Anticult you make a valid point about credentials and licensing and schooling when it comes to MDs, psychiatrists, and psychologists compared to the James Ray/BK/EST seminars and sales people.....I lumped ALL psychologists etc with those that have done damage to people through misdiagnosis and prescribing medication that caused harm....Learning CBT so need to be aware of ALL-OR-NOTHING thinking.....Cant thank you and others enough for the information here on RR....I will be reading the James Ray thread this week....Till next time

There are many excellent CBT licensed psychologists/psychiatrists out there.
They charge an hourly rate, either through insurance, or a sliding scale.
They don't tell people they will achieve Enlightenment, the goals are more modest, and actually achievable.

But there are also plenty of money-hungry "docs" in the world too.
So having discretion is very important.
But there are terrific psychologists out there, who will work on a sliding scale for some of their clients, and can help people.

Meanwhile these LGAT seminar maniacs are literally crooks, who don't care how many minds they crush to make their millions.

Intermission: A bit of history

From the Coaching Commons website, an article on the history of coaching

Quote

Quote

Werner Erhard – Popularized Transformation and Personal Growthby Vikki Brock

Published: July 8, 2010 under Coaching History, Featured Articles

Werner Erhard (1935- ) introduced the idea of transformation in the early 1970s through his est courses which also opened people’s minds to the possibility of their growth and potential. According to a coaching colleague, Erhard’s work, along with other thinkers of the time, was “an interesting blend of philosophy, psychology, sociology, spirituality, and life affirming wisdom—which perfectly prepared me for becoming a coach”.

Werner Erhard - Book Published in 1978, Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est is a biography of Werner Erhard by William Warren Bartley, III.

Erhard himself told me that the process of creation involved “synthesizing ideas from another perspective… so that you come up with something new that has a value for people that the original ideas by themselves don’t have.” This is what he did with est and continues to do today for individuals, organizations and corporations.

What influence on the coaching field do you attribute to Werner Erhard?

Vikki G. Brock, PhD, MCC
Director, History and Archive Division

[coachingcommons.org]

Its so predictable that Werner Erhard followers and devotees try to rewrite and fabricate history, to try and claim that Werner Erhard invented everything since sliced-bread.
In fact, Werner was just a salesman, who copied and stole other people's stuff.

A case could be made that in fact Scientology was the founder of this manipulative sham of "coaching" which is really just one-on-one sales and manipulation, starting with the Scientology "auditing".
(obviously wikipedia on these subjects is dubious at best) [en.wikipedia.org]


"Coaching" is the ideal sales business. No start up costs, other than a phone and a chair. No licensing or training required.
No product to sell, just a "service".
Can charge hundreds an hour with deceptive contracts.
If/when people fail, blame them, and tell them they need more coaching.
Now they can do it over skype, and work from home, and make $150 a hour, or more.

Byron Katie Facilitators are the same thing. Its just about pure profits, and being skilled enough to use one-on-one persuasion and upselling techniques, on vulnerable people.
The Byron Katie Facilitator Army has about 150 members, all trying to make their fortune. [www.thework.com]
And there are many more than that, trying to use those methods on the side, without having BKI come after them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2010 11:05PM by The Anticult.

Inducing BOREDOM is a technique in hypnosis, like inducing confusion.
Many of them have talked how in conventional church through repetition of material, people go into a Trance. Same with many rituals.
So boring the shit out of you, is a way to put you into a suggestible state of "hypnosis" which just means you are more open to accept their Suggestions.
Then they give suggestions to have AMNESIA for what happened, so you don't remember most of what happened consciously.
That is exactly what Robert Dilts was doing, as stated above. [forum.culteducation.com]
Inducing trance-hypnosis using boredom, to get at people indirectly, and then suggesting amnesia to people consciously forget the post-hypnotic suggestions.


As well, many guys like Richard Bandler simply confuse people, then suggest they are running complex patterns beyond mere human comprehension, when they are NOT. That just creates a mystical feeling of power towards the hypnotist, like he is a god. (he's not, just a very flawed man).

Read this page from an Erickson book, where it lists USE BOREDOM and SURPRISE.
Its a shame the general public knows nothing about any of this.
Read as much of this book as you can from the online source.


QUOTE from Milton Erickson:
Use Boredom or Surprise:
..."anyone who has surveyed the faces of an audience forced to listen to an incredibly boring speech has seen the blank stare characteristic of hypnotic inner absorption"

The Wisdom of Milton H. Erickson: Hypnosis and hypnotherapy
By Milton H. Erickson, Ronald A. Havens

[books.google.com]

QUOTE:
[books.google.com]

"Boredom narrows your vision and restricts the freedom of your mind to think" (Erickson and Rossi, 1979, p 340)

"Often with highly sophisticated subjects you resort to uninteresting detail to bore the hell out of them" (Erickson, Rossi & Rossi, 1976, p 240)

Hello All!

I have spent the last two nights reading through this entire thread, and it led me to join the forums and share my perspective.

By way of disclosure I am in no way a "spiritual seeker" or anything of the like. My father was a Baptist minister but left the ministry after a crisis of faith, and as I grew up instilled a fierce skepticism in me that I am very thankful to him for. Throughout life, especially when younger, I would encounter New Age ideas or groups and members of same, and they were never able to draw me in. Usually, I would see the after effects of an individuals membership and it would make me cringe.

I arrived ehre from a link on Huffington Post about a new film coming out about the need for a new political paradigm, starring some big name in hip-hop and the Black Intellectual movement. I watched the trailer and it looked quite interesting, and on the website it has a list of contributing scholars artist, etc. Byron katie was listed among them. I had never heard of her until last night.

So I do a little research. I went to her website, and the first things I noticed were the typical cult-leader photographs. Usually just a head shot, many with a hand along the chin to seem casual and approachable. Always in soft focus, always with a vague smile of understanding like you wish you had in a kindergarten teacher. I looked a little further and found the Four Questions and that was all it took. My BS detector almost melted.

I then watched a couple of her videos on YouTube, and I saw the same old shtick I have seen and read about all these years. Use childish semantic games, put the person on the spot in front of a large group, badger them into agreement, move on.

I then saw a the video featuring the Israeli woman (from a link here) and I was shocked. Any same person would have heard that woman's story and said, "Well, you live in Israel, so it is completely rational for you to fear war. " No it was all horrible, damaging BS. If that wasn't a crime, it ought to be.

I have seen on other threads a tendency for supporters to blame the victim--most definitely. Statements like, "Well, your experience may have been negative but you need to acknowledge that you allowed it to happen to you" which is not true at all. Fraud is a crime, no prosecutor would excuse that crime because you "allowed it to happen". Someone, especially someone without experience in cult recruitment techniques or LGATs in general is extremely vulnerable, and is not in a position to make rational decisions in the midst of the moment.

What's worse, is that those who are not amenable to that manipulation just leave, or don't even show up. The very people who need real help and are really hurting are the most at risk, so they are victimized--in many cases, twice. Once by their abuser, and then by Byron Katie and her ilk.

I think modern culture is to blame to an extent as well, as it seems that there is a meme out there that every moment of your life should be a pleasant one, and that negative thoughts should be avoided at all costs. In point of fact, negative thoughts in many ways are a good thing, and lead to healthy self-doubt about reality and one's perceptions.

Those who have been posting to these forums and this thread specifically have been doing an immeasurable good. I appreciate your efforts, and hope to fadd in my small way to the push-back that groups like this deserve.

Quote


QUOTE from Milton Erickson:
Use Boredom or Surprise:

..."anyone who has surveyed the faces of an audience forced to listen to an incredibly boring speech has seen the blank stare characteristic of hypnotic inner absorption"

The Wisdom of Milton H. Erickson: Hypnosis and hypnotherapy
By Milton H. Erickson, Ronald A. Havens

[books.google.com]

(Bold and italic fonts added by Corboy for emphasis)

Readers, let us look at the words 'forced to listen to an incredibly boring speech' and put your mental emphasis on 'forced'.

Now, it is commonplace for human potential leaders and recruiters and apologists to say, 'No one is forced to go. No one is forced to listen. No one is forced to remain there'.

Now, Dr Erickson was speaking of people feeling forced to listen to incredibly boring speeches. How many of us can remember at least one situation where we found ourselves under duress and forced to listen to something or someone that bored the shit out of us?

Here are ways to force people--by tweaking human psychology in ways that have been described in the social psych textbooks - and SALES MANUALS!!!!---for years.

*You have been socialized to be polite. (Especially if you are in your 40s on up). You were trained by your parents and in school (remember mandatory schooling??) to sit still and be polite, no matter what. This prepares you for a lifetime of listening quietly and politely to boring people. Women are especially vulnerable to this social conditioning to 'be polite'. Its something that most women's self defense classes have to address, BTW--the hazards of being too nice, too polite.

**BIG ONE You make a sacrifice to attend. You may be persuaded to fast. Or suppose you have to take time off, budget in your kids babysitter, or hire your dog walker or catsitter, gas up the car and take time--valuable time, to go on a trusted friends recommendation to listen to someone who bores the shit out of you. You hate to tell yourself that you went through all this just to walk out. So--you stay, hoping to get something out of it. Its called cognitive dissonance.

***REALLY BIG ONE This person is famous. Mega famous. Mega Mega Mega Famous.
So you pay big bucks (very important!) garage your car, take time out of your evening, wait in line, and this person turns out to be boring.

Now, how can you tell your friends that you went to see a mega maxi bronto famous spiritual leader and you were bored fucking shitless and left early?

People are gonna look at you funny. Worse, you are going to think that you yourself are the one who is nuts.

So... this combination of contextual/socialf factors FORCES YOU TO STAY.

Now, this isnt Guantanamo. This isnt the police pulling you over for a ticket.

But..its soft force, soft power. Soft bondage, the kind that doesnt need ropes or handcuffs because the ropes and cuffs are in your head and being manipulated by people who have been in sales and know how to do this.

Lets look at other ingredients that can be used to create an invisible system of coercion right between you, the subject's ears, that FORCES YOU TO LISTEN TO SOMEONE BORING

* A trusted and loved friend urges you to attend. You love her, so you trust her, and go. You sense she is getting really huffy if you show skepticism or reluctants. Bang built in duress via a friendship through which one friend is recruited and then in a pyramid scheme pressurizes other friends to get involved

* You feel you have to go and listen for fear a spouse who is besotted with this material will sue for divorce and take the kids and property away.

* Arrange for a boss to get fired up about a program and push all his or her employess to participate in that same program or risk being terminated or at least never making it to promotion track. Think this doesnt happen? Read this. Talk about being forced to listen. And in this economy the structures of duress are built in.


[forum.culteducation.com]

[forum.culteducation.com]

Just for fun, go back into the early pages of this thread for a description of how someone had Eckhart Tolle material pushed at work. Luckily for our correspondant, the manager backed down.

This item was posted back in 2004.
PSISurvivor had gotten free from another group and mentioned visiting an Eckhart Tolle workshop and then, after not liking the workshop, was later stuck with a supervisor who pushed ET affirmation cards at work.

Page two of this thread, how it all started-Golden Oldies from Six Years Ago

Note Cosmophilosopher's comments on ET's speaking style.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Quote

About a year ago when I was still struggling with my PSI Seminars involvment another PSI person suggested reading Eckhart Tolle's book.

I read the book a couple of times and bought the tapes as well. I listened to them several times. I found a local group that the leader of claimed to be not only enlightened, but that ET himself had ackknoweleged her enlightenment. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Sitting with that group was a strange experience. The leader appeared to be stoned on valium or something. She had a very strange slow way of talking as if it was difficult for her. The house was richly decorated and in an affluent area of town. She obviously had money. They did ask for donations as well. When I walked by the basket and did not put any money in i noticed that the woman next to me gave me a strange look. I imagined that she felt sorry for me. It seemed like a pity look hmmm. what ever. After a while of silent sitting the leader picked a man out of the group and said something like "i've seen you here a few times. Come up here and sit with me. Then she started asking him questions like who is it sitting here with me? To make a long story short all of his answers just got him another question. He was sobbing in her lap within 10 minutes. I felt very uncomfortable and never went back.

After a long time of pondering ET I conclude that he is just another creep who plays the guru game for cash. I want nothing to do with him or his groups or his writing. I feel lucky that I could see the manipulation, greed, and lust for power. I find it most unappealing.

The problem is my new boss and a few of my co-workers have gotten into the ET craze. My boss actually brought a deck of cards with ET sayings on them to the last work meeting and passed them out to everyone. She instructed us to read them aloud and then to reflect on them. It really creeped me out.

I need to confront her about it before the next work meeting, because it just is not okay with me that religion is pushed by the boss at work.

It is amazing to me to talk to the people who like ET. They seem to read the book and swallow it whole. Doesn't anybody think about what they read? I mean really it's crazy shit that he writes and I see people suck it up like gospel truth. ugh.

Page three

[forum.culteducation.com]

Quote

I confronted my manager about bringing the ET affirmation cards to work.

I told her that I wasn't trying to attack her personally. That I just needed to let her know how much it bothered me and ask her to not do it again.

We had a brief discussion about how no religious material should be in our meetings.


survivor

Cosmophilosopher mentioned this:

Quote

ok, so a copy of Tolle audiobook "Stillness Speaks" arrived from the eternal library waiting list.

This thing is absolutely hysterical.
First, I thought my CD player was broken, as there is a HUGE pause of SILENCE at the top.......................................
Too funny.

Next, he talks in a German accent, with a British accent mixed in. Sort of a German with a British accent.
All I can think about is Saturday Night Live and Dana Carvey.
Dana Carvey could do a great parody of this.

Tolle calls his own writing "sutras" equal to great spiritual writings of the ages. (as if!)

To me it is like a type of bad joke. Its so "sincere" and terribly MONOTONE, and SLOW SLOW SLOW. Do not listen while driving, you could fall asleep. PAUSE… PAUSE...
Its as if he is trying to be so "profound and deep" by setting up these faux "paradoxes". Its so pretentious, and he talks about perhaps its better "to hold the book than read it". (gag!)

It is absolutely hysterically funny.
I am doubling over in laughter as he says the word, "compeuwtah", in this dry, monotone, as he talks of the futility of Knowledge.

The fact that it is totally humourless, pretentious, and so self-important, makes it completely hilarious. Its as if he is trying to be some pretentious northern European Zen Master, spouting profound revelations between tokes with his acolytes.
This stuff ain't so deep if your not high...

This is the funniest audio I have heard in a long time.
I don't know how one could sit through 3 HOURS of this stuff.
A good cure for insomnia.

Stillness Speaks.
What a profound paradox.
What is the sound of silence?
If Stillness could Speak what would Silence say?
It Speaks of the Silence of the Noise.
Silence is Noisy.
Being is the Silence the Noise of Speaking Speaks…or doesn’t Speak.
Speak the Silence by saying nothing.
The more you speak, the less you say...GONG…

(hey, this is fun! Hey, I could be a Profound Guru...I smoked pot back in high school too....)
I am going to take these CD's to my next "get together" and FORCE everyone to listen to them, and if their minds get distracted i will smack them on the head with a bamboo stick like a Zen Master.

Coz

In my opinion, Eckhart Tolle is employing mind control and hypnotism tactics. He does try to get you into a vegetative “lifeless” mental state. Eckhart Tolle is very dangerous man in my opinion, along with any other ‘egotistical’ gurus claiming you need to ‘dumb’ down yourself and stop thinking all together in order to achieve happiness. They don’t want you to think for yourself, so that they can drill into you their crazy teachings. If it were up to Tolle we would be mindless zombies walking around with no rational or critical thinking abilities. Our species would not evolve but rather go back to being as smart and intelligent as as a rock. Tolle is apart of the new age brainwashing taking place. Now I was an Eckhart Tolle fan like yourself. I was really into his works and would even listen to him every night before going to bed! (the worst thing to do) I found his voice calming and enjoyed cutting myself off from the world and attaining ‘no thought’ states of being. Anyone trying to get you to not think is someone to be very cautious of. Essentially, Eckhart Tolle teaches you to not have an ego or thoughts so that you can become a ‘zombie’ follower. His followers are wrapped into what has become a cult. When I was really into Tolle I went into a hermit like existence, not wanting to socialize with others. I controlled and tried to stop my thoughts so that I really wouldn’t have any negative ones and lost all discerning and rational thinking. I was ‘zombied’ out and distanced from reality. Eckhart Tolle is a strange and weird man who has written to do thought control and hypnotize the masses. Guess what? I really woke up and am grateful for this forum. His teachings are dangerous, absurd, and cannot be applied in a healthy way. My boyfriend at the time even told me, ‘you sound brainwashed.’ I got upset because he didn’t get Tolle but now I realize how far gone I was. I think you completed the biggest hurdle, which is to realize that his teachings are dangerous and to step back. Remember how you were before you got into Tolle and how you thought without second guessing yourself all the time? In relation to this, Esther Hicks is another ‘guru’ type (again they’ll never admit they’re ‘gurus’ but they are definitely are ‘wanna be’ gurus.) She employs the same belief which is; the way you are thinking is harmful, try our approach. It’s dangerous and we need to shed light on this new age brainwashing.