Quote
Cruz
The other day, my friend who led me to Byron Katie's (no longer) Open Forum shared a recollection that intrigued me to some extent. She recalls being rather surprised when the very first BK book came out, several years after Katie’s alleged experience and quite some time into their friendship. For, prior to this publication, all this time not a cockroach had been mentioned. Not even a hint. The cockroach made its debut when Katie first wrote her story (or had it written, I'm not sure). When she asked Katie about it, Katie replied: “How do I know my people weren’t ready for that (part of the story) yet? Well …, I didn’t tell them”..
the cockroach story is very interesting.
It was obviously put in there, and made central to the Byron Katie Story, after very careful thought.
It works on many levels at once.
The most basic level, is that of primary emotion.
There are only a few primary emotions...sad, glad, mad, scared, disgust, guilt.
Most other emotions flow from those.
So BK created a Story, that contains several primary emotions...sad(depressed)...then the cockroach DISGUST-FEAR in the listener...then glad(enlightenment)...(later she adds the Guilt in the turnaround).
Any human, especially women, would feel utter DISGUST and FEAR if a cockroach crawled on them, they would scream and kick it off. It triggers biological disgust. (I found a cockroach in some spicy noodles I was eating a few years back...lets just say you lose your appetite, at that restaurant for life!)
So the cockroach is about creating DISGUST, and its memorable, you never forget it.
(if a cockroach cralwed onto BK, and then she saw it, she would scream and involuntarily hit it off, just like anyone else, of course. Its all part of her mythology of detachment. If someone accidently spilled a box of cockroaches on her, how would she respond?)
The cockroach story becomes a HOOK, where then the rest of the BK Stories are hung from.
Its very common in hypnotherapy, to create some type of strange TRIGGER like this. Then in the future, all she has to do is say COCKROACH, and it triggers many other aspects of her process.
(we've all see hypnotists do the same thing, creating a trigger word, or image).
UNCONSCIOUS
also, since the cockroach is so primal, it puts people right into their deep unconscious, almost instantly.
SYMBOLISM
In The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka, Gregor wakes up in bed to discover his "transformation" into a cockroach. [
forum.culteducation.com] She just used the same image in her story of being transformed.
William S. Burroughs wrote The Naked Lunch, and wrote stuff containing cockroaches, as he worked as a cockroach exterminator. He was also a raging addict, so addicts of the time would probably read those books in recovery.
Also, Byron Katie wrote a (suppressed) booked called Nog's Quest, obvious based on Nog by Rudy Wurlitzer, which occurs in this weird netherworld. [
forum.culteducation.com]
So its more likely she did hit rock bottom, due to the pill-popping and boozing, and then went to AA, and many recovery seminars, groups, workshops, local ashrams, Zen Shacks, eventually going to more advanced LGAT's like EST, and even hypnotherapy seminars, etc.
Being such an ENTREPRENEUR, She would have noticed rather quickly those running the seminars were making 150K in a weekend seminar, even in those days!
And maybe she spent a drunken night in some place with roaches, and used that later in the construction of her story. Who hasn't seen a roach in some motel or restaurant? big deal.
(some of us had 30 huge rats run seemingly at them from a garbage bin, that's not fun either! Doesn't make you enlightened.)
Byron Katie asks, who would you be without your story?
Who would Byron Katie be without her Stories?
That's all she does, is pitch her stories, which have changed over the years.
Without her stories, she would be selling real estate. Or maybe selling a different type of seminar, like a Course in Miracles, or like Ken Keyes, or more eastern Guru stuff.
So its ironic, that she tries to get you to drop all your stories, but she gets to keep all of her carefully constructed stories, which she hammers at you.
And she gets John Tarrant to shove her stories down your throat, and Michael Katz, and The Whiz Mitchell...and about 50 other people, constantly ramming BK's Stories down the publics throats.
Stories are the foundation of human belief, identity, and human consciousness. As a matter of fact, all human religion and mythologies are simply "Stories". The bible is full of stories, ancient oral history is all stories, the Story of the Buddha, its all stories. Humans have always existed around stories.
She knows that, which is why she wants to take control of your stories, and replace them with her stories.
But her stories, are simply myths she constructed, with embedded symbolic meanings with her at the center, and they are not based on checkable evidence, on purpose! They are just like a fairy story, with a cockroach in it, and where BK is the savior of the universe, instead of an LGAT seminar entrepreneur. They all have their Story, which is their marketing salespitch.
But now we can have modern and more accurate "stories" about the nature of reality, which are more productive, as they are based on fact and testing.
Like the Big Bang...its a "story" but there is massive accurate data showing why its accurate, red-shift, microwave background noise, etc. [
encarta.msn.com]
Or cognitive psychology, and other areas of modern human knowledge, based on careful evidence, testing, and analysis. That's real knowledge, and it can be very accurate, and its getting more accurate all the time.
Its not 100% "true", nothing is, but its extremely accurate on a continuum from just over 0%, to just under 100%.
Byron Katies stories are at best, just over 0%, but well under 1% accurate. Very close to 0%, but nothing is 0%.
but the big bang is certainly into the high 90% percentile, due to the mounds of evidence. [
encarta.msn.com]
Gravitation is experimentally accurate to way over 99%, QED, 99.99999999%
...but under 100%.
Most other aspects of human knowledge are along the continuum, from 10%-50%-80% accurate. And they can change with new evidence, and testing. So its the same with all these beliefs and stories.
If a person believes..."I'm a failure"...you don't say...Is that true? That is the wrong question.
You say...is that accurate? Then you might go through the CBT process, and realize that sometimes you fail, sometimes you succeed, and saying "I'm a failure" is called labelling, and its inaccurate. Then you construct a healthier belief like..."you can't hit the ball if you don't take a swing", and realize you win some, you lose some, etc. Modern psychology can deal with this stuff in a healthy way.
Whereas the BK method, is twisted and biased, and its a leading process, as explained previously.
"Is it true" is a simply horrible question, its meaningless. A better questions is..."Is it accurate?"
So don't lose your stories, check them out and see how accurate they are.
BK is trying to make your stories 0%, which is false, and to make her stories 100%, which is even more false. But her stories are not 0% either, maybe %0.00000001
She she is just trying to control people's belief systems, by manipulating their stories, which is how the brain encodes belief systems, which is information.
What makes it so evil, is they know all this, of course, and just want to use that power for their own advantage.
Why not fact-check stories, test them, and try to pick the most accurate and empowering stories to guide your life? Then you are happy, face reality in a healthy way, and have a good life.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2009 09:41PM by The Anticult.