If you ever feel shamed, burdened or just weirded out from any sort of PM you get from someone, send a copy to Mr Ross.

You are not obligated to keep a secret for anyone if you are being made to feel confused or unsafe within the PM system.

The PM function is meant for support and encouragement, not as a venue for bullying.

And do not allow anyone to con you into feeling afraid to communicate with Mr Ross.

Doing this and getting help is NOT weakness. It does not make you less of a man and if you are a woman this does not mean you are being cruel or disloyal.

New Age bullies love to talk about 'empowerment' and 'personal responsiblity' but what they really actually do is identify shame buttons on us by reading our stuff and then try all they can to push those buttons.

If you are a man, the bullies try to shame you by suggesting you are weak.

If you are a woman, the bullies will try to shame you by suggesting you are lacking in loyalty and compassion.

Dont fall for it. Dont be silenced on the PM system.

If a PM message seems creepy or shames you and all you want to do is delete it DONT DELETE IT.

SAVE IT AS EVIDENCE.

Keep it and send it to Mr Ross. He will know what to make of it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2009 06:22AM by corboy.

There is a very very disturbing post on the Carol Skolnick blog Soul Surgery, about an apparent suicide, and a man named John Wayne Dulaney.
[soulsurgery.blogspot.com]
John Wayne Dulaney listed his interests as Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti.


This blog post about suicide, shows the extreme danger of these "bad teachings" of Byron Katie and the extreme dangers in the rationalizations that come from them.
Doing Byron Katie Turnarounds on suicide, or Turnarounds being done by people who are suicidal could be lethal. Literally lethal.

Can't Carol Skolnick see that? This is not the first time someone who is into The Work has put forward extremely dangerous and distorted ideas about suicide, there is more in this thread about that.


Call any suicide hotline and ask them how smart it is to have these sorts of absurd rationalizations and twisted thoughts about suicide. For example..
"Who says so-called life is better and higher than so-called death?"
That thought can trigger a suicide in a suicidal person.

When people get severely depressed, they have very distorted negative thoughts, which can lead to suicide. Cognitive Therapy does the exact opposite of what Carol Skolnick is saying.

Cognitive Therapy for Suicidal Patients: Scientific and Clinical Applications
"Cognitive Therapy for Suicidal Patients: Scientific and Clinical Applications begins to close these gaps in suicide theory and practice. For over 30 years, Aaron T. Beck and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania have been conducting empirical research that examines the risk factors for and treatment of suicide ideators and attempters. The result is a book that crystallizes over three decades of basic, clinical, and therapeutic research, providing a comprehensive review of the literature on psychological factors associated with suicidal behavior.
The authors describe their cognitive model of suicide, the instruments they developed to assess theoretically and clinically relevant suicide constructs, and their cognitive intervention for suicidal individuals. The book includes a step-by-step protocol for cognitive therapy with these patients and an extended case study brings these concepts to life. Applications of the protocol with special populations and methods for overcoming challenges when working with suicidal patients are also suggested."
[www.amazon.com]


You have to Dispute and fight those crazy irrational thoughts like "there is no death, death is better than life". If you don't you might end up dead. And there is such a thing a death.
When people come out of severe depression, they can look back on those thoughts and see how terribly distorted they were.

Byron Katie's 4 Questions, when applied to suicide, and suicidal ideation, is the most dangerous part of the system. Do not do a Byron Katie Turnaround on suicidal thoughts, ever. Embracing suicidal thinking can lead to immediate death.


If anyone is thinking about suicide, or feeling suicidal, immediately they need to call a suicide hotline, or go to an emergency ward, or contact their mental health professional immediately. There is help.
1-800-SUICIDE in the U.S


----------------------
Below is an excerpt from Carol Skolnick on suicide and Byron Katie's method.
___________________________________
[soulsurgery.blogspot.com]
My turnarounds were "John did not take his life" and also "John took his life;" choosing perhaps the life that seemed preferable to him at the time of his death; death of the body-mind. Who says so-called life is better and higher than so-called death? Why do I see his death as a tragedy? Should he have stayed here for anyone else's sake?

"I took John's life," believing in his death as well as imagining him taking his life in different ways (I didn't yet know how he died at the time I did inquiry). I killed him dozens of times between yesterday and today.

"I took my life." If I think he's dead, a part of me dies.

One turnaround I didn't see, given to me by a friend: "John gave his life." [...]

I want to share a beautiful Katie-quote about death from a long out-of-print book, A Cry in the Desert:

"We look at the survivors of the death of a beloved and we say,'Oh, it's bad.' Not true!...'I didn't do enough. I didn't tell him what I should have before he died. Who is going to take care of me? What am I going to do; he's not here?'....What they call death, I call a Celebration of Life....Death of a close one is a new opportunity to give me what they gave me and to appreciate creatively as I do it."
—Byron Katie
_______________________________



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2009 07:06AM by The Anticult.

1-800-SUICIDE in the U.S
[www.hopeline.com]
A suicidal person urgently needs to see a doctor or mental health service provider. Here are some warning signs you should know about.

DANGER SIGNS OF SUICIDE:

Talk about suicide
Statements about hopelessness, helplessness or worthlessness
Preoccupation with death
Suddenly happier, calmer
Loss of interest in things one cares about
Unusual visiting or calling people one cares about
Making arrangements; setting one’s affairs in order
Giving things away

Hi QuackDave,
also as a collary to that , it is wisest to never give out personal information to people on this board, even in pms. I have never regretted information I have not given out.
Sometimes I have deeply regretted contacting people however.Generally it is safest just to not tell people anything.

Thanks, everyone.

Believe me, corboy, sending the copied and pasted PM to RR was the first thing I did. I'm still awaiting reply. What's interesting to me, is that my immediate reaction was anger and an urge to fight with words, even NLP type responses using what I've learned and mocking the tone of the PM, and the author's credibility. I thought better about engaging someone in battle who, perhaps, came armed with more than I know, citing Anticult's admonition that someone might be studying and learning where the buttons are. I DID get the feeling I invited it by my arrogance, though. Being haughty and overconfident has sunk me before. Part of my anger was based on the fact that I believe I saw a valuable former Katie follower led away by an unassuming, "afraid" little supposed fence-rider, who I still believe pushed the right buttons using private messaging and turned her on corboy and Anticult and probably led her to her present (MIA, anyway) demise. I was incensed that it was being attempted on me. I'm still a little in 'fight' mode. No flight here, by the way.

As for personal info, I am very obscure and protected online in a state of the art, multi-layered digital fashion. I'm sure my closest friends would not know this is me, if they found themselves on this thread. My story is, I'm finding, fairly generic and sadly all too common.

I always appreciate the input from you who seem to be veterans to this thread, and I also appreciate your letting me vent, as well as use this forum to kind of work things out. I'm anxious to hear what RR has to say, since I think that he may have deeper insight into the techniques attempted in the PM.

I feel a little better now, although it's been a hell of a ride today. It could have been way worse, a while back. Thanks all for being there.

qd

The end of the book, A Cry In The Desert, is extremely revealing.

The writer, Christin Lore Weber was a former nun, and was extremely mystical and naive and far too trusting, and thus was completely unaware of the methods being used by Byron Katie. (I will detail those methods soon, but they include the nude bare-breast embracing female "workshops" that would happen in water, and many other things).

At the time Lore Weber was deeply enmeshed in her own mental projections, and was used to try to turn Byron Katie into a Godwoman.
Byron Katie picked her to write the book, and she mentions in the book several times, that Byron Katie reviewed every single word and sentence in that book many times. So BK controlled the entire book, of course. BK sent all the people who were interviewed.
(the internet shows no links anymore with Byron Katie and Christin, which is pretty interesting since Katie was supposed to be the new female Cosmic Christ).

I'll post comments about the book later, but basically the book says Byron Katie and Jesus Christ are One....
Oh, also that Byron Katie is the miraculous next step in human evolution...and can cure cancer, and stuff like that.

yadda yadda. Same stuff as everyone else, join the club, there are a zillion Cosmic Christs out there these days, get in line. Much of it from a Course In Miracles, which according to this book, Byron Katie was deeply involved in.

ERICKSONIAN HYPNOSIS links:

But here is the kicker.
The end of the book, on page 211:
Byron Katie tells Christin that someone named David is cured of his cancer, and that he is out in the desert collecting and preserving rare cactus, and is the cactus man.
That is the smoking gun.
That is literally taken right from Dr. Milton Erickson's books and stories.
As I mentioned long ago, Erickson used the cactus as a metaphor for people, and would often get his patients to grow and SAVE CACTUS as part of their therapy. They would also collect broken cacti, and then replant and heal them...the connections to therapy are obvious. Heal, and grow through care and nuturing, then reproduce.

Milton Erickson and Cactus therapy
[forum.culteducation.com]

Just search the internet for "Milton Erickson" and cactus or cacti.
Its in many books and papers.

ARIZONA
Also, in this book, Byron Katie is shown to have spent a lot of time leading workshops in Sedona AZ, and Milton Erickson was based in Phoenix AZ, which are only about 100 miles apart. His books were very popular at the time in that scene.

SEDONA METHOD
(also, she says in the book that many people thought Katie was some type of incarnation of the recently deceased Lester Levenson who was the "creator" of the Sedona Method. So its all there in black and white in that banned book, it looks like BK just copied and modified the Sedona Method too)
[www.lesterandme.com]
"Lester discovered the “Secret” over 40 years before that book, and 20 years before Byron Katie came out with her less effective "negative thought and program releasing" came out."


So obviously she had read some of these Hypnotic Stories of Milton Erickson about cactus, and the cactus man, and just copied it. She customized Ericksonian hypnosis stories for herself, and she has tried to conceal it, but its as plain as day. Its a real shame the public seems to have almost no awareness of these techniques, but that is mainly what she is doing to people.

Here is one of Dr. Milton Erickson cactus stories...people need to understand, the stories have embedded unconscious meaning for the current listener, they are not just repeating a story. This is exactly what Byron Katie does, except she has perverted the entire process.
More Erickson cactus stories will be posted.
____________________________________________
[www.nyseph.org]
"CACTI" by Dr. Milton Erickson

Usually I send alcoholic patients to AA because AA can do a better job than I can do. An alcoholic came to me and he said, "My grandparents on both sides were alcoholics; my parents were alcoholics; my wife's parents were alcoholics; my wife is an alcoholic and I have a had delirium tremors eleven times. I am sick of being an alcoholic. My brother is an alcoholic too. Now that is a hell of a job for you. What do you think you can do about it?"

I asked him what his occupation was.

"When I am sober I work on a newspaper. And alcohol is an occupational hazard there."

I said, "All right, you want me to do something about it---with that history. Now, the thing I am going to suggest to you won't seem the right thing. You go out to the Botanical Gardens. You look at all the cacti there and marvel at cacti that can survive three years without water, without rain. And do a lot of thinking."

Many years later a young woman came in and said,"Dr. Erickson, you knew me when I was three years old. I moved to California when I was three years old. Now I am in Phoenix and I came to see what kind of a man you were---what you looked like."

I said, "Take a good look, and I'm curious to know why you want to look at me."

She said, "Any man who would send an alcoholic out to the Botanical Gardens to look around, to learn how to get around without alcohol, and have it work, is the kind of man I want to see! My mother and father have been sober ever since you sent my father out there."

"What is your father doing now?"

"He's working for a magazine. He got out of the newspaper business. He says the newspaper business has an occupational hazard of alcoholism."

Now, that was a nice way to cure an alcoholic. Get him to respect cacti that survive three years without rain. You see you can talk about your textbooks. Today you take up this much. Tomorrow you take up that much. They say you do such and such. But actually you ought to look at your patient to figure out what kind of a man he is ---or woman--then deal with the patient in a way that fits his or her problem, his or her unique problem.

This story is a beautiful example of indirect suggestion, applied symbolically.
_______________________________________________________________



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2009 04:44PM by The Anticult.

Quote
quackdave
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?

There is nothing wrong with you. Relax, you're doing just fine.

Quote
quackdave
Is it possible that I sort of 'leap-frog' from one authority figure to the next?

You have done that in the past. Now you're doing something totally different. And that's the good thing.

Quote
quackdave
Each successive one freeing me from the clutches of the last, only to have yet a tighter grip on my psyche?

No, that is not what happens there. You said yourself that Neale Donald Walsch's book or some books made you free yourself from your childhood trauma where you had been fed with fear.

Quote
quackdave
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.

No, you're not being arrogant at all and haven't been as I've read some of your posts both here and on another thread. Or did you mean N D Walsch with this sentence? Did you express that you're sorry that Walsch is being arrogant and has gone into trouble because of it? That is what happened there.

Thanks again, everyone.

Actually, I felt that my flippancy about the four questions was a little arrogant...I didn't mean Neale D Walsch, although his little "glitch" made him look like the emperor stripped of his clothing. Also, I think I ran into some strong emotional reaction at the attempt on my well being, as I perceived it. It led to some temporary self-loathing.

As far as feeling crazy, I am finding, on an almost daily basis, that most of my past 'idols' (in the newage realm) are now turning out to be obvious little liars, and it is disconcerting to say the least. Sometimes I feel very empty, without that newage frame of reference, and almost exhibit 'withdrawals' of a type. But, what I DON'T want at this point is to fill that void with more of the same type of poison that I have used in the past, obviously. So, it seems as if I have this huge world, devoid of shaman and hucksters, to traverse through now. It wasn't all that long ago that I lived in a tiny little place, where I needed to consult some so-called guru's 'wisdom' before I did anything. As the Beatles said, "It's getting better all the time."

By the way, the results of Anticult's studying are immensely rewarding. It helps in throwing light on the bullshit that I used to blindly subject myself to.


qd

p.s. I've heard it said that those who would pull the wool over our eyes are so arrogant that they eventually slip up and show their true colors; Neale Donald Walsch is a prime example. On the other hand, Byron Katie is much more devious, it looks like. Fortunately, thru the diligent work of more than a few people (on this forum and elsewhere), the info she's trying to suppress is being dredged up to show her for what she really is. Kudos.

Dear QD:

This is something to do in private. Dont share it on the board as you dont want to give anyone information that can be used against you.

In private, examine that word, 'arrogant.'

Ask yourself if anyone in your life ever used that word to shame you and knock you down.

Then select the image of your own choice to contain and remove that person from your life.

Quote
quackdave
Actually, I felt that my flippancy about the four questions was a little arrogant...

There was nothing arrogant there. If you're using Byron Katie's weapons (the four questions) for anything, use them so that they work for you, and not so that they work against you. Better yet, if you can come up with something of your own, like what you've written here so far there's so much good in there in your own thinking - without the need to hang on to any BK stuff like the four stupid and dangerous questions that really can drive people mad or suicidal.

Quote
quackdave
I didn't mean Neale D Walsch, although his little "glitch" made him look like the emperor stripped of his clothing.

It wasn't just some "little glitch". The information that I read yesterday, including all of those hundreds of comments, was very revealing indeed. It doesn't make N D Walsch or his "faithful and loyal fans" (using their own words) seem nearly anything but utterly stupid and arrogant. They are the ones who've got everything mixed up. They have a tendency to turn everything upside down. And so in a situation where a multimillionaire man, a world-wide superstar, who has been stealing another's (not a multimillionaire woman's) productive thinking, they end up blaming the woman for everything and considering Walsch as a victim to have all their sympathy. Some turnaround-thinking there indeed! Here are a few typical exerpts from their thinking:

“She is not a victim. She was virtually unheard of before this. If anything, she is lucky Neale made this mistake.”

“If she's a victim, she's a victim of her own greed and ego.”

“In my perspective Ms Chand should feel honored that NEALE DONALD WALSH himself, one of the most influencial positive writers in the last 2000 years, used a few words that came from her pen.”

They are denying that the victim of Walsch's crime (Ms Chand) would be any victim at all; they are denying the crime; they are lying about anything that they just can (for instance "used a few words" when in fact it was her almost entire text that Walsch stole word for word). They are treating the victim of the crime in an unspeakable manner, using namecalling and threatening her with karma and what not. How can we speak of any justice there? How can we speak of any truth there? How can we speak of any reason there?