Quote
The Anticult
these guys can see a gravy train from miles away.
Bernie Glassman even takes his wealthy Zen yuppies in to eat the food of those in need.
Sounds like Byron Katie copied that "homeless" method from him.

QUOTE "Bernie Glassman has become known for his many "street retreats." Author James Ishmael Ford writes, "...'street retreats,' for instance, moves sesshin into the streets: participants eat in soup kitchens, and, if they know they're not displacing homeless people, sleep in homeless shelters.."

What an a-hole!

I just saw a YouTube featuring Bernie Glassman and they had a formerly homeless guy in it. Was fascinating to note that the guy said his nickname was Batman... having just read that Glassman's protege, actor Michael O'Keefe, is putting out a novel about Batman. Hmmmm.

Anticult,

I found out the quotes about the golfer are not from Zeig. Zeig met Erickson in '73. They are actually from Jay Haley, Erickson's long-time student, who first introduced Erickson to the world. Haley wrote Uncommon Therapy: the psychiatric techniques of Milton H. Erickson in 1973 and spoke at the First International Congress on Ericksonian Approaches in 1980. Erickson died shortly before the conference which was to be held in his honor.

I wouldn't necessarily think Haley had is own agenda although you are correct that it is possible. There was plenty of opportunity for Erickson to study zen and perhaps there was some influence to his therapy. Haley would not be the only person to find similarities between Erickson's method and Zen.

I can't find anything about Erickson learning Zen directly. His history is somewhat patchy. In 1935 he wrote a paper on using a complex story to cure a man of premature ejaculation. On the request of Margaret Mead and Bateson he finally explained how he developed the story (or metaphor) in a 1944 article, but allegedly the article was too technical to understand. I don't know how he learnt complex story and it only brings up references to Erickson on google. Nor do I know where his idea of physical shock therapy and psychological shock therapy came from which are also similar to Zen processes.

Mead was more zen orientated than her husband Bateson I believe, and is often quoted on zen sites. She had first written to Erickson in 1939 about a film she was doing on trance states in Bali, but whether there was earlier contact between Bateson I haven't discovered yet.

Later in the 70s when Bandler and Grinder were developing NLP under Bateson they were also sent to Phoenix to study under Erickson. NLP was a product of the human potential movement which was directly influenced by zen. Bandler and Grinder co-wrote NLP books titled The Structure of Magic and also co-wrote books about Erickson's hypnotherapy in the '70s.

A zen influence might have come from multiple sources if it indeed occured. Whether that is directly from Erickson or incorporated by his students.

Corboy,

Clearly the zen stick is a significant aspect of zen. The zen master in some traditions will hit people with sticks for meditation purposes. I'm not sure how many do or don't. Don't you think that could be an easier explanation as to why so many zen stories involve hitting people with sticks?

"Practitioners may request not to be hit." I'm glad that is a stipulation.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Q: Why do have a big stick?

Zen Master Seung Sahn: For you: HIT!

Q: You missed!

ZMSS: I hit! Then what do you say?

Q: Ouch!

ZMSS: Correct! If you are thinking, then you have a problem, okay? So "hit" means: cut off all thinking. Moment to moment become dear. Very important. That's a "Zen stick." Sometimes this Zen stick becomes bigger, bigger and bigger; it swallows the whole universe. Sometimes it becomes a snake; sometimes a club... but don't make anything. If you make something, I will hit you, PITCHOO! Don't make anything.

[www.kwanumzen.com]

Also Alan Watts was writing zen books in the thirties. Maybe he was an alcoholic and not a buddhist but he was definitely interested in zen.

One thing to keep in mind about this Ericksonian hypnotherapy stuff, is that a "story" about hypnotherapy, even coming from Erickson, is a "Teaching Tale", not a fact.
So there may have been a golfer, there may not even have been a golfer.
Sometimes a story like that is used as an indirect trance induction story...
as in telling a client that golfer story, and the real message is to the guy in front of you to help concentrate his own mind.

The best results come from indirect stories. The stories are carefully crafted metaphors, in every case, even when autobiographical. Again, the difference here is INTENT and SKILL. Erickson was a licensed MD doing therapy, and you were paying him to do this in person, and there was a license on the wall saying he was doing hypnosis. That's why people were there! To get hypnotized!
Ironically, he often did just behavioral therapy without any hypnosis, like some of the activities assigned, climb a hill, do some gardening etc. He was a maverick.

Not like these maniacs like Byron Katie, etc, running around telling "stories", and pretending they are not doing anything. And as far as the students of Erickson, I take it all with a truckload of salt, especially when they start "interpreting" what Erickson was supposedly really doing, like linking it to their own interests.
I don't see any "Zen" in there at all. As far as Haley, I've read his books on Erickson, and none of it sounded as flakey as those quotes. As far as I know, Erickson had nothing to do with Zen, but he did get into all sorts of "trance" phenomena of indigenous peoples, and things like that.
He also deep very very deep trance work with Aldous Huxley, which is fascinating stuff to research.

But Erickson did THERAPY. Actual licensed therapy, trying to help people adjust to reality.
He was directive, and wanted people to get better, get a job, get married, have kids, and maybe send him an interesting carving.
Erickson's history is very open, he got polio at age 17, took a canoe trip, got his degrees, opened a practice, had kids, etc. His "Uncommon Therapy" was somewhat intuitive, and based on his own observations.
Some of his "therapy assignments" were behavioral, just based on horse sense. Like telling a depressed older lady to raise and give away flowers to church members. By raising flowers, and giving them away, she was busy, and socially connected. Problem solved, no therapy, no hypnosis. Just a new behavior.
So sadly, seems to me, Erickson is horribly misunderstood.

Again, just want to put that in here. He was a maverick THERAPIST, and a bunch of people read those books about him, and have tried to copy his methods, and apply it to SALES and persuasion.
Having studied his work for years, and read autobiographies, etc, he should not be connected with all of these quacks and nutjobs and crooks, and fake zen priests, etc.
Its a shame he is connected, by how they have taken a small part of what he did, and abuse those patterns.

but once people learnd the basic verbal patterns, then they don't work on you.
This is why guys like Stever Robbins, and others, are such a bad joke. They promote Byron Katie, with full knowledge of what she's doing, and they also misdirect the public and clients, by not telling people what is going on. That is very sleazy.
Very very sleazy, and creepy. Its terribly creepy to do this to the mass public. Even on that NLP message board, many of those people wouldn't do it to the blind uninformed public. Some would, for the right price. Some do already.

Its truly perverse to deceive people, and pretend you are not misdirecting them..."for their own good".
Especially when they are being charged thousands and tens of thousands of dollars, and getting their minds messed with on such a deep level, by complete amateurs and hacks.
But hey, what do they care. Its the law of the jungle to them. They don't care if they take advantage of regular people who've never heard of any of this.
They really don't give a shit, believe me, from knowing people who've done this. Its too much money...making a few hundred grand or more in a week...people do a lot of crazy stuff for that kind of money.

Quote
Jay Cruise
Anticult,

I found out the quotes about the golfer are not from Zeig. Zeig met Erickson in '73. They are actually from Jay Haley, Erickson's long-time student, who first introduced Erickson to the world. Haley wrote Uncommon Therapy: the psychiatric techniques of Milton H. Erickson in 1973 and spoke at the First International Congress on Ericksonian Approaches in 1980. Erickson died shortly before the conference which was to be held in his honor.

I wouldn't necessarily think Haley had is own agenda although you are correct that it is possible. There was plenty of opportunity for Erickson to study zen and perhaps there was some influence to his therapy. Haley would not be the only person to find similarities between Erickson's method and Zen.

I can't find anything about Erickson learning Zen directly. His history is somewhat patchy. .

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2009 05:58AM by The Anticult.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2009 05:46AM by The Anticult.

The zen stick story about Seung Sahn, pretty much sizes that guy up.
first Confuse...
then Dominance and submission.

Some of his followers try to do the same thing.
Try to confuse people, and then do a verbal beat-down on them until they submit.
That stuff all came out of ancient dominance hierarchies, like a tribe, or clan.

The other day, my friend who led me to Byron Katie's (no longer) Open Forum shared a recollection that intrigued me to some extent. She recalls being rather surprised when the very first BK book came out, several years after Katie’s alleged experience and quite some time into their friendship. For, prior to this publication, all this time not a cockroach had been mentioned. Not even a hint. The cockroach made its debut when Katie first wrote her story (or had it written, I'm not sure). When she asked Katie about it, Katie replied: “How do I know my people weren’t ready for that (part of the story) yet? Well …, I didn’t tell them”. Maybe she just forgot about it, and then it all came back.

also, one other thing. The Erickson work was just actual therapy, and had nothing to do with "enlightenment" or any of that stuff. He just figured out a way to supposedly speak to people's "unconscious", using his idiosyncratic methods, to help them to adjust to reality, and have a better life. That was the goal.
but Erickson was also an explorer of the "unconscious", using various trance states, one could spend years looking into that.


Also, it seems so-called "Zen" as sold by all these western groups, is so open to abuse, as its Authoritarian in root structure.
They even pretend to have their direct links to ancient zen gurus, even a spiritual "bloodline" going all the way back, which is obviously false. Its the same claim as hereditary monarchy, in that sense.
You have the so-called Zen Master, the bigman with the beard who knows everything, even though its about Unknowing nothing, or whatever.
Then you have the lowly serf, who gets a verbal beat down with confusion, until they basically submit to the views of the Master and group.
That is what it comes down to, in truth. Submission to authority and power.
Its Authoritarian, and it literally evolved from ancient Patriarchs, in the old-school sense of it. So they have power, and like any guru, the power corrupts.
This is why time and time again, you see them having sex with their students, spending all the money, etc.
Its a recipe for abuse, like the eastern guru system, the LGAT personality cult, celibate priests, etc.
All the power is at the top. To little power at the bottom.

Its really interesting that this handful of westernized commercial "zen" schools all have such deep connections with Byron Katie..very interesting indeed.

It is not clear from Haley as to whether the golfer existed or not, although he seems to have meant it that way. I've also seen this story/case refered to as a tale.

Reading Erickson he suggests that he did hypnotize people to do unusual acts, like climb a mountain or a guy he instructed to drive out of town and lie in a ditch when he felt tired. Whether they are true or not he obviously believed himself capable of doing so. The story about him stamping on a girls foot to cure her of agoraphobia doesn't read like a fictional tale. I suppose it could be.

He came up with his method of covert hypnosis, specifically for people who are uncomfortable about being hypnotized, so patients don't even know it is occuring. Why would he do that if all his patients were being hypnotized with their consent? That is a tremendous amount of power to wield over a person. It has even been said that he inserted hypnotism into his books, that the reader was not aware of, as a practical joke. In the wrong hands it is obviously dangerous but I'm not sure why he would need to invent this method. It is designed in a way that makes abuse easy.

Also on manipulation he used Bateson's double bind theory as a positive way to direct people through therapy. If you take away the negative connotation from the word misleading that could be a way to describe what he was doing i.e. he gave false or confusing information... in the best interests of the patient. This seems like a contradiction to me.

Might you be overstating the consent part or do you really believe that all of his patients were aware of what he was doing to them?

If bored, go to Google and put 'Ken Wilber' 'Bernie Glassman' and 'Gempo Roshi' together and see what ya get.

Aside from the New Wage/Inspiration Industry scene..

the only other social scene venue where you can witness an equivalent amount of derriere sniffing is at the local dog park.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2009 10:43AM by corboy.