________

its interesting, Beliefnet got Neale Donald Walsch to fire himself from their blog..why?
Because he got BUSTED red-handed. He probably had a bunch of other stuff up there that was improper too, so they just pulled it all down.

But notice how Walsch has sent a hord of his folks in there to try and do spin-control.
Also, how people try to use religion to make people feel guilty for criticizing a guy who obviously is lying through his teeth.
Even when the Guru gets busted red-handed, its still not enough.
Guru's can literally get caught with their pants down, and followers make excuses for them.

Its amazing that so many are duped by guys who just make stuff up out of thin-air. They just fabricate it, and many people believe it.

Beliefnet Statement on Neale Donald Walsch Blog Posting
[blog.beliefnet.com]

No wonder they suppressed the book, A Cry In The Desert.
It tells a different Story.

For example, on page 26 of the book, the writer states that Byron Katie learned meditation from the therapists at the halfway house. That is a new one.
Which therapists taught Byron Katie how to meditate?
The book mentions that her husband Paul and daughter Roxann were there, so maybe they will know?

But the book was obviously written by a Byron Katie follower very deep in a trancelike state of mind about Byron Katie. So far at least, just repeating as fact whatever Byron Katie told her to write. No questions asked.
But the book does elaborate a bit more about the alleged mental breakdown that Byron Katie had, and mentions she attended a high school reunion. That could be checked.
Its interesting this suppressed book already had a number of details that could be checked, whereas later books are all just vague and uncheckable.

Hah! On page 27 Byron Katie tells another "story" about a washing machine...similar to the other story. She says a load of laundry was done without her being aware of any time passing...so Byron Katie was developing her Washing Machine Induction story 1.0, even back then.

She also mentions someone named "Carol Lynn" who was a close associate of Byron Katie at the time. (could that be Carol L. Skolnick? If so, things don't add up...)

There is also some very strange comments in the book about Byron Katie alleged sexual abuse as a child, on page 6. Part of what she says is she went back to her abuser willingly, as she would do anything for "touch" and "Love". Again, this is not by accident she mentions such serious issues so quickly, its deliberate. (this is a very serious area, her dealings with sexual abuse).

Its a shame that Christin Weber at that time did not have any training in these methods of persuasion. Christin, its not wide-eyed mystical magic, they are very specific techniques that she was doing which have been described in this thread. So even back in the early 1990's, Byron Katie was perfecting her skills, one-to-one, using the method of telling "strange stories" which is waking hypnosis.

Notice that Christin Lore Weber has NO REFERENCE to Byron Katie on her website. She does not even list this book she wrote. Things sure look different once you come out of the hypno-trance.
Some of the former devotees of Byron Katie need to come clean, and tell it like it is. Someone like Christin's mind is full of ideas like her concept of WomanChrist, its very easy for someone like Byron Katie to trigger that projection.

More to come...the book A Cry In The Desert was suppressed for a reason...

Quote
The Anticult

Byron Katie had a book written about herself called...

A Cry in the Desert: The Awakening of Byron Katie by Christin Lore Weber

There does not appear to be any copies of that available at all, except for $200, so that was taken off the market too. One has to wonder what kind of information is in that book. Maybe a scanned PDF copy will appear at some point...there appears to be some fascinating info in that book...she was pouring it on a little thick...and she claims to have been taught Meditation? By who?

Byron Katie also says SHE WENT FROM TEACHER TO TEACHER after the cockroach motel. Which teachers did she go to?

[www.noumenon.co.za]
- rage, drunkenness, carelessness about the feelings of her family and friends,
- With no memory of past or even of self...She remembered nothing.
- Her therapists taught her meditation as a way of finding herself, and in meditation she discovered knowledge that was entirely new to her.
- At first she thought she needed help and went from teacher to teacher, beginning with the therapists at the halfway house.

(Check out the part where Byron Katie says she healed your disease like Jesus Christ, and even after she healed you, you made yourself sick again. Wow...if you get healed Byron Katie did it, but if you get sick again you did it. She takes all the credit and none of the blame...)

- Sometimes people dissolved into tears and felt healed as she touched them, even before she had said a word. Sometimes, she noted, they would recreate the disease as a result of their unhealed thinking and return to be with her.



-------------------------------
A Cry in the Desert: The Awakening of Byron Katie (Paperback)
by Christin Lore Weber (Author)
Paperback: 214 pages
Publisher: The Work Foundation Inc. (1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1890246026
ASIN: B000LRMECE

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2009 07:25PM by The Anticult.

ah...this is another reason why they suppressed the book, A Cry In The Desert.

on page 32, she says she went from teacher to teacher.

"Katie knew she needed help. To get that help she went from teacher to teacher, beginning with the therapists at the halfway house".

On the next pages there is also more alleged detail from the former husband Paul, and kids Roxann and Ross. Even Roxann is quoted as saying...

"I thought she was full of shit...this is a trick".

Her son Ross said..."I didn't believe her".

Also, in this book, she constantly talks that BK is about "Truth". Well, they dropped that part.

Page 37: bizarre, Katie is talking about going to Santa Monica to visit a homeless lady, WHO WAS ONE OF THE THERAPISTS AT THE HALFWAY HOUSE. Who was this woman Byron Katie allegedly hung out with for 6 months?
- Byron Katie attended 12 Step programs with this woman
- they visited New Age practioners, and spirit guide channelers.
(notice how this has all been deleted from the official Byron Katie story).

She then says she hallucinated some type of "Lady", who she says she hallucinated for 7 years. (by the way, telling that type of story is active hypnotic induction, you start to Visualize what she is saying...its hypnosis...not just a weird story. It seems that Christin was too literal and trusting and just wrote what she was told to write).

on page 42, they start making claims that Katie could heal illness, by her touch and presence. Obviously, they are trying to turn BK into the WomanChrist, literally. Its almost an exact copy of a modern day story of Jesus Christ healing people, even the house being overfull and not enough hours in the day to heal people...

Obviously, they realized later this was going to too far, to claim that BK was doing healing like Christ by her presence....
no wonder they blocked this book, and burnt all the copies. This book is getting ridiculous...its only page 42, and she is already Katie The Christ...what's next?

on page 43 she is literally claiming she healed people in her presence, and then out of her presence they recreated their disease.
Pretty clumsy and crass...but hey, they hadn't cleaned-up and refined the story yet for mass appeal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2009 08:03PM by The Anticult.

Quote

In her first forty-three years, she had known wealth and power, lost and regained more than once, but she was bitter and self-destructive, and her family watched helplessly as she raged against life and her own being.

Her second husband, Paul, suffered four heart attacks as he struggled to keep the family together and look after his wife, who clung to him in her despair and yet could offer him nothing but further distress.

The path was far from easy. Sometimes she felt steeped in a kind of agony that she had never known before.

Paul was always there, supporting her, holding her.

[www.noumenon.co.za]

I hope BK continues to be grateful to Paul, her second husband.

Awakening self lacks balance unless accompanied by awakening gratitude and a stable sense of loyalty.

According to the above account, Paul appears to have been crucial in caring for his wife during her ordeal.

They say that Ramana Maharshi grew ill a number of times when living in his cave in Arunchala, South India. He was cared for and watched over by a man in the neighborhood who brought him food.

Maharshi is famous today and his tomb remains a pilgrimage site.

But we can hope that someone has taken care to honor the memory of and bring an extra flower garland and stick of incense for the tomb of the householder who fed Maharshi in his cave during the days when Ramana was young and obscure.

In honor of the anonymous, never famous, care providers who are lost in the fame of those who could not have survived without them, here are a few lines from a poem Samuel Johnson wrote in honor of his family doctor Robert Levet MD:

[www.poetryfoundation.org]

Quote


On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet

Condemned to Hope’s delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,
Our social comforts drop away.

Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend;
Officious*, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.

(*Old-fashioned usage--means 'diligent')

When fainting Nature called for aid,
And hovering Death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy displayed
The power of art without the show.

In Misery’s darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan,
And lonely Want retired to die.

No summons mocked by chill delay,
No petty gain disdained by pride,
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied.

His virtues walked their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found
The single talent* well employed.

(Dr Johnson refers to the Parable of the Servants each given money (in talents(an ancient monetary unit, later meaning 'abilities or aptitude', one servant puts his entrusted treasure to use, the other buries it--symbolic for what we may do with our lives)

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2009 01:11AM by corboy.

You know, sometimes I feel like I'm just going insane. All these connections are so intertwined and particularly in my life. For example, at a support group meeting years ago (where we got kind of brutally honest with ourselves and each other) I confessed to having just realized that I was STILL terrified of a Supreme Judge who might torment me for eternity if I didn't get things absolutely correct. A good friend of mine took me to the bookstore that night and bought me "Conversations With God", which became one of the very instruments which actually freed me from that ingrained 'terror', from my childhood. I went on to buy the next four or five books by Walsch and finally lost the buzz I was getting. After a recent reading, on this thread, I became convinced that he was just another of the long line of hucksters I've fallen for, proved by the adoration (and advocation) of someone like Byron Katie. I have not lost that conviction, but now am wondering exactly what the hell is wrong with me?

Is it possible that I sort of 'leap-frog' from one authority figure to the next? Each successive one freeing me from the clutches of the last, only to have yet a tighter grip on my psyche? It's very disturbing to see one's own vulnerability.

Additionally, I have perhaps been a little flippant lately, for which I apologize. In some of my mocking of my past gurus, I have probably been viewed as weak, and not the stronger, wiser, freer individual I'd like to think I am. I say this because of a recent private message I received from a stranger who thinks the Byron Katie work is benign and wanted me to explain my position. It may interest some of you to know that the quote of mine, used in the private message, was the line BYRON KATIE'S ORGANIZATION IS DANGEROUS TO ME. In my opinion the coupling of the name Bryon Katie's Organization and the word 'dangerous' must have struck a nerve somewhere.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm sorry for being so arrogant, and I see the trouble one can get into by being that way.

qd

Its interesting that someone who is into BK, would contact people privately, and not come out and say what they have to say in an open forum.

Byron Katie and her company is extremely dangerous to people who are vulnerable to it.
Even BK's own disclaimer says so, people can have mental breakdowns.
People can literally lose everything they own.

Byron Katie even admits she is dangerous to people, as she compares herself to the Spider in the story, the spider and the fly.

"'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the Spider to the Fly
[forum.culteducation.com]
The Spider lures the fly into the web with trickery, and then sucks the life out of it like a vampire.


BKI has an internet strategy. One of the things they do is get people to set up blogs promoting Byron Katie's products.
One of the other things they do, is when someone criticizes Byron Katie, they try to isolate that person and talk to them "in private". If the person is well-known, they will even get them on the telephone.

The exact same thing would happen if a person spoke up and ask proper questions of Byron Katie at a live event.

Another thing these groups try to do is shame people for expressing some righteous anger towards the abusers of power.

Byron Katie and BKI is extremely dangerous to people who are vulnerable to her methods.

So whoever is saying that BK is perfectly safe, come and prove that she is.
Come and dispute the BKI disclaimers which state the serious dangers.

You see, this is why Byron Katie spends so much time trying to make people feel safe in the presence of danger. Its the Spider and the Fly...you have to make the fly override its own protections, to get it to step into the web. But once it sets one foot into the spiders web, its dead meat.
The spiders web, is the Byron Katie "Work".
Once you get hooked into the Turnarounds, that is the mental trap, you can get trapped for years, if not for life for some people.