Stoic:

Like HM2x, I am hyper-vigilant, reactionary, angry (serves me for now) and relatively new to freedom from the tyranny discussed in this thread. It has been easy to pre-judge new posts to this thread when they veer, even minutely, from the main criticisms; that, of course, is my bad. I'm still learning every day. Actually, this thread has evolved to the point where the initial question of legitimacy of Katie and Tolle has long since been addressed. This accounts for 'skimmers' of this thread to come off as apologists. Not to say that I have seen apologetics in your posts; I haven't.

Personally, after reading this thread, I had actually jettisoned all my non-dual, Advaita, Katie-esque, Dyer-like, Tolle-type, TM-practicing, evangelical religious-based ideas (to name a handful) out the fricking window, before I even posted. Against the advice of at least one person on this thread, who I still respect as a contributor, I took a chance on throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Actually, I was the baby, so I didn't worry at all. I stayed put, threw out the stanky water and rinsed off, as I continue to do. This was my technique, and although perhaps not for everyone I have recently posted on another thread that complete stoppage is a preferred technique in recovery circles. I see the application as being equivocal. I do, however, think I understand what you did to escape/recover, and see where the incongruencies in your posts seem to have stemmed from.

After some healing time, and the inclusion of "counting to ten" when anger appears, I am now at a place where I look for confusion tactics, love-bombs, victim blaming, apologetics, incongruencies with the posted facts, overt trolling and disruptive actions and other derailing techniques that we often see in this thread. I just take them with a grain of salt, lately. For example, I have recently had to skip right through a recently banned visitor's posts, since they were causing my mind to literally reel. Whether an apologist, Katie-ite or disturbed person, it doesn't matter. I moved right past it. Another was so 'sticky, love-bombie' that I disgustedly spat it out like some bitter piece of food that inadvertantly got in my mouth. Eventually, repeat offenders get banned by the moderator anyway, and I capitulate to his judgement, which usually is long-suffering.

I would say, your contributions to the whole Byron Katie discussion are excellent; I feel there are never too many points of view on this subject. I wouldn't take our "quickness on the draw" to heart; it's not personal.

qd

Corboy, thank you for helping remind me that this is the sort of thing that most needs to be focused upon here.

That is a brilliant analysis.

Its really breath-taking how Byron Katie has organized her system.
The public-confessional, where people get up before a huge audience, and spill everything...all recorded on video.

But notice how none of that applies to Byron Katie, or even her daughter Roxann who sells The Work as well. [www.thework.com] They have powerful boundaries set-up, for example, the daughter had posted previously she would NOT talk about Mommy Dearest in her private coachings. So selective PRIVACY boundaries are good for them, NOT for you.
They only reveal what they choose to reveal, and just repeat the same old Stories over and over.

And they convince everyone to tell strangers their most intimate details while in a vulnerable state, which are recorded on video, and then even sold for profit. The release you sign, gives them ownership of your public confession forever.
(that part is like Scientology's auditing, but Scientology keeps those tapes in their archives.. for later use).

It would be like going to see a priest for confession, and they video-tape it, and get you to sign a contract saying they can now own it forever, and can sell your confession for profit, and post in on the Vatican's YouTube channel.

Yet simultaneously, the people most involved are all signed to MUZZLE contracts.
So its the completely one-sided game again.

The BK people get wired-up to tell BK everything she wants to hear from them.
But they are muzzled from saying anything about her she does not want them to say.
On top of that, there is self-censorship to avoid being socially ostracized.

There is nothing new about this either, many groups use very similar methods to create the deepest possible "loyalty" inside the group, even when its totally misguided.

Quote
Meadow
I don't think it is so much the fear of expressing themselves or the fear of exposure. Integrity, sincerity and loyalty are very high on the list of virtues within the work community. And to have a hidden agenda is a big no-no. They would probably feel compelled to confess sooner or later, do some sort of public humiliation and make amends. Admitting to what you feel ashamed about is a big thing in their circles, especially in front of large audiences. ...

People end up posting all kinds of private information on the BKI forum, information that is open to the general public. They post using their own name and picture.

I have also seen this happen in a workshop that I once attended with BK in LA. People stand in front of large audiences and confess shamefull stuff they have done. It seems that BK loves this, she really encourages them to do this.

People are being fed this really twisted sense of honesty, that for some reason, they cannot bypass. So sooner or later they will tell her what she wants to hear or know. What they do not seem to notice is the mega hidden agenda that BK has underneath this whole honesty/integrity issue. Since she is the holy one in their eyes, she is able to get by with almost anything.

I wonder if she ever gets that honest herself?

Quote
corboy

Quote

Have you ever taken a lot of morphine or saw someone who took a lot of morphine? It is not a lot of fun. BK is basically telling this woman to put herself into a coma. Can you imagine the nausea and the vomitting that could happen?

If opiates are taken in large quantities, it can give hellish constipation and even lead to fecal impaction.

Two, respiratory depression and death

Finally there are social consquences.

I know of two cases where people snowed under on opiates babbled stuff they'd kept secret all their lives and the disclosures had traumatic effects on the bystanders.

There are additional social hazards if one uses more opiate than is recommended by ones care provider

All those narcotics around the house can be a temptation for criminal activity. An unethical attendant might steal the stuff or gossip and a low life friend or relative of the attendant could burglarize the patients house to get the dope.

Two, people wanting more drugs than their providers are willing to sign off on are tempted to get them illegally from crooks or over the internet

Finally, if someone is snowed under and helpless, they could be unable to protect their own interests and have their belongings looted or even be pressured to make changes in their wills.

But you know what is really sick? If you read that entire post on BK's blog, you find that in the end it seems as if she has manipulated this poor woman enough so that she starts to cater to BK's points of view and starts to admit to all kinds of stuff, and ends up singing in front of the audience and gets a wild applause. So in the end, this posting on BK's blog is nothing more than yet another marketing trick to promote herself, her status and her product.
In the comments that follow this episode, Katie gets heartfelt 'thank you's' from her crowd.
How sick is it to sell yourself via someone's cancer?

one other point to consider about this Advaita, Non-Dual stuff, is that is means very different things, to different people. And some people are much more vulnerable to fall into various mental-traps with that stuff, it really is a rabbit hole with no bottom.

There is even a thread about that.
Abuse in the Name of Advaita [forum.culteducation.com]

There are even people, like Guruphiliac on Twitter who call it...

[twitter.com] "Post Neo-Vedanta and Neurononduality"

Now, for people with training and experience in actual philosophy and thinking, that kind of stuff comes off as satire, or a joke. To relabel Monism [plato.stanford.edu] with various adjectives, comes off ridiculous at best, highly intellectually dishonest if they are serious.
There is no such thing as Post Neo-Vedanta. There is no such thing as Neurononduality.
They just made it up, and pulled it out of the ass...so to speak.
What's wrong with the old term ONENESS? To relabel that with a bunch of fancy words is idiotic.

And people can fill hundreds of books with made-up jibberish along these lines. Some of it is harmless distraction, some is very damaging, especially when they start trying to sell EGO-DEATH.
That is dangerous stuff.

But the best way forward is to put the "philosophy" of so-called Advaita into a completely different category, than the persuasion techniques being used.
Byron Katie clearly just uses those ideas to screw with people's heads.

So its best to completely SEPERATE any "philosophy" from the persuasion techniques.
The philosophy is the "CONTENT", the persuasion is happening on the meta-level.
The CONTENT could be Advaita, or EST, or New Thought, or Channelling, or Self-Help, or Motivation, Wicca, Atman, Gnosticism or ANYTHING. The "content" is not the real message anyway.

The real message is the metalevel covert persuasion tactics being used to screw with people's heads, generally to extract money.
So its best to focus on that, and keep the content seperate.

For Byron Katie, the content, is simply a distraction, and a tool to confuse people.

quackdave,

'I wouldn't take our "quickness on the draw" to heart; it's not personal.'

Thankyou.
I too am hypervigilant and though my reactionary tendencies and anger have largely dissipated (due probably to age and living as much as anything) I can well remember the "quickness on the draw" and don't take it personally very often.

helpme2times,

'I hardly find the suspicion factor to be "excessive". I think it is right on the money.'

I think it is right on the money too. I was using "excessive" in the sense of 'more than normally suspicious' not as a negative judgement on the treatment given to newcomers. Had I intended it as a negative judgement I would have been long gone from this board, as I have a tendency to vote with my feet.

'The real message is the metalevel covert persuasion tactics being used to screw with people's heads, generally to extract money.
So its best to focus on that, and keep the content seperate.

For Byron Katie, the content, is simply a distraction, and a tool to confuse people.'


Too true. If you get bogged down in the non-dual system of thought it truly can be a bottomless rabbit-hole. I skim past other peoples ramblings on this too, it can go on forever. And it doesn't change mundane reality one iota.

And I agree with you that any philosophy, even the most benign, can be used as content and twisted in the hands of a skilled manipulator.
It is the realityof the manipulation, the organised nature of the operation, the specific persuasive methods and the true reason for the organisation being built that needs to be exposed.

Once that is recognised it is applicable to all manner of similar persuasive operations.

search Google for:

"Post Neo-Vedanta"

as said above, it doesn't exist. But who knows, maybe Guruphiliac means it as satire? As satire, its funny. As it doesn't exist.

also search for :

Neurononduality

It also doesn't exist. But again, maybe its a satirical swipe at all these Non-Dual people who come up with complicated words that have no meaning to try to sound smart and deep.


Its like how Byron Katie tries to tell everyone to stop using the "mind" and to drop their "Stories", yet all she does us push her Stories and her mental concepts down everyone's throat, from all media, for hundreds of hours. It can't be more obvious.


It reminds one of the legendary awesome Ultimate Steve Hardison.
His claim to fame is "Winner of the National Extemporaneous Speaking Competition 1980" and being a salesmen for Xerox. Notice there are no specifics of WHICH speaking competition, if there even was one. Where is the proof? [www.theultimatecoach.net] But that is his greatest achievement, some alleged speaking contest 30 yrs ago. Wow, scary.
In an article, he says he became a hero at Xerox, for giving a REFUND on a Xerox machine, when they were NOT supposed to give refunds.

Meanwhile, he gives NO REFUNDS for his so-called coaching, paid in advance.

So one has to wonder. Is all of this a Sucker-Test?
Is Steve Hardison trying to do a reverse IQ test on people?
Do they put this silly junk out there, as a test to troll for anyone who would believe it?
You have to wonder.
Perhaps they have learned to qualify the customer first with a Sucker-Test, as if they believe that, then they'll believe almost anything?

hmm, there may be something here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2009 06:24AM by The Anticult.

There are a few people who are saying that Steve Hardison is their "coach" or former coach in their blogs. Of course they are also coaches. Convenient.

Coach Andrea [coachandrea.com] [coachandrea.com]
Stephen McGhee [www.amazon.com]


And then you have Stever Robbins getting in on the Steve Hardison act.
He does a marketing pitch for Steve Hardison, and not mentoning there are NO REFUNDS of your $150K.
Its pretty subtle what Stever Robbins does...he puts in a 2nd-hand endorsement from an "ex-coach" of his for Steve Hardison, then goes into one of his loops.
Its amazing how a smart guy like Stever Robbins would post something like this, with no critical analysis whatsoever?
If someone asked you to post some blatant uncritical advertising PR for some "coach" on your blog, wouldn't you do some research first?
What if the guy was a slimeball?

And Stever Robbins has an entire sub-category for The Work of Byron Katie, with more uncritical acceptance. There even appears to be deliberately exaggerated distortions of the questions being asked about these methods. This needs to be analyzed bigtime.
Its pretty pathetic when top experts in these techniques only defense is to try and play innocent. They are simply trying to pander to the ignorance of these techniques in the general public. They would never try that among their own NLP colleagues, as they know they would never get away with it.
It really is a very bad warning sign, when the advanced NLPers go all "awe shucks" on you, and move into vague, indirect language patterns, and use denial and deflection, and try to play-act they don't know anything.
Notice how that is the precise opposite of how they write and speak in NLP circles.
Knowing how the advanced NLPers operate, Stever Robbins gets a serious F-minus.

[blog.steverrobbins.com]
QUOTE: "Finding enlightenment. I’ve done NLP (31 years!), hemisync, hypnosis, meditation, etc. The only thing I’ve found that produces results others would call enlightenment is The Work."

_____QUOTE excerpt for educational analysis__________________
[blog.steverrobbins.com]
May 26, 2009 at 2:01 pm · Filed under Experiment

"I just got off the phone with my ex-coach and good friend Michael Neill. He’s just published his fourth book and is ramping up to doing a full-scale workshop business next year.

He mentioned that he’s now seeing coach Steve Hardison (http://www.theultimatecoach.net). Hardison charges $150,000 per engagement, paid in advance. Furthermore, he only coaches face-to-face, and you get to fly to him in Arizona each time. This is not a man who is cheap to hire.

I asked him if it’s been worth it, and so far, he’s answered a resounding “Yes.” As best as I could understand it, Hardison utterly puts his clients first, and has no sense whatsoever of the impossible. More than anyone else Michael has ever met, Hardison simply doesn’t believe things can’t be done.
...
But that begs the question, what do I want to do with my life? Let’s say I had a Steve Hardison in my life who wouldn’t let me make excuses, and made it totally clear that my life is under my control. If they could help me get anywhere, in any direction I pointed myself, where would I want to go?
__________________________________



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2009 11:02AM by The Anticult.

and to paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield...

Michael Neill is no bargain either.
Another Supercoach and Feel Happy Now!

Michael Neill says he is a licensed Master Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)http://www.geniuscatalyst.com/michael.php and worked with Richard Bandler
So yet another advanced NLPer master hypnotist, going all touchy-feely airy-fairy for the public.

any connections with Byron Katie?