Margarets wrote:

Quote

However, I have DEFINITELY come across these BK/ET ideas and principles in everyday life. I suppose they are part of the general mix of pop psychology in our culture, along with The Secret et al. What I find scary is that people actually believe it. They may not have taken the courses or read the books but the meme has gotten into their minds.

I am about to read an article by a sociologist on the concept of 'cultic milieu 'first posited in a 1972 paper by sociologist Colin Campbell and a later extension of that concept to include 'oppositional subcultures.'

[www.flipkart.com]

Id say BK presents herself as serving and enlightening this cultic/milieu/oppositional subculture of sincere seekers.

But, in my considered opinion, BK and those like her are not actually seekers at all. They are mainstream capitalists who by use of theatre arts present as if they are exciting, emancipatory alternatives to oppressive, globalized capitalism, but are themselves capitalists on a global scale, just like Bank of America or WTO.

They are mainstream capitalists who have identified the seekers circuit/cultic milieu as a 'niche market'.

This is shrewd, because the seekers have are part of an oppositional culture that distrusts critical thinking and doing background checks.

By contrast, persons who buy computers or laptops check performance specifications.

Quote

Quote:
Typically, such groups are short lived, as small numbers of like-minded seekers gather round some common interest, or charismatic spiritual leaders, before moving on to explore some other area of the cultic milieu.
The term cultic milieu was coined by Colin Campbell to refer to a society's deviant belief systems and practices and their associated collectivities, institutions, individuals, and media of communication. He described it as including "the worlds of the occult and the magical, of spiritualism and psychic phenomena, of mysticism and new thought, of alien intelligences and lost civilizations, of faith healing and nature cure" (Campbell 1972:122), and it can be seen, more generally, to be the point at which *deviant science meets deviant religion*. What unifies these diverse elements, apart from a consciousness of their deviant status and an ensuing sense of common cause, is an overlapping communication structure of magazines, pamphlets, lectures, and informal meetings, together with the common ideology of seekership .

[hirr.hartsem.edu]

One seeks oneself as a seeker, not as a consumer, and certainly not as a source of profit for any capitalist who seeks you, the seeker is just a part of a very lucrative niche market of folks who go by emotion and who consider it negative to fact check.

Seekers see themselves as either empowered or seeking power.

They dont see themselves as vulnerable.

Worst of all, they can be counted on to become enraged if anyone who is their true friend warns them that as seekers who have left mainstream culture with its network of legal protection for consumers--that they are not only vulnerable, but are seen
as a niche market by capitalists who pretend to be seekers but are business persons and who feel free to hire advisors adept in mainstream skills such as marketing,
accontancy, investment, and legal advisors who craft the release of liablility forms in which trustful seekers sign away their rights as citizens to consumer protections recognized as important in seemingly oppressive mainstream society.

The cultic milieu has its patterns of capitalistic oppression but refuses to allow any use of vocabulary which could result in genuine consciousness raising.

Colin Campbell warns that the cultic milieu has always existed, one way or another, as an alternative to whatever is considered mainstream.

All RR.com can do is offer information and sanctuary to those who are eager to discuss BK and her ilk in objective terms--a stance one is not permitted to take within the cultic milieu. In cultic milieu you are not welcome if you publicly examine it from an objective, especialy from a sociological perspective--which is what Id been doing for years, but had never known I was doing.


Am beginning to wonder whether Bk and other human potential entrepreneurs are nothing more than mainstream capitalists in pantyhose.

They present as servants to counter culture, but instead are capitalists marketing themselves in an oppositional subculture that, by rejecting the mainstream has also rejected the few consumer protections offered by mainstream socity.

This is not only an alternative culture but an oppositional subculture. Its composed of persons who are sincere and those seeking profits from the first group.

For whatever reasons the actual seekers have a shared distrust of the mainstream and thus put themselves outside the consumer protection offered by that same mainstream they distrust and oppose--professional and fiduciary accountability, peer review, double blind testing, liability insurance for health care professionals, denial of the power imbalance that actually does exist between anyone who has the skills to orchestrate workshops vs those who consume workshops.

my mother(she is approaching 60, I am in my late twenties) is planning on flying to a BK 9day school in a few days and i am uncertain of what to do.

She is into BK since almost 1.5 years now doing worksheets and so on every now and then.
After seeing the book more than a year ago I did not think it was a big deal. Just some new age stuff with a way to simplified view. And I thought she would move on soon.

The announcement two days ago hit me by complete surprise...i was shocked.

And because of that I was unable to ask her the right questions. I asked mostly about logistics (when, where, how, with whom).
I did however ask twice about why she would want to make that trip and her response was “i just want to meet her(BK) once.”.
I felt that this was not the real or whole reason but I did not try to dig deeper.

Since then I did some reading(mostly in this thread and the BK participants reports + BK strong concern threads) and I am now deeply worried .

Since she waited until it was essentially to late to cancel(took free, time, got plane tickets, entry fee nonrefundable) to tell me I don't think I can bring her to not go; but my goal would be to prepare her a best as possible.

My fear however is that she might block me for thinking I am “against her” or “closed minded like all the rest”.

Another concern of mine is that if I tell her that this and that(like no contact to families ) will happen and in reality does not happen she will think “well that was all lies its all good here” an believe everything there.

How should I approach this(if at all) and should my brother come to?
If she is listening to me is it best to try to not make her go or just to educate her?

Thanks for your answers and please excuse my poor english.

Here are some suggestions. I advise consulting an attorney before implementing any of these.

Here are a few things you can do without telling your mom you're doing them. Its similar to the precautions a parent would take if a kid is going off to summer camp or travelling in a foreign country.

If you can find out where this event is taking place (city, hotel) alert police and hospitals in the area in case your mother has special medical needs, gets sick and is admitted. If you can find out whether she's at a particular hotel, talk to the hotel staff and just tell them, 'we need to be able to reach X in case there is an emergency at home.'

If this event is in a foreign country, alert your embassy or consulate in the city where the event takes place.

Call the police station in the town where the event is scheduled. Tell them (you can give them the URL for the participant report) that these events are reportedly intense and that if someone comes up to them all freaked out and says her name is so and so, they should call you. Tell them to give this information to the watch commander--the officer who briefs each shift of incoming police officers on expected issues on their beat that they should be aware of.

*If you can, stay at the same hotel she does, or stay at one nearby and keep an eye to see if she is OK.

If you do this, it will serve notice that your mother has people in her life who are concerned for her welfare, expect her home by a deadline and will raise hell if she gets lost or comes home with medical or other troubles.

Find out which airline flight she is taking to and from the event. If she does not take the flight back as scheduled, that is a signal to investigate. Tell the airline your mom has special medical needs and is going to a stressful event, and you want to be sure she is back on that plane as scheduled.

Read the participant reports give the URL for participant reports to the police and hospitals in the area.

[forum.culteducation.com]

If your mother has any special medical needs, just tell her she needs to keep on taking that medication even if told not to do so.

She should not travel with any valuables, including jewelry--you can tell her 'That way you wont be distracted.'

She should not give up her wallet, her ID cards or credit cards, even if told to do so. Tell her that if there is an emergency at home, you'd need to be able to reach her.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2010 10:13PM by corboy.

Note: Mr Ross may have some suggestions that are much better than the one Ive printed. He's professional.

The stuff Ive mentioned is strictly as a last resort in case there turns out to be no way to keep your mom from attending this thing.

Isn't it weird that while Stephen Mitchell is pressing charges against Wayne Dyer (http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/05/selfhelp-guru-wayne-dyer-sued-for-.html) for plagiarism, BK still has an endorsing quote by Wayne Dyer on her website?

Fanclubs?

Arnold Patent?

Willem de Ridder had a radio show, too in the 1990s. A media impresario. BK may have had a chance to learn by observation of de Ridder how to turn a workshop based human potential business 'gig' into a media nexus.

For in addition to his radio show, Willem de Ridder had apparently used material from Arnold Patent (and to his credit, acknowledged Patent as his source) to create something in English called Mirrorology but in Dutch, Spiegelogie' and 'Fanculbspel'.

And note this article states Willem de Ridder started this in the early 1990s. BK didnt show up there until the mid-1990s.

Quote

Spiegelogie’ and the ‘Fanclubspel’

Spiegelogie and the Fanclubspel were founded in the early nineties in the Netherlands by Willem de Ridder. He got his ideas mostly of Arnold Patent, who introduced the ‘Universal Principles’ and the ‘Mutual Supportgroups’ in America. From only advertising by word of mouth the existence of this play was spread in the Netherlands and also Belgium. The exact number of fanclubs are not known because everyone is free to start one. This free component, free to start one and no further costs, are pinpointed in every description of the Fanclubspel. There is no official institute where to register. However now a days there is a website from the ‘Support Network of the Netherlands’, a non-profit organisation, where people can find some contacts if they want to joy a fanclub. At a rough estimate there are about five hundred active fanclubs in the Netherlands and Belgium, with six up to then participants.

www.fanclubs.nu

In 1999 “Het Handboek Spiegelogie” (“Manual for Spiegelogie”) was published. Willem de Ridder wrote this book first as a result of his discourses on Spiegelogie by several Dutch businesses. Reading the book is now one of the only requirements to join a fanclub, and one thing is for sure, 36.000 copies of the book are published since 1999. A listening book containing four cd’s is just been published. In his own storytelling way, Willem de Ridder tells about Spiegelogie, his experiences and new insights in what he calls the universal principles of life.

manual for Fanclubplay

“Spiegelogie” is a wordplay where the meaning of mirror, reflectivity and psychology are intertwined. The ‘other’ is in Spiegelogie seen as a mirror to become aware of and to reflect on the subjective self. The Fanclubspel is a practice or game, ‘spel’ is the Dutch word for play or game, where this mirroring principle is practiced and played with.

[religionresearch.org]

and

Quote


Recruitment

Yesterday, at 6:15, Anticult wrote referring to Janakis description of meeting BK

[janakisstory.wordpress.com] *

*(Note this is a quotation from an earlier post on RR.com. The material has since been taken down from the blog. The only transcripts available in public are the ones quoted here on RR.com.)

Anticult wrote:

Quote

Quote:
For example, in the Janaki blog, she had a chapter talking about how she first met BK.
First, she was contacted for recruitment by a BK insider from connections with Muktananda, and strongly influenced to go to a BK Workshop, and she said she did NOT want to go.

But they persisted, and got her to phone BK, under the ruse she would get an interview.

Then, she is told by BK she is getting an interview, and shows up, and its a "Workshop", which is a soul-surgery powerful LGAT seminar.

Meanwhile, obviously BK had collected information about her from her friend, and used her persuasion techniques on her to bring her into the organization.

Its the same pattern, using any means necessary, including outright deceit, to get them into the tent. Once they are in the tent, then its checkmate for certain people.

I took a look and the choreography of this set up is even more finely crafted than Anticult describes. First, I will give readers a chunk of text from Janakis own story.

I will break J's text into paragraphs and sentences so readers can see a step by step METHOD being applied.

If our own CIA had been this good, 9-11 might have been prevented


Quote:

Quote

Meeting Katie
Katie and I have** a very close friend in common.

(** Note J's use of the present tense. Who is this friend?. C)

My friend and I were both part of Baba Muktananda’s staff in the late 70’s and early 80’s. After Muktananda died in 1982, I went back to Holland and my friend and I stayed in regular touch with each other.

(Meanwhile, it appears at some point, this mysterious friend became a BK recruiter--C)

In 1995 he told me the story of a woman he had heard about. He told me that she was from a desert town in California, and once when she was sleeping on the floor of an attic room, a cockroach crawled over her foot. When she woke up, she was everything and nothing at the same time. He told me that it reminded him of the state described in Kashmir Shaivism, that Baba always used to talk about.

1 (1995 is one year before publication of Cry in the Desert. But BK has already got outreacher working on her behalf and they are patient in thier methods, as we are about to see. Its now 13 years after Muk has died. So in this intervening time, some connection has been made between persons in SY and BK.)

2 (Note: If you go to discussions by former SY people, may report being haunted and mystified by the intense experiences they had. Some have likened this to the cravings suffered long term by recovering addicts. And...many of them did not know that Muk had been friends with Werner Erhard and had used methods from EST in the Siddha yoga intensives. This is described in the AOL discussions of SY-C. So J's friend would know that a fellow devotee would have had longings Corboy)
I remember him telling me this story, and that I failed to see the point of the cockroach.

About a year later, 1996 I was on the phone with him again.

(Note, a year later BK was already in Holland in 1996, scheduled to do a workshop. And here is Janaki, in Holland. This means that even as early as 1996, the year she'd published Cry in the Desert, BK was already doing a workshop outside of the US, in a foreign country--the Netherlands. So..as early as 1996 she'd learned the skills needed to attract people able to afford such a trip, found a way to arrange some packaged accommodation in a hotel, get herself there ahead of time so she would not be jet lagged, etc. C)


He asked if I remembered him telling me about the lady with the cockroach.

?*(He asked J if she remembered. Was he testing to see if some sort of story driven trance induction had 'taken'? Corboy)

He told me that she was in Amsterdam, right as we spoke.

(How convenient--Corboy)

He said her name was Byron Katie and I should go and see her and take part in the workshop she was offering.

I told him that I never went to workshops of any kind, that my Guru was enough for me, even after his death, and the only exception I had made to this rule was a workshop by my dear friend, Willem de Ridder.

He kept insisting.

(Did he use Yes-Set? Corboy)

When I asked him what happened in her workshops, he told me she would ask you to judge someone.

Quote

(Deception--Corboy)

It became even less appealing after his description, but I said that I could call her, and ask if she would be interested in doing a tv interview with Willem for a local television talk show.

(So here's the lure. Janaki, bereaved from Muktananda's death, is feeling loyal to her Dutch teacher, Willem de Ridder. So, what more natural than to arrange an interview between her teacher and her friend's teacher--BK? Janaki divulges Willem's name and this enables the BK recruiter to incorporate Willem's image into the recruitment process, using him as a transitional object to switch Janaki from Willem's orbit, to get her to step into BK's parlor--for an 'interview'--which turns out to be a workshop. . Corboy

So I called her on the phone. She sounded sweet. She said she would love to do the interview and asked if I would come the next day to play*, and I agreed.

**(Note in this transcript the use of the world 'come the next day to play'--in de Ridder's system 'play' has a significant meaning. BK uses the term 'Work'.)

(Shed love to do the interview--which turned out to be a workshop--Corboy)

When I got to the house in Amsterdam, I found myself in someone’s living room with about 20 people I didn’t know and didn’t want to know

I realized that I had come to the workshop after all.

(And Janaki did not feel lied to. She'd have had to question a valued friendship in order to face that this friend, who was a remaining link to her dead guru Muktananda, whom she still missed and mourned had lied to her and exploited the name of her current teacher, Willem, by coming up with the ruse of having Janaki make a personal visit to a BK workshop thinking its to be merely an arrangment to calender an interview between BK and Willem de Ritter.)

I was just coming out of a period of a severe depression, and socializing wasn’t my strong point in those days.

Later on, after Janaki was lured to this workshop, in 1998, there was an inteview of UG Krishnamurti, a renowned 'anti guru' that was conducted by both BK and Willem de Ridder.


Quote:
Did you mean: byron katie "Willem de Ridder " Top 2 results shown
UG Krishnamurti - Interviewed by Willen de Ridder and Byron KatieUG Krishnammurti - Interviewed by Willen de Ridder and Byron Katie Amsterdam, Holland, 1998 More Information on U.G. Krishnamurti at ...
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3365741114567849357 - 10k - Cached - Similar pages
Genwi - UG Krishnamurti Interviewed by Willem de Ridder and Byron ...UG Krishnamurti Interviewed by Willem de Ridder and Byron Katie Amsterdam48 min 58 sec - Nov 18, 20061998 U.G. Krishnamurti, an enigma--a person who defies ...
www.genwi.com/play/424011 - 26k - Cached - Similar pages

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


[www.google.com]

This would have been a valuable way for BK to transition away from the woman christ in the desert figure she'd been in Cry in the Desert, toward the sorta nondual teacher image she re-crafted by 1998.

And a great way to get derivative legitimacy is to associate oneself with teachers already established, such as Willem de Ridder, use a person like Janaki to gain access to such teachers, then use a connection with Willem to then access someone like UG Krisnamurti, who shared a surname with the very much more famous Jiddu Krishnamurti.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2010 12:28AM by corboy.

Quote
ason
my mother(she is approaching 60, I am in my late twenties) is planning on flying to a BK 9day school in a few days and i am uncertain of what to do.

She is into BK since almost 1.5 years now doing worksheets and so on every now and then.
After seeing the book more than a year ago I did not think it was a big deal. Just some new age stuff with a way to simplified view. And I thought she would move on soon.

The announcement two days ago hit me by complete surprise...i was shocked.

And because of that I was unable to ask her the right questions. I asked mostly about logistics (when, where, how, with whom).
I did however ask twice about why she would want to make that trip and her response was “i just want to meet her(BK) once.”.
I felt that this was not the real or whole reason but I did not try to dig deeper.

Since then I did some reading(mostly in this thread and the BK participants reports + BK strong concern threads) and I am now deeply worried .

Since she waited until it was essentially to late to cancel(took free, time, got plane tickets, entry fee nonrefundable) to tell me I don't think I can bring her to not go; but my goal would be to prepare her a best as possible.

My fear however is that she might block me for thinking I am “against her” or “closed minded like all the rest”.

Another concern of mine is that if I tell her that this and that(like no contact to families ) will happen and in reality does not happen she will think “well that was all lies its all good here” an believe everything there.

How should I approach this(if at all) and should my brother come to?
If she is listening to me is it best to try to not make her go or just to educate her?

Thanks for your answers and please excuse my poor english.

Ason:
The fact that your mother said: “i just want to meet her(BK) once” may be an indication that she is already hooked in. I have met people that got hooked in simply by the "sparkly eyes" on her book cover or by watching her videos on YouTube.

In person it is even more dangerous. Let her know what to watch out for.

For example, here is how the school begins:
As the people arrive to the hotel ballroom, they are handed a single, long-stemmed rose with a card that says: "Welcome to the School of You." They take their seats whilst carefully chosen music is playing in the background: Krishna Das, Deva Premal or some other chanting or meditation music.

Right on time, BK enters the venue with her entourage, always through a back door, like a rock star.

She sits in a single, overstuffed chair on a raised stage with a large bouquet of flowers, a box of tissues, and a cup of tea on a small table. The music immediately changes to something with sappy, suggestible lyrics: relax, you're safe here, it's ok to be yourself, all are welcome, etc.

The sizable staff sits in chairs on either side of the stage, facing the audience. There are two large screens on the wall projecting Byron Katie's grandiose image even though the audience and the room are plenty small enough for an unobstructed view by everyone.

Meanwhile, row by row, she methodically meets the gaze of every single person in the room with those "sparkly eyes." I don't know if she jumps right in with hypnotizing the already tranced-out audience, or if she is simply assessing to see who's vulnerable.

If your mother could avoid meeting her gaze, that would be helpful!

The room will be told that every exercise is OPTIONAL. If your mother could take that literally, that would be best. Encourage her to make a vacation of it! The little German village where the school is held is full of spas. She could take a day off and hang out at one of the spas or take the train up to Cologne and go shopping. Let her know about all of the world-class vineyards in the area. Do some research and see what else is nearby.

The village is very beautiful and the hotel, 5-star. The BK school is full of drama, and if not taken seriously, is quite a show! She will hear wild stories. Wailing and screaming. For relief, there is dancing every night. The food is actually very good and quite plentiful - except, of course, for the days where you walk in to glasses of water. Let your mother know that on those days there are some excellent restaurants in the village: German, French and Thai. If she is a coffee drinker, she could take a nice walk each morning to one of the cafes on the river and have a pastry and espresso (one of the "rules" is no caffeine or sugar).

The only thing that will happen if she doesn't always "follow the simple directions" is she will be approached by a concerned staff member from time to time who will ask her if she is O.K. or if she "wants to do the work on anything". At worst, she may be told that she is "doing her own school." This is simply a shaming device that should be ignored. Remember the part about the exercises being OPTIONAL?

BK and her staff will not only try to shame those who do their own thing, they will also repeat over and over: "I invite you to get what you came for." Many people travel great distances at great expense to go there, and so they do whatever she says, believing they must in order to get their money's worth. However, all that they get in the end is considerable confusion and a much lighter pocketbook.

The "dreaded list" of banned items, behaviors and substances, the long hours, the fasting: all of these things are designed to wear your mother down like at a boot camp. This will make her more suggestible to the hypnotism and manipulation.

The best advice from my perspective is to encourage her to TAKE CARE OF HERSELF and not stray from her regular routine or diet.

And, yes, definitely convince her to leave her valuables at home!

I doubt that it will help to contact the police around there. BK has been going to the same village and hotel for many, many years. The police know her and they have seen it all. They will already have been instructed to call the hotel is they see anything strange or upsetting to the villagers.

If you can somehow convince your mother that the school is a freak show and not a place to save herself, you may have a shot at her returning with her sanity in tact.

Good luck and please let us know what happens.

New Guruphiliac blog entry re Byron Katie:

[[url=http://guruphiliac.blogspot.com/2010/08/whacking-work.html]Whacking "The Work"[/url]]

Newest celebrity pushing Katie: Rosie O'Donnell
[rosieradio.blogspot.com]

Quote
scrambledeggs
Newest celebrity pushing Katie: Rosie O'Donnell
[rosieradio.blogspot.com]

[[url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/gossip/2002/03/20/2002-03-20_rosie_riled_by__orphans__con.html]Rosie Riled by 'Orphans' Controversy[/url]]