Anticult wrote:

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So its all about filtering.

Another image one can use is that of a plastic coin sorting gadget.

You pour in a bunch of coins of varying sizes.

Then you shake the coin sorter. It works using a system of chutes.

Over time, all the pennies stack into the penny sized compartment, the nickels stack into the nickel sized compartment, and so on.

Ive often suspected that many groups do this very thing.

Those who become entourage members of whimsical leaders go through a lot of shaking and bounce through a lot of different chutes before they enter the entourage.

Its not a role you get into just by walking in off the street.

oh yeah, all of these LGAT's work out their market demographics very carefully. They know who their audience is, income levels, etc.

They even sit down and calculate exactly how many regular customers (followers) they need to live their desired lifestyle.
For example, only 1,000 followers, at $1,000 per follower a year. How much is that?

1 million a year in income.

or just 200 "customers" at one $5,000 seminar = 1 million bucks.

They have this stuff all worked out very carefully. Some people work for free, some have family money, some become "certified", etc. Sorting the sheep from the goats.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/2009 01:55PM by The Anticult.

Making these kinds of calculations is simple if one knows how to use Excel.

The IF function comes in handy for all sorts of things.

dear lord, thank you for posting this. People need to freaking WAKE UP and come out of their Katie-Trance. They are being scammed, right to their face, and they are laughing about it.

They are going into debt BONDAGE and believing they are being made "free". Its George Orwell all over again. Debt-Bondage is Freedom.

Notice the details.
$100 a month on automatic credit card payment. (you can be certain that the ENTIRE $4500 is due whenever they want to call it, in case the person maxes out their card. They will sue these people if they don't pay, and hand it over to a collection company, read the contract for that).

But that is 45 months, which is almost 4 years. This person would be entering into 4 years of debt-bondage to Byron Katie, for the privilege of getting mind-washed at a Byron Katie LGAT seminar for 9 days.

On top of that, this person could have an interest rate of at least 20%. So that is around an extra $240 a year, depending. (or more).
So their real debt would be closer to $5400.00, and even more if they don't pay it.

On top of that, airfare, expenses, "gifts", etc.
This person could easily go into debt for $10,000 on this one Byron Katie LGAT seminar alone.

And that is just the beginning.
You see, Byron Katie loves "lending" you money. Why? Because you are hooked into her company for at least 4 years. This will lead in many cases, to more BK debt on top of this, more seminars, more coaching, etc. This will hook the person into BK for many years, even a decade for some. You are hooked into the Spider-Web of Byron Katie Debt.

Here's the kicker.
Lets say The School for The Work with Byron Katie, is a small one, with 200 people.
Then Byron Katie is making $100,000 a day. ($500 x 200) x 9 days = $900,000 for Byron Katie.
Don't forget, she is not paying anyone to "Staff", they are paying to work. And she gets a lot of other sales/gifts in the seminar, that would cover expenses for the room, etc.
So that explains the seminar price of $4,500. Nice round figure.

Watch this.
$1,000,000 / $4,500 = 222.22

That is classic Byron Katie folks. She wants to make a round $1,000,000 for each Byron Katie School for The Work.
So all she need to sign up, is 222 people. Notice the precise decimal that comes up with.
222.22 people.
(I bet you she uses that same number/symbol in other ways, she always reuses symbols in various ways).
WOW: just remembered this.
A 222 is a 3-way drug-combo PAIN-KILLER pill.
[www.medbroadcast.com]
222 = (ASA - caffeine - codeine)

This is how precise Byron Katie thinks, that probably ain't no accident.
Byron Katie sells herself as a Pain-Killer, and she LOVES both those words...Pain and Killer. Those are real Byron Katie words.

Byron Katie's salespitch is she will eliminate your PAIN and suffering. She tells you she will kill your pain. (she won't).
When in fact, in the medium and long-term the suffering and pain will increase, after the initial high wears off, then the headache is twice as bad.

Byron Katie earns a minimum of $1,000,000 per 9 Day School.
If she has 400 people, she makes 2 million in just over a week.


for those who have seen many LGAT's come and go...this ain't gonna end good for anyone, when the shit hits the fan, which it will one day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2009 01:27PM by The Anticult.

Prescription 222 painkillers contain CODEINE.

QUOTE:
[www.thework.com]
"When an early first marriage ended in divorce, Katie's ambitions bloomed.... "I always knew how to make money," she says...
Unable to find a purpose for living and feeling intensely bitter, Katie began taking her husband's prescription painkillers..."

[www.thework.com]
"In 1986 Katie [...] had spent a decade falling into depression, agoraphobia, overeating and addiction to codeine and alcohol."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2009 02:24PM by The Anticult.

I've pored over the articles and forums at this site for several years, and I guess this is as good a point as any for me to jump in to make a small point.

Before I do that, though, I want to thank all of the posters, and most especially Rick Ross, corboy, and The Anticult, for the thoughtful, informative posts that have been vital to my healing from my experiences with a psychotherapy cult. Your contributions have spurred me to begin my own contributions to these boards.

Now, my small point. In The Anticult's post on February 28 at 07:06am, there's a link that goes to an article from Body and Soul Magazine, whatever that is. Here's the quote I want to discuss:

*****
Byron Kathleen Reid Mitchell, more commonly known as Byron Katie. Wearing a charcoal-colored suit with a long skirt, Katie, 59, stands at the front of the Swedenbourg [sic] Chapel at Harvard University on a brisk Saturday in September...
*****

Wow, Harvard! Where today's most innovative, influential thinkers go to speak to tomorrow's most innovative, influential thinkers. Naturally, a spiritual leader as important as Katie spoke there.

Except she didn't. There is no Swedenborg Chapel at Harvard. There's a Swedenborg Chapel across the street from Harvard Yard. There's also a Chinese restaurant, a copy shop, and, rumor has it, a brothel across the street from the Yard. In fact, Harvard is located on lots of streets, and there are lots of businesses, gathering places, schools, churches, and houses located on those very same streets. Yet proximity to Harvard is not the same as affiliation with Harvard, a fact I'm certain Katie understands, and a fact either Katie, the reporter, the people who organized the event, or all of them, deliberately obscured.

Someone involved in the leadership of this event, if not Katie herself, had to know that Katie was not "Worki-ing" at Harvard; she was just a workshop leader in a rented room in a church *near* Harvard. As Cambridge residents, Harvard students certainly could have attended, but they didn't host her, because student groups host guests on campus. Whether Katie herself was misled, or she misled the reporter, Diane Goldner, or Goldner just assumed they were at Harvard and no one bothered to correct her, I don't know. A quick Google search reveals that Goldner could be a friend or a follower; maybe they all collaborated.

In any case, something sleazy occurred in the preparation of this article. I initially thought this sentence reads the way it does because Goldner was just sloppy. After all, she misspelled "Swedenborgian" so it's not like she's an obsessive fact-checker.

But I don't believe this was an innocent error, and I don't think it's trivial. It's a shrewd, subtle bit of marketing that points to a great deal of ego inflation and a propensity for risk-taking. Only a someone who's lived in Cambridge is likely to know that the Swedenborg Chapel isn't part of Harvard, and, well ...Cambridge is a small town; Harvard, by university standards, is small; and Body and Soul's circulation does not rival People magazine's. My guess is that some Work-er thought, Why not take a shot? Who will be the wiser? The payoff of attaching Harvard's prestige and credibility to the Work justifies the tiny risk of discovery. (In 2002, the Web was not what it is now.)

While this bit of misdirection is not as serious as stealing people's jewelry (or for that matter their minds) it lies somewhere along the same continuum, and the more I think about it the more pathological I think the whole Katie thing is.

*****
Wearing a charcoal-colored suit with a long skirt, Katie, 59, stands at the front of the Swedenbourg [sic] Chapel at Harvard University on a brisk Saturday in September...
*****

I initially thought this sentence reads the way it does because Goldner was just sloppy. After all, she misspelled "Swedenborgian" so it's not like she's an obsessive fact-checker.

The reporter indeed appears to be not much of an obsessive fact-checker. Katie, born on December 6th, 1942, will be 67 this year. So '59' is 'a little off'.

Hi Christa,

The point you make is very important.
"It's a shrewd, subtle bit of marketing that points to a great deal of ego inflation and a propensity for risk-taking".

B-i-n-g-o and Bingo was his name-o.
Its no accident that they made it sound like Byron Katie appeared at Harvard, that is the type of tricky advertising they do all the time.

BK always tries to make it sound like she is endorsed by real shrinks, and legit organizations, name-dropping to try and gain credibility by association.
Like with a hospital. [forum.culteducation.com]

They have claimed that David Wise said The Work was the best cognitive therapy.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Yet when you check into it, it falls apart.
The Work is literally not listed on ANY cognitive therapy (CT) database on earth, as its not CT. So how can it be the best, when its not even CT?
Also, on her own website and in the disclaimers, BK says that The Work is NOT any kind of therapy!
[forum.culteducation.com]
So they say that The Work is the best cognitive therapy, but its not cognitive therapy, or any kind of therapy.
Makes sense. NOT!
Its a marketing trick, and its probably just on the edge of being legal.
Like when the Sham-Wow tells you it holds all that water...(it doesn't!)http://askgrandmaj.blogspot.com/2008/06/scam-sham.html

Notice how BK doesn't appear to make these claims herself in print, she says that someone else said it! Same with that Harvard article, they got someone else to say it.

If anyone ever asks, then she can just play dumb. Its totally deliberate.

They always try to have it both ways. They make a vague trickily-worded advertisement that sounds good, but when you look into it, the truth is the opposite to the marketing! Turnaround Marketing?

It may be a bit hard to believe at first view, the above post about the 222 codeine painkillers and the million dollars per LGAT, but she claims to have been addicted to codeine, and she does show a lot of evidence of working at that symbolic unconscious level, with SURGICAL precision.
People who operate like she does, deliberately use EMBEDDED METAPHORS into their work at several levels at once, as that works on the unconscious. They also use "Nested Loops", as she does as well.
Byron Katie could perceive herself as moving from being addicted to painkillers, to becoming a painkiller. The serious problem is, she is creating Dissociation to try to cut people off from their pain, which is very dangeous, as they admit in their own
Byron Katie, THE SCHOOL FOR THE WORK, RELEASE OF LIABILITY [forum.culteducation.com]


Also, it becomes a type of "in-joke" for her. (ego inflation and a propensity for risk-taking).
She is not the first to do this, most modern hypnotherapists do it. Watch out when anyone starts telling you some kind of "Story", weird or boring. Search google for:

ericksonian hypnotherapy stories

And as well, since its "hidden in plain sight", then it has plausible deniability, and by-passes resistance in the client.

For example, the Byron Katie Washing Machine story/induction explained before, works on several levels simultaneously. It may seem weird, but again, in the area where she is working, this is standard operating procedure. Its common everyday practice for modern sophisticated hypnotherapy.
You will notice from a google search, that the BK Washing Machine story has since appeared on some Byron Katie related websites. It was not there before.

But there is the kicker. They do it in such a way, as to always maintain plausible deniability. That is part of the structure as well. This is why BK markets herself as a Savant-type, in case anyone asks tough questions, she can say she doesn't remember, or knows nothing about it.
Its brilliant, that's why some hypnotherapists promote BK, she has a new angle that works really well. She not only hides the Stories, she hides the Storyteller.
Meanwhile, she is a very intelligent forceful personality, and has very very carefully designed these inductions and marketing packages, with surgical precision.

For example, the Byron Katie Washing Machine induction/story,
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]
(text and analysis follows)
[forum.culteducation.com]

is the same structure as the Milton Erickson "Cactus Story". [forum.culteducation.com]

They spend months refining these conversational story inductions, that work on several levels at once, and are invisible to most people. But to the trained eye and ear, you see them instantly.
Those who attend many BK events, will hear the same Stories over and over, almost exactly word for word. They are created very carefully.

And again, BK was very clever to target the new age crowd, as most of them have never heard of any of this.

Utilization of Ivy League Universities in LGAT Legitimation Narratives

Anyone or anything that has an impressive name that inspires instant credibilty has to watch out. Harvard is literally a 'name to conjure with'.

Its easy to rent rooms in or near an honored institution and make it seem your stuff is sponsored by that institution when it is not.

Remember too, we are in a brutal recession. Everyone's feeling the pinch. So its easy and all too tempting to rent out rooms to something or to some one---and not ask too many questions.

Anticult wrote:

Quote

"Its no accident that they made it sound like Byron Katie appeared at Harvard, that is the type of tricky advertising they do all the time."

Quote

Notice how BK doesn't appear to make these claims herself in print, she says that someone else said it! Same with that Harvard article, they got someone else to say it.

There is a precedent for this.

Landmark Education enthusiasts(which began as Erhard Seminars Training and was then re-named) - Landmark Education enthusiasts love to refer 'The Harvard Study.'

Here's the background--which de-mythologizes 'The Harvard Study'

Quote

To validate Landmark commercially, there is the "Harvard study". My copy has on it the Harvard seal (Veritas ["Truth"]), the heading "Harvard Business School", a copyright attribution to The President and Fellows of Harvard College in one footnote, and a disclaimer in another: Harvard doesn't actually endorse this document. No wonder: it was only a business case study for classroom use.

Harvard forbids the promotional use of these studies. This is to prevent professors from purveying advertising in Harvard's name.

Landmark was found pretty swell in the case study. The main author, Professor Karen Wruck, seems not to have used information from any impartial or opposition sources, but only what Landmark gave her. Some passages read like a mere kissing of Landmark's butt:

"Enrollment is a conversation or series of conversations which create new possibilities and result in a commitment to take action to make those possibilities a reality. Landmark Education Corporation's leaders put it as follows: 'Enrollment is generating a possibility in another's listening, such that they step into that possibility committedly and act.' It is not, for example, persuading or coercing someone…."

I could find out nothing from the professor (now, perhaps not coincidentally, working not for Harvard, but for Ohio State University) about how the study came about. Harvard no longer teaches the case study, sells copies (Landmark reportedly bought tens of thousands) or keeps them in the library.

Harvard also made Landmark agree not to use the study for promotional purposes. I guess that means, to Landmark, that recruiters can still cite the study, and that journalists can still get copies they are told they need to assimilate in order to write "the facts" and not get sued.

[www.culteducation.com]

Yet all this did not keep a Landmark infatuated boss from reportedly putting pressure on a vulnerable employee to take Landmark or lose his job. And the boss, according to the employees wife, cited 'The Harvard Study'

This is on page 4 of a 5 page discussion thread that happened in the summer of 2008, which indicates that despite Harvard not wanting its name to be mentioned for PR purposes by LEC, LEC at least one LEC recruiter is still invoking the spurious 'Harvard Study'.

Quote

I really don't like revealing that on this post but I would have a lawyer by now if I could. I am just trying to go with my gut feelings on alot of it.

The boss told my husband that Harvard endorses Landmark. I laughed my arse off! Please tell me that can not be true! I told my husband that maybe one person that went to Harvard probably endorses it... but Harvard as a whole can not endorse the Landmark! ...(small quote from a longer paragraph

[forum.culteducation.com]

Final thoughts:

Imagine the staggering amount of background checking that the Dalai Lama's assistants have to do---(or had better be doing)---to ensure that mercenary types dont get close enough to the DL to then claim he endorses whatever they are up to..

This is a lesson to us all: dont ditch your critical thinking just because someone invokes Harvard, Barack Obama, Adam Smith, Mother Theresa, Ronald Reagan, FDR, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or the Dalai Lama.

These are all, literally 'names to conjure with', because they inspire instant trust, depending on the background and interests of the person/s being targeted.

Again, it is no accident that Bandler and Grinder entitled one of the early Neurolinguistic Programming Texts 'The Structure of Magic'.

Targets experience magic because we experience something that seems unexplainable by familiar experiences of cause and effect.

But, in those experiences we call magical, there are still chains of cause and effect, and technique is still be used.

Its just hidden from us, that's all.

The fun and liberation comes from digging deep enough to uncover that structure, discovering that what seemed to be cause-less supernatural magic, is created by a hidden use of of structured language, whose power remains potent when hidden but whose power evaporates when the sunshine of scrutiny falls upon it.

That kind of inquiry friends is freedom.

That friends is taking one's power back.

That friends, is taking responsiblity for our lives.

Now...continuing the metaphor of treasure, just go online and look up the price of gold per ounce today.

Find out what your bling is worth and leave it at home before going off on a human potential event where they dont tell you the details of the kind of cause and effect that you'll be processed through.