Anticult Katie's first book has a good example of the staring. In A Cry in the Desert author Christin Lore describes meeting Byron Katie and feeling like a mouse in a field being preyed on by hawk. This is obviously somewhat staged by the author under Katie's direction because the whole book is setting Katie up as Jesus beginning with this first meeting. She lays it on way too thick. It is written from the perspective of a new student which leads the reader through the authors reactions, inner emotions and finally onto these desired conclusions.

After pressuring Christin to expose her thoughts and fears and making her clearly uncomfortable she procedes to inject her philosophy into the student which begins with is "all the beliefs you've constructed.. are unnecessary.. only illusion.. Unlearn those beliefs."

From page 16:

All at once Byron Katie looked straight at me. "I'm Byron," she said and smiled.

Never had I seen eyes like that. Later Sandra called them "see-through." Someone else called her the "lit lady." I thought her eyes looked silver. To another they looked turquoise. The thing about which we all agree is that Byron Katie's eyes shine.

"I'm Christin." That was as far as I intended to go, at least untill I found out more about her.

She locked onto me. She seemed like a hawk, I later thought, soaring in on me, and no matter how I dodged she wouldn't let me get away.

"What are you thoughts?" She smiled and waited. What a strange question. Answering it could take all night - a lifetime, maybe. That's why I write books: My thoughts are manifold. I pour them out. Package them. Store them on shelves.

I decided to be careful. It's so easy to be fooled.

"I thought about that on the way over and decided that I want to learn." These were my words. I had actually thought: I'll just sit there and listen and learn. I'll only say something after I'm comfortable and then only if I really have something to say. I don't want to risk too much; I feel too fragile. I don't want anyone to know about the fear that popped out the other day.

"Ah, you are a student." She seemed pleased.

I wasn't a student anymore. I had graduated - lots of times. I had degrees. I had written books, taught classes, lectured, done all sorts of things. I used to be a student. Being called a student reduced me to a beginner in the work to which my whole life had been devoted. On the other hand, just the other day I had felt three years old and as frightened as if I had never learned a thing.

"You might say that," I admitted.

"Tell me your thoughts. What is it you would like to learn?" She leaned forward. Those eyes radiated. She looked like a female Buddha, but also like the hawk.

I started to feel like a mouse in a field. The hawk soared. "I would like to learn about fear," I blurted out. Caught in the open. No place to hide. The screech of the hawk; the shadow of the wing.

"Fear results from the belief that you are going to lose something or not get something you want. There is no exception to this, even as your ego attacks itself." So simple. But it felt like she was reading my heart. She said more, but I can't remember it. Her words hit home. I felt tears slip down my cheeks. My fears seemed childish but at the same time gripping. I was embarrased to admit them but felt powerless to escape them.

"Now tell me about your fears." She waited.

I took a deep breath. "Pretty much what you said. I'm afraid of losing what I love."

"And exactly what is that?"

My mind said no, you can't say your fear aloud. You can't admit you fear childish things. Only uneducated people fear such things. You know better. What will all these people think of you?

"In front of all these people?" I laughed a little, "These strangers?"

"There is only One. There are no strangers here." She spoke with authority. "Now, tell me your thoughts about fear."

I started blurting out a tangle of stuff that caused my heart to race even as my mind rejected it. I ended by saying I felt I was on a threshold of something, but if I stepped over, everything I had believed and accomplished all my life would be shown to be an illusion and I would lose myself. There would be nothing. I knew I was sounding crazy, hysterical. I felt three years old and about two inches tall.

"That's right," Byron responded. She assured me that yes, this would be the end of the world as I experience it. Her eyes blazed. Clean. A pure light. Indescribable. A combination of love and white heat that evaporates impurities. I no longer remember the continuity of what she said. When I try to repeat the words, they sound bland compared to the way they felt when she directed them to me.

"That's right," she said, "all the beliefs that you've constructed to protect yourself throughout your whole life are not needed, unnecessary. You are afraid because you think you are a body. You think you are a body, and you are afraid of death - afraid of nothing, only illusion, belief systems. There is no death. You are using you mind to scare yourself. To shame yourself. You cannot lose the ones you love. It is impossible. You are the one you lost. Others don't belong to you. But you obliterate them in your mind. You are the one who says they die. You are experiencing your own death through the thought. Your fears turn into realities, you create them, you materialize them. Unlearn those beliefs. Do you understand?"

"Who are you?" I asked. Her words sounded like a combination of New Age Jargon and esoteric wisdom. But my ming and its critical functioning felt bypassed. I believed her. Tears ran down my face, and I didn't bother with them. I'd never met a human being like this woman. In a flicker of memory I thought of those disciples of Jesus who came to him in wonder, asking the same question, and he simply said, "Come and See."

"Who do you think I am?" Byron Katie smiled at me. Jesus said that, too, didn't he? "Who do the people say that I am?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maynard Keenan:

Standing above the crowd,
He had a voice that was strong and loud and
I Swallowed his facade cuz I'm so
Eager to identify with
Someone above the ground,
Someone who seemed to feel the same,
Someone prepared to lead the way, with
Someone who would die for me.

It would be interesting to find out how many of the Byron Katie senior people and inner circle come from Muktananda and Siddha Yoga, and related groups.

Muktananda died in 1982, (he also had connections with Werner Erhard, as well as the cult leader and sex abuser Sai Baba) and it does appear that a significant number of people connected with Muk are connected with the Byron Katie system, and some were clearly targeted for recruitment.

Notice how the workers for SYDA were called "Staff", and many worked as "volunteer" unpaid, or minimally paid work force?
Byron Katie also uses the term "Staff" for people to work for her for-profit seminars for no pay, and even pay to work as "staff", as has been shown. Clearly that "model" was copied, and some of those people were targeted.
The cost of labor is one of the greatest costs of any business, so to be able to get a group of people who work long hours for no pay, is the royal road to rapid riches.


RandomStu Stuart Resnick was deeply involved as a follower of Muktananda in his ashrams, now he is involved with Kwan Um School of Zen, from Seung Sahn. RandomStu also links to various Byron Katie connected people. [forum.culteducation.com]

Then you have Stephen Mitchell, who was/is close to the top of Kwan Um School of Zen from Seung Sahn. Who knows, there may even be ownership connections, someone who is "newly rich" could have bought up the assets of Kwan Um?

Isn't it interesting that both Seung Sahn and Muktananda were both involved in sexual abuse and other scandals?
And both of these Guru's were involved with every group-control trick in the book, ancient and modern. That is a subject unto itself.

Its important to be very realistic and down-to-earth with these various Gurus.


For example, even to this day, many people are promoting Osho as a Guru.
Well, Osho is Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a horrendous abuser in countless ways, who was involved in mass druggings of his followers, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Back in the day, most of these so-called spiritual people were involved in drug experiments, and how those were linked with so-called spiritual experiences, using mescaline, LSD, psilocybin, peyote, and various hallucinogens. Later they used MDMA Ecstasy, and anything else they could get their hands on.

Most of these groups also promote various types of Siddhis as the supreme goal, to be reached after decades of devout followership and practice, of course. This is the ultimate cookie held out for people, if they follow the Guru, the promise of supernormal and even supreme spiritual experiences and godlike powers.

Many of these Guru's routinely and randomly dosed and drugged their followers in large groups in late-night "meditation" sessions, to give a "taste" of the illusion of these Siddhi experiences, as a short-cut. They would be involved in various "spiritual practices" and techniques, and one of the Guru's senior generals would dose the communal tea with the drug of the month, and then observe carefully the effects of the drugs as the all-night "rave" played out.
The next day, people would think it was the Guru's wonderful powers and techniques which created the peak experiences and group spiritual hallucinations, as they could not achieve them on their own. But the mass psychology, plus the dosing with various mixtures of various hallucingens would give people these peak experiences, and thus draw them closer to the Guru.
Of course, the "high" is never as good as the first high, and so people keep going back, trying to get that experience again. One can see the same pattern in the rave scene, and the old acid-head days.

Anyone who thinks getting "dosed" or drugged without your knowledge can't happen, needs to face reality. On college campuses, in bars, people are getting dosed on a daily basis by rank amateurs, for sex, and sometimes just for a lark, dosing drinks at parties, for example. This is why one should never leave a drink in a bar, for example.

More importantly, one should never, and that means never, drink any type of "communal" drink or tea in any of these dubious enterprises.
There could easily be a rogue element, an "entheogen" fanatic who wouldn't think twice about dosing a group of people, even with a micro-dose. They would even believe they are helping people who are "resistant" due to cultural conditioning, etc.
Knowing many of these "entheogen" people, many of them are completely deluded as to the longterm and unknown effects of these types of drugs on the human brain. They literally would not think twice about dosing people without their awareness, and would jump at the opportunity, or even create the opportunity and consider it a political-spiritual act.
As a matter of fact, the more one uses these types of hallucingens and their variants, the more ones judgement becomes impaired, in a vicious cycle.

and as a point of fact, many of these same groups believe that Siddhis and Tantra are connected. The ancient belief was that sex was to be suppressed, and it would then transmute in the Siddhis. But that is not much fun for them, so the new Gurus changed it to the opposite, and then you get Ranjneesh, and the other sex Gurus. That is the same excuse most of these Gurus use for sex abuse of their followers.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2009 06:13AM by The Anticult.

WOW. Class is in session here at Rick Ross, that's for sure.

Outraged commentary, questions, comments and suggestions:

I've read the last few pages of this thread with increasing horror, and I'm not exaggerating. My first exposure to the role of hypnosis in lgats and cults was The Anticult's seminars on hypnosis on this thread, months ago. I have read at least 100 books on cults, 'high demand groups", and "new religious movements." None of these books devoted more than a paragraph --if that-- to the use of hypnosis in creating a flock of followers. Of course, they talked about mind control, but not in the way TAC does. They never talked about how hypnosis and conditioning start instantly, at the first handshake. I don't understand why they didn't.

I initially thought (or perhaps hoped) TAC was exaggerating, or at least talking about a phenomenon that occurred only in a few cults. But the more I read and learned and thought about my own and others' experiences, the more I realized that hypnosis is rampant in lgats and cults. Absolutely rampant. These gurus get away with it because the general public is uninformed and/or dismissive, and for some reason that I would love to be enlightened about, experts don't talk about it.

And now we're talking about drugs-- "entheogens" my Aunt Fanny-- dangerous, unregulated drugs. I am close to being willing to bet that the widespread impotence and vomiting Katie School survivors have reported will turn out to be drug related. And now that I'm thinking about it, I believe that for every OSHO we hear about, there are ten more we don't. I bet you drugs are commonly used in these groups to control unsuspecting followers, or to produce ecstatic sensations that are then attributed to the guru's presence, the guru's methods and teachings, or to whatever deity the group worships. This is a goddamn OUTRAGE. It's rape in all but one sense of the word.

I know very few people who are willing to believe hypnosis and mind-control even exist, and that's the biggest reason these techniques are so effective. If people were educated, the way people are being educated about Scientology these days, these groups would virtually vanish. Scientology is falling apart because people who're interested can find out the truth before their first "Free Stress Test!" and run like hell in the other direction.

I say we've got to make it like that for all of these groups; that people who want to maximize their personal effectiveness, or find out who they would be without their story, or lead a truly extraordinary life, be able to find out the real deal before they start emptying their bank accounts.

I guess I'm asking what do we do? Those of us here on this thread have all of this knowledge, and most of us have been exploited by gurus, plastic shamans, frauds and scammers. I know google directs people to all of the knowledge we've accumulated here --usually after they've been damaged-- but I'm wondering if there's more we can do. Would it be worth it to lobby for some sort of bill requiring that students in schools be taught about the malevolent uses of hypnosis? (I actually don't think that's a great idea, I'm just throwing something out there.) Maybe there's a way to use google adsense to place ads for this site that would come up anytime someone googles an lgat. I'm actually up for that. I'd contribute to that.

I just don't want to sit here all pissed off. Cults go after the most talented, dedicated people and often wreck them for life. And we don't lose just the people, we lose all that they could have achieved. To take one prominent example, can you imagine what Tom Cruise could accomplish if were using his worldwide platform to promote something worthwhile? Can you imagine what we could have accomplished if we didn't have to spend years recovering from exploitation, rebuilding our lives, our sanity, and our bank accounts?

In terms of covert conversational hypnosis and persuasion, not one word has been exaggerated. If anything, it has been conservatively presented.
Those who try and tap dance around it, when they have the training and knowledge, are liars, or perhaps the better word is propagandists, as they know what they are saying is false.

The reason most people don't write about it, is that they have not had the years of training to understand that type of modern persuasion, which generally costs 10's of thousands of dollars, and is learned in the school of hard knocks. That is, after going through dozens of seminars and certifications.
Fortunately, there are some who have attended dozens of LGAT's from working at them, and also attending many LGAT's using tricky refund policies...

But those who understand these methods of persuasion, do not speak out about it, as they generally are making a lot of money using those techniques. Its in their self-interest to conceal it.
Ask Stever Robbins about it, for example, and get out your tap-dancing shoes, and/or credit card.
And there are some who do teach about it, but again, they charge a fortune, and screw with your mind 10 ways from Sunday, AS they are teaching about it.

WARNING: do not buy ANYTHING from anyone on the internet that promises to teach this type of conversational hypnosis. 99.999% of them, are running bigger games than the LGAT's themselves, and have little idea of what they are even talking about! Scammers scamming wannabe scammers, is an old game! What a world...

But the happy thing is, people can now freely download information that used to cost many 10's of thousands of dollars to aquire. For example, anyone could search Google for these keywords.

torrent NLP
torrent Library of NLP
torrent NLP hypnosis

That is a start. But how many people are going to dedicate the hundreds/thousands of hours of intense intellectual work, and practice, to figure it out? Very few.

Also, there is enormous deliberate exaggeration in the sales of these same materials.
At least 50% of what they are doing is not hypnosis, but is just LGAT sales, which is another area.

for example, The Work is the supreme way in dealing with Objections to the Sale. There are some posts out there now, some sincere, some are shills, about the Byron Katie School, and its expensive cost. One post says that the person was upset that the cost was so high, and thought BKI was "greedy". But then they did a Turnaround, and realized THEY were greedy, and sent BKI a box of chocolates. (that one sounds like a shill-post from BKI salespeople to mess with people's objections).
Also, there are posts that say something like...sure Byron Katie is the queen of mean, but that just makes you love her more...etc. They Turnaround everything, and make it work for them, and against you.
The Turnaround aspect of the work is utterly brilliant, and has nothing to do with hypnosis. Its a godsend to those who SELL LGAT's on the phone everyday on commission, like the Byron Katie School. They can use The Work Turnaround on the customers right on the phone, and overcome any objection to making that $5,000 sale. They LOVE that process, and expect many other LGAT's to copy a version of it. Its a checkmate, just like BK said.

So the conversational, metaphorical Storytelling hypnosis is only one piece of the puzzle.
Straight up LGAT advanced sales methods are a large part of it too, and they overlap.
But they are both about one thing...PERSUASION, and doing it in such a way the person is not aware it is happening.
(notice the content of the non-dual philosophy, is actually NOT relevant to any of that, it can be applied to anything. The non-dual philosophy, in this model, is simply there to distract the conscious mind, literally. That is a fact, not an exaggeration).

This is why the harping about everything being "Voluntary" is the biggest joke. Its outright comedy.
That type of deep persuasion, the entire point is to make everything appear to be voluntary, when its been engineered. Its called Persuasion Engineering. Anyone can look it up.
And that is why they have picked naive audiences, and stay away from more critical minded customers, which are too hard of a sale.

What is the solution?
Public education.
There need to be textbooks written by trained academics exploring these issues to start, and then some TV documentaries, and public explanations by ethical writers, and things of that nature.
It has to become a new subset in the fields of knowledge.

There can't be any type of "law" against it, it will be here on this earth as long as there is human cognition.
Even Byron Katie knows that, when she almost got into trouble years ago, and her response was...she was just having a conversation with words. That is all they have to say...its just a conversation with words.

So hypnosis, one needs to be careful with that word. The various Byron Katie apologists know all about it. Hypnosis is not some mystical state, like an old movie. They are not a robots, or zombies, etc. The public view of hypnosis is about 70 years out of date.
Modern hypnosis is really a form of enginnered storytelling, in essense. (This is why BK is constantly talking about "Stories", and to lose your story, and believe her story).

Hypnosis is simply intense focussed attention, where a person becomes more Suggestible to influence.
In this context, its about enhancing group persuasion, making it more powerful, and installing post-hypnotic suggestions, which can be very powerful.

So it comes down to INFLUENCE, and that is social power. The power to manage groups of people.
They use words, images, stories, to unconsciously influence people without their awareness.
And they have added dozens of techniques all around these methods.
This is why they are making millions a month. For the untrained navie audience, it is literally taking like taking candy.

The only possible solution is public education.
But the scary thing is, it does appear that large segments of the public can't or won't see beyond the most basic level of these things, and focus on the superficial "philosophy", which at best is window dressing, and is generally just there as a mechanism to distract the subject.

But everyone understands getting scammed, getting duped, getting sold snake-oil, and the Emperor With No Clothes.

Its like that old movie, Being There, with Peter Sellers. Except in the movie, he was a simpleton savant with an uncheckable background, and everyone projected what they wanted to believe on him.
Eckhart Tolle must have copied that movie almost verbatim.

Now, we have people, like Byron Katie and many others, pretending like they are simpleton savants with an uncheckable background, telling ambiguous Stories, encouraging the public to project their fantasies on them, while installing their own systems in peoples minds without their conscious awareness.

In the end, its about wielding enormous social power and influence, done in modern indirect, permissive ways. That is the new mass persuasion, permissive and indirect, but even more powerful.

Quote
Christa
...

I've read the last few pages of this thread with increasing horror, and I'm not exaggerating. My first exposure to the role of hypnosis in lgats and cults was The Anticult's seminars on hypnosis on this thread, months ago. I have read at least 100 books on cults, 'high demand groups", and "new religious movements." None of these books devoted more than a paragraph --if that-- to the use of hypnosis in creating a flock of followers. Of course, they talked about mind control, but not in the way TAC does. They never talked about how hypnosis and conditioning start instantly, at the first handshake. I don't understand why they didn't.

I initially thought (or perhaps hoped) TAC was exaggerating, or at least talking about a phenomenon that occurred only in a few cults. But the more I read and learned and thought about my own and others' experiences, the more I realized that hypnosis is rampant in lgats and cults. Absolutely rampant. These gurus get away with it because the general public is uninformed and/or dismissive, and for some reason that I would love to be enlightened about, experts don't talk about it....

Would it be worth it to lobby for some sort of bill requiring that students in schools be taught about the malevolent uses of hypnosis? (I actually don't think that's a great idea, I'm just throwing something out there.) Maybe there's a way to use google adsense to place ads for this site that would come up anytime someone googles an lgat. I'm actually up for that. I'd contribute to that.
...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2009 12:04PM by The Anticult.

I don't know if anyone has read Sunny Massad's (motivational psychlogist) interview with Byron Katie in 2001. He asks about sleeping, dreams, was she given medication during the cockroach incident, has she taken medication etc. She comes across as manic at times and even refers to herself as such.

[www.realization.org]

There is a moment in the interview when he mentions Suzanne Segal and Katie says they were friends and had phone conversations. Segal, who had a PhD in psychology, told a similar story of a shift in consciousness while getting on a bus in paris, 1982. She was a former transcendental meditation practitioner and after her breakdown became a spiritual teacher talking about universal oneness like Katie.

Segal began to experience "hits" in her head in mid-96 and months later was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She died on april fools day, 1997.

Quote
Conversation with Segal about ending suffering
SUZANNE: Identification and taking something to be other than what it is--seeing it as something that is not the Vastness, or as something that is not good, or not desirable. There is one way to end suffering and that is for everything to be seen for what it is, because then we don't ask that something be different in order for suffering to stop.

JLW: So, seeing something for what it is implies seeing with the eyes of the Vastness.

SUZANNE: That is correct.

JLW: Thus, the way to end suffering is to. . .

SUZANNE: . . . see with the eyes of the Vastness.
[www.spiritualteachers.org]

SUZANNE: I have tended not to call this enlightenment and to call it only the "naturally occurring human state," because this is who everyone is.

KATIE: I don't really call it anything…

I think she might have adapted some of Segal's story.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I completely agree with TAC about the importance of hypnosis (and I do understand hypnosis to be a form of focussed attention and increased suggestibility) in lgat recruitment and maintenance.I know perfectly well TAC wasn't exaggerating.

When I said experts, I meant experts who write about cults, not experts in separating people from their money, like Stever. I KNOW Stever's not going to do anything but pick my pocket, and I know he's not going to interfere with his income stream, or more accurately, income ocean, by explaining to me how he does it.

I meant, why didn't any of these cult experts, many of whom have had cult experiences, write about the fact that the mind control starts at the first handshake, or even the first eye contact, and that we all have to be mindful of that? I truly don't believe they're propagandists or liars; a lot of these people were writing about their own horrible experiences, and they had gone to great lengths to understand the nightmare that befell them. I really think they didn't know the whole story of what happened to them, the fact that what they understand to be mind control starts from the get-go. That puzzles and worries me.

I'm not sure the kind of in-depth education that TAC describes is necessary in order to warn people to WATCH OUT. I don't have that kind of education, and I feel very equipped to warn people about the dangers of malicious persuasion. I now know for sure it exists, and (sadly) I know how dangerous it is. I think years of study are necessary to explain how it all works, but that's a different issue. And yes, lgat sales techniques are a big part of selling people into these groups. That's another topic that I would like to see future books elaborate much more fully, and it's also a topic that these threads do a great job of explaining.

I agree that the (mis)use of hypnosis/persuasion needs to become an area of formal public education, but that's in the future. Right now, today, we have great, easily available, informal public education right here on this site. I've learned a graduate seminar's worth of lessons from this thread alone. Is there a way we could get people to look at the information here _before_ their lives are devastated? That's what I'm wondering.

[guruphiliac.lefora.com]

Check out this account of the school with bk. more and more exposing stories seem to be surfacing. Reading this one, you would have to conclude that sooner or later something will go terribly wrong there. In their arrogance they probably think they can deal with it.

A participant in the recent Byron Katie "School for the Work" in L.A. (March 2009) has just posted a report about it. So far it's in two parts, with "more to come". It starts out with:

"Just completed Byron Katie's 9 Day School (March '09). I am disappointed to report that the information on Rick Ross's site is accurate...and, if anything, understated. I would sum the experience up by saying Katie used a two-by-four when a teaspoon would have done the job."

[[url=http://guruphiliac.lefora.com/2009/03/23/byron-katies-school-for-the-work-march-09/page1/]Post on Byron Katie's School For The Work March '09[/url]]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2009 08:39PM by helpme2times.

Personally, I don't see any misunderstandings here. I just see a couple different aspects being expounded on and to me, that is a good thing. This thread is where I came originally when I wasn't getting the immediate and profound results that The Work On The Web was promising. (whether in innuendo or specifically) My own questioning mind brought me here. The fact that it hadn't been totally subverted and destroyed, was why I got free and keep coming back here. The more info I receive, the farther away I get from ever having to fall for any of this crap again. Sadly, there are those who are in much deeper than I got. This is one of the big dilemmas that I think disturbs many of us.

I have a solution, of sorts, based on some very personal experience. Many might recall the story of how Al Capone (of Chicago gangster fame) was finally brought down and incarcerated. It was actually the IRS that spearheaded the effort. Well, I saw the same type of thing happen a number of years ago to a dangerous martial arts cult that I spend many thousands of dollars on, and many years a 'voluntary' prisoner of. A local Midwest reporter did an expose on the group, based on some unhappy 'customers' who had been fleeced of large sums of money and had been mind-fucked and had their lives taken over with many of the very same techniques spoken of in this great thread. One additional technique was Fear. These leaders could literally kill you. I am sure, based on things I learned afterward, that a number of defectors paid the ultimate price. When the IRS, or someone close to them, saw the expose, they got the necessary warrants, raided the many schools and confiscated all paperwork that there was. It was found that large sums of cash were not accounted for legally, and ultimately the leader and a half-dozen of his most powerful "teachers" (henchman, I would say) were sent to Federal prison for years. The confiscation of the records, with all the names, addresses and phone numbers of students was my saving grace; it's how I escaped. There were, and still are, remnants of this group around. But the main point I wish to make, is that it might be quite easy to get a fire lit under the financially hungry IRS and attendant powers. Whether by mail or email links, they could be given enough information, just on this thread alone, to warrant an investigation. The numbers don't add up to me and I'm nobody. I think this might be the way to bring the wrath of this government down on the perps in question, and bring everything to the public eye. If the US decides to drag it's feet, perhaps INTERPOL might be interested in the suitcases leaving places overseas with $10,000, bound for the USA.

I'm convinced that many can be saved, like I was, just from being exposed to the information here. But the big picture, the thousands of souls being duped on a daily basis, makes it seem to me that we on this thread are trying to bring down a wolf with a bb-gun. Perhaps it's time to employ a few wolf-hounds. They're very effective.

qd

I want to highlight something the person at Guruphiliac's message board said of Byron Katie's recent 9-day school (bold emphasis is mine):

The participants: In addition to a group (approx. 250) impressive in the number of newbies to The Work and repeaters (seeking Certification or to reprise their previous experiences in bliss), there were a remarkable number of people who were obviously mentally ill. Depression and Anxiety (Social phobias, Specific phobias, Generalized Anxiety, etc.) were to be expected, as were a fine spread of the more benign Personality Disorders (Obsessive-Compulsive, Hystrionic, Dependent were all well-represented). And there were participants with milder forms of Impulse Control Disorders (ADD/ADHD and hypomania). But there were also a scattering of the scarier Personality Disorders (Anti-Social, Paranoid, Schizoid and Schizotypal). Bipolar I and II, while not admitted, were apparent. And there was undoubtedly a few people who were hallucinating, delusional, or delirious.

I'd have thought Katie would have screened more carefully to reduce her liability in these cases, but she actually seemed to welcome the more severely disturbed. I was aware that no deliberate or careful screening of mental and physical problems appeared in on-line registration. Signing up involved giving demographic info, sending money that would not be refunded, and not much else. We was not asked about diagnosis or medication until we arrived...a bit too late to shoo away people who had come from all over the world. And there was that Surrender exercise at the beginning, where the message was very mixed: give us your supplements, vitamins, medications you don't really need (as if the truly sick could make that decision well) AND if you are prescribed meds, you should take them. Several people gave up prescribed sleep medications and anxiolytics and this was applauded with comment from Katie, "If you can't sleep at night, contact the staff member on call and they will sit with you. If you experience discomfort, do it here in the room with us during the day. If you have to sleep, do that here, too." It didn't take long before moaning, crying, agitated behaviors were the norm in the room well before fasting and 15-hour days of intense emotional work took their toll. And most staff and participants just left the suffering alone, ignored it or staffed it by listening to the sufferer do The Work again and again. Some people cried off and on throughout the entire school. Often people were crying so hard or were so anxious, they could not be understood when they took the microphone and tried to tell their experience. And sharing those experiences was an expectation. If you hadn't taken the mike yet, staff asked you why. I'm unclear on this, but I believe one repeater either had to go the mental hospital during this school or had done so in a previous school. In other words, the mentally ill and the neurotic, alike, decompensated and this was encouraged under the philosophy of The School.

[[url=http://guruphiliac.lefora.com/2009/03/23/byron-katies-school-for-the-work-march-09/page1/]Post on Byron Katie's School For The Work March '09[/url]]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2009 12:44AM by helpme2times.