'Its really damaging, for people to think they can eliminate all of their painful emotions in life. Its setting people up for delusion, and disaster, and ironically depression.'


The above should be in capital letters over the door of every LGAT.


I had a look at the TM website linked above and found this little gem from an ex-TM casualty:

'As a matter of fact, keeping your wallet and checkbook in your pants or purse has the almost magical effect of protecting you from the worst negative effects of TM, both the unstressing effects and the indoctrination effects. This is because you have to pay for most of the opportunities to have your mind really blasted.'

Applies equally well to Ms Katie too. (for 'unstressing' read dissociation)

A word of explanation, in case its needed.

I attached the motivational poster jpg because it is funny, not to promote or trash any religious ideology or to suggest any path as the answer to all life's problems.
Each person's beliefs are, in the final analysis, a matter for themselves alone.

I do have a problem when one person's personal beliefs are foistered on others by devious means,
or used to provide a millionaire lifestyle for a select few by bleeding cash from 'lesser' mortals,
or used as vicious nonsense to build a power-base by exploiting other humans need for certainty in an uncertain world.

The best thing I learned in my zen study was to laugh at myself and my strange imaginings, a true blessing and a valuable antidote in this sometimes painful world.

Quote

I've made a lifelong study of the mystics, and it seems to me that Byron Katie's message is consistent with what sages have been saying for millennia.

In fact, our word mysticism derives from the Greek word mystikos

Quote

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mystic


(mystikos), “‘secret, mystic’”) < (mystes), “‘one who has been initiated’”).

The American Heritage Dictionary gives a bit more detail, the root word for Mystic derives from the root word for Mystery

""From Latin 'Mysterium, from Greek Mysterion "Secret Rites" from Mustes 'one who has been initiated into secret rites' to muein, 'to close the eyes and mouth, hence to keep secret.;"

The mass marketing used by BK is incompatible with mysticism.

And the ancient Greek and Roman mysteries were NOT MEANT TO BE AN ONGOING SOURCE OF REVENUE STREAM FOR THE CUSTODIANS OF THE RITES.

The initates of Eleusis never themselves disclosed what they had seen.

But the recruits for BK openly recruit. BK makes an unmystical amount of advertising noise--and gets her votaries to make noise on her behalf.

Anyone claiming to be a mystic who inspires such a noisy and disruptive stream of visitors is not a mystic at all--just another huckster in the marketplace.

What is actually being kept secret are the changing stories with which BK has used (eg the now hard to find books such as Losing the Moon and Cry in the Desert) and the methods that Anticult has gone to such lengths to describe.

Mass marketing of the kind BK utilizes is anti mystical, because it propagates noise. Worse it is like kudzu weed--it intrudes into areas where it does not belong, such as 12 Step meetings and genuine Buddhist centers and claims to be legitimate therapy, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which it is not.

Mass marketing, which BK uses to push her products, propelled by utilizing craving.

In her case, there is always another book to buy, always another tape to listen to, always another Twitter post--like a bag of potato chips with no bottom.

Two, there is no such thing as a permanent bliss or enlightenment state.

First, its neurologically impossible. Your neurotransmitters will get depleted after a finite time and your CNS and body will return to baseline. Talk to anyone who has ever taken LSD or used speed.

As for non drug induced enlightenment, get and read Light at the Center: Context and Pretext of Modern Mysticism by Agehananda Bharati. He had these states himself and found out that one cannot engage in planning or even assemble enough discursive language to teach, so long as one is in one of these states.

One has to exit the the nondual state in order to talk about it.

Bharati found that in India, gurus used a sort of coded language, speaking as if they were in a state of enlightenment, while talking about it, and the social role expected of them required them to talk this way.

And..one cannot do marketing campaigns, internet campaigns, in a state of nondual bliss.

At the very least the mystic has to hire accountants, lawyers and marketing specialists who remain in a nonmystical state of mind to run this advertising for the person.

Go read the Bharati book.

And..no mystic inspires such a legion of trolls who show up disrupting the sole attempt at a discussion forum that is not under the control of the mystic's business operation.

Its all about money and power, honey.

These are the antithesis of mysticism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2009 10:25PM by corboy.

Final note:

Quote

I've made a lifelong study of the mystics, and it seems to me that Byron Katie's message is consistent with what sages have been saying for millennia.

BK is no mystic. She's an advertising celebrity merely using the language of mysticism.

Anyone can learn to patter the language of mysticism. Someone said the devil can quote the Bible to suit his own purposes.

BK tells you your personality and story are illusion, but its all to get you addicted to and lost in HER STORY (which keeps changing--go get and read the Cry in the Desert text) and personaly invested in her personality.

Why else is BK's picture pasted to everything associated with her?

Why is she so eager to own and trademark everything associated with her?

And why are so many people invested in a woman whom they dont even know in person, just have the illusion that they know her?

You're interacting with an image of her, in some cases, composed of pixils on a computer screen or colored dots on a poster or book jacket that reproduces her photo.

Its an illusary image of BK, a waking dream, crafted for public consumption, and created by a team of photographers and supported by the efforts of a clothing consultant, a make-up artist, a hairdresser and dermatologist.

Mystics dont use that stuff. Its theatre arts, an impersonates spirituality and mysticism.

And dont go talking about Jesus.

The only thing Jesus owned at the end of his earthly life was one shirt. He didnt have a hairdresser.

And Jesus took the rap. He making anyone sign a waiver. He didnt talk any of his disciples into taking the penalty for him.

Jesus's own CPA turned him in and betrayed him. Jesus didnt hire a lawyer to get him off the hook.

If Jesus had resembled one of our modern mystics, he'd own a house with a backyard hot tub in Marin County and dress in designer clothes.

Anticult, I added another comment to my post but it hasn't gone through yet. It might have been something I did on my end. What I wrote, (maybe not exact words) was the question of "what is mind" where science is concerned is not dumb.

Or to put it better, not unimportant. I over reacted when I seen nobody know's what mind is. To me it's part of the brain. From experience, I appreciate the cult education. I wish I would have known to search a board like this years ago.


To go at all into the nature of the "Mind" is clearly off-topic and beyond this forum.
But my comment is related to science. The human mind is a subject for very vigorous scientific research right now, in many areas. Cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, and dozens of other fields.
The question, "what is the Mind" is probably one of the most important and complex areas in science and human knowledge, never mind philosophy.
But science is starting to work at this question.

But its beyond the scope of this forum and thread, as this is about abuse by cultic leaders and groups.
But for Byron Katie to run around talking about the "Mind" is really ridiculous, she doesn't know anything about it.
She is using her own mental concepts as a weapon, to try and passify her followers, in a very damaging and retrograde manner. Its like some type of new Dark Age.

dp198,

'The question, "what is the Mind" is probably one of the most important and complex areas in science and human knowledge, never mind philosophy.
But science is starting to work at this question.'

The question: "What is MY mind and why is it so easily suckered by Byron Katies marketing machine ?" might be a more useful place to start your questioning.

Why wait for science to come up with an answer when you live day and night with your own mind and have an access that no other person, whether scientist, psychologist or mystic, will ever come close to?

"The new method seems to be to try to totally conceal the techniques inside a "spiritual" system, on an audience with no experience in these areas. "

This is the Real Secret, folks.

Cynical marketeers are perverting mysticism by slipping anti-mystical manipulative SHIT into a candy coating of spirituality and transformation--the domain in life to which to which people come desperately, trustfully, deflector shields down.

At least when you go to buy a new car or a used one, you KNOW ahead of time, you have to be on the alert.

But in terms of spirituality, that's supposed to be an area where you open your heart.

And that is what makes it so dreadful when used car sales tactics are slipped into a domain in life where people are not on their guard.

And when we point out that spirituality is being poisoned in this way, we're the ones who are dismissed as 'cynics', when in fact, its the commerical pseudo gurus doing this who are the cynics---and who hate it because RR.com is trying to offer warnings about this trend.

Anticult summed up the heart of the secret very well on another thread:

Quote

As I have said many times, NLP is not a "thing" is really just a processes for copying other things. But frankly, to be blunt, NLP is dead, long ago.

That is why there are now all sorts of other things, like DHE, and 19 other things, often done for marketing reasons.


That is also why some old NLPers, like Stever Robbins, are moving into the Byron Katie system, and things like that. The new method seems to be to try to totally conceal the techniques inside a "spiritual" system, on an audience with no experience in these areas.

[forum.culteducation.com]
Trojan Horse.

As mentioned, there is cross-over between some of the techniques being used by Byron Katie, and even some of the techniques being promoted by some of these new creepy pick-up artists Guru's.
There is an interesting thread starting here, its veering a bit off-topic, but there is an excellent core idea there to be researched.
Notice the techniques are very similar to SOME of those being discussed in this thread, like...

"...techniques were soundly based on NLP, Psychology, Social Compliance, Confusion, Ericksonian Hypnosis etc."
"The Game" "Pickup Artists" and "The Seduction Community"
[forum.culteducation.com]


Has Stever Robbins, a 30 year expert in these NLP techniques, not heard of that either?
The problem is the NLPers who are trying to slip these techniques into "spiritual" systems, are in a Double-Bind.
They cannot openly admit to the techniques, so they have to try to DENY them.
But they are so obvious, anyone with any training in that area can see them in seconds.

Why try to pull the wool over the eyes of the general public, who are not trained in this area?

Just a reminder regarding con-men/women and confidence tricks:

The confidence in question is not necessarily the confidence required of the con-man/woman to pull off the trick.

The confidence actually refers to the amount of confidence the 'mark' has to place in the conman for the trick to have any chance at all of being pulled successfully.
Confidence in these cases means trust and it is the betrayal of trust that is so painful when anyone falls for these tricks.

Knowing that their trust has been so comprehensively and cynically abused and betrayed also contributes to the large number of the conned who are too embarassed to admit falling for these tricks, and keeps those with real doubts still in cult-type organisations long after they realise that these organisations are up to no good.

Stoic, Anticult, I made a mistake with my post to anticult. All I meant was normal research, like brain cancer. I did not mean the what is mind aspect of it. I wasn't going there. My mistake.