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Christa

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Meadow
This comment was posted on Janaki's weblog on the contact page:

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We had to chose something dear to give away, knowing that we will never see it back. People, competing for BK’s love, gave their computers, homes, wedding rings….
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HOMES??? People give this crazy fraud-woman and her phony-translator husband their HOMES?

The wedding rings and computers are bad enough. This is absolutely appalling.

I assume, for no good reason, that the homes being given away to Stephen and Katie are vacation homes and not primary residences, but even so...

If there are convicted burglars accessing this forum from prison, they must be green with envy. If Bernie Madoff ever sees this, he'll hang himself!

Scientology demanded that people mortgage their homes to be able to afford all of their courses. The Moonies demanded their followers' credit cards, checkbooks and all their worldly goods, and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh also demanded that his followers give him expensive gifts to prove their love and devotion to him. I guess the "moral" of the story is, don't bother with crime or securities trading; become a guru!

[cosmicconnie.blogspot.com] :

The Work is supposed to be all about losing your "story," but much of the BK mystique – not to mention her marketing – is based on her story. New-wage marketers, and indeed, hucksters of all types, know that you can never underestimate the power of stories.

N. Owis, thank you very much for referring to Cosmic Schmidt's blog on Byron Katie. Here is a direct link to it:

Cosmic Connie's Whirled Musings: "Katie, bar the door!"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2009 05:27AM by helpme2times.

I just went to the Cosmic Connie link. Really worth reading what she has to say. I can't believe I've missed the obvious associations between Katie's Cockroach story and Kafka's Metamorphosis!

Actually, the so-obvious-you-miss-them-but-your-subconscious-gets-it associations of the Katie cockroach story. I'm tempted to beat my head against a wall just as soon as I finish typing this post, because I'm shocked that this has been staring me in the face all along and I didn't see it at all.

As someone close to Katie undoubtedly knows, any English speaker likely to sign up for a Katie seminar probably knows there's a famous story about change that involves a cockroach; Kafka's story inextricably linked the idea of change and cockroaches in the minds of literate Americans, because that's how the German word Kafka uses is usually translated.

Furthermore, many Westerners, especially Americans, primarily associate change with improvement; cf. the 2008 US elections, where the promise of change equaled victory. Few changes were ever specified. (Although in fairness things are so bad in the US that any change would almost certainly be an improvement. But are things in your life so bad that ANY change would be for the better? Can you really know if that's true? ;-)

As someone close to Katie also undoubtedly knows, many more people have heard of this story than have actually read it. (If American voters had read this story, Obama might have had to provide more details. And Katie might still be wandering the streets of Barstow, barging into strangers' houses.)

The idea the change is always good is sometimes so embedded that Kafka's story can be difficult to take in on a first reading, especially for teen-agers who read this story fully expecting that things are going to work out for the giant cockroach huddling under his bed.

Surprise! Things work out, all right, just not for poor old six-legged Gregor, whose Metamorphosis was not worth giving up a house, $5000, a netbook, or even a couple of free introductory hours on a Friday night.

This thread is so long that maybe I've missed some else's bringing this reference up? I'm convinced Katie's cockroach story has its origin in a Kafka story that few people read but most English speakers likely to be interested in expensive NeWage seminars have heard of, and I think that's intentional.

BKI counts on people not reading it, because the story is actually most instructive:

Many people benefit from Gregor Samsa's Metamorphosis. As the people around him use him up and abandon him, they do better and better and he gets smaller, less functional, more limited, and more infected (perhaps toxic is a more apt word in this context).

And Gregor's sister's metamorphosis occurs as a simple fact of nature, no cash required.

Beware cockroaches and change.

Gregor Samsa was definitely better off as a traveling salesman, and the people he trusted to help him betrayed him and battened themselves on his misfortune.

Very interesting point: this magical transformation occurred after Gregor awakened from a bad dream. So maybe this life we lead, even if it is a (bad) dream, is not the worst that can happen to us, and awakening might not be such a great thing to seek. At least not for the seeker.

Who would you be if you read this story?

Very interesting, Christa! In accordance with what you've said, I've never read "The Metamorphosis." So many books on my plate, but I think I've got to add that now...

See the new blog entry by Janaki:

Byron Katie & Janaki: "She is wacky..."

yes, the thread is too big, some folks did bring up The Metamorphosis by Kafka, and a few others books too!
;-)
Its probably a good idea to link back into the thread for various aspects of this.


The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka [forum.culteducation.com]

SYMBOLISM In The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka, Gregor wakes up in bed to discover his "transformation" into a cockroach
[forum.culteducation.com]

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.
These books would be required reading for other opiate addicts in recovery, those books would likely all be on the shelf in the old so-called "halfway house" that BK claims in her stories to have been in.

Byron Katie supposed opiate addiction Story [forum.culteducation.com]

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]

Byron Katie has dozens of Stories she like to tell, and sell.
As a matter of fact, she is in the business of selling her Stories and Storytelling.

What has always puzzled me is that Byron Katie’s story of her alleged awakening is a pure contradiction in itself. On the one hand she ‘woke up’ in total amnesia. Her children had to re-educate her from scratch on ("now, this is a chair, mom, and I’m what’s called ‘your child’"; etc.). On the other hand, eight years later when she rewrote her history she had a crystal-clear recollection of what hypothetically happened, when she knew to tell everyone that a) something had crawled over her foot eight years ago and b) what had crawled over her foot back then is called a cockroach. From whatever angle you look at her account, one part automatically unmasks the other as not very likely. To put it mildly. Still love that story though.

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N. Owis
What has always puzzled me is that Byron Katie’s story of her alleged awakening is a pure contradiction in itself. On the one hand she ‘woke up’ in total amnesia. Her children had to re-educate her from scratch on ("now, this is a chair, mom, and I’m what’s called ‘your child’"; etc.). On the other hand, eight years later when she rewrote her history she had a crystal-clear recollection of what hypothetically happened, when she knew to tell everyone that a) something had crawled over her foot eight years ago and b) what had crawled over her foot back then is called a cockroach. From whatever angle you look at her account, one part automatically unmasks the other as not very likely. To put it mildly. Still love that story though.

And there, again, you have one of the reasons why Stephen Mitchell personally destroyed many many copies of Losing The Moon, same reason why he still buys them off the internet. There are just too many obvious irregularities in the original version of Byron Katie’s story that are inconsistent with (and therefore removed from) Mitchell’s modified and patched up rewrite.

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Cruz
And there, again, you have one of the reasons why Stephen Mitchell personally destroyed many many copies of Losing The Moon, same reason why he still buys them off the internet. There are just too many obvious irregularities in the original version of Byron Katie’s story that are inconsistent with (and therefore removed from) Mitchell’s modified and patched up rewrite.

Yes, one could say: if Byron Katie is Queen of the Work, ‘Svengali Stephen’ is King of the Rework.