oh, something else. The "advice columnist" in the local free urban paper has regularly dispensed advice and expressed a viewpoint that caused me to mutter "what in the world??". It's absolute nonsense and she regularly blames victims of accidents for their own misfortune. I've noticed that she has often quoted practitioners of "woo" and espoused views that are Way Out There.

Anyway, a few years ago she recommended, in her column, the Work as "the solution to all your problems". I looked it up online, out of curiosity, saw that it was most definitely a bunch of woo, and forgot about it. It wasn't until recently that I noticed people posting Byron Katie videos on Facebook, and read the threads here about her, that I realized it was the same person recommended by this columnist. I guess that explains why her so-called advice rang major alarm bells within me every time I read her drivel.

It's disheartening and scary that this is going on. I don't know what her credentials are, but the fact that presumed mental health professionals and counselors are involved in this, using it, and recommending it is hard to wrap one's head around, not only because of the fact that BK is completely unqualified to help anybody with anything, but because the content and obvious goal (money and power) of her material and enterprise is so incredibly nefarious.

Just now in the news, Scientology is getting busted for using "slave labor". Search Google news for:

scientology slave labor

Well guess what? The Byron Katie seminars, and the James Ray seminars, also used "unpaid labor" and also charge people for the privilege of working at their LGAT seminars.
When people work at a Byron Katie seminar with the label "Staff" but are NOT paid, and in fact are paying their own way, and even paying admission to the seminar, what's the difference?
If anyone really looked into these practices used by many LGAT seminar Gurus, they would see in fact that its probably being done illegally, against labor laws.

You can't run a for-profit company, and call people "Staff" and then charge them to work at your for-profit seminars.
There is such a thing as minimum wage, and employment rules, and employers can get into trouble for breaking those laws.

On top of that, we have many stories in this thread, which read like the Scientology Sea Org reports, where people work for years, for almost no pay, and come out owing the company a huge debt.

Guess what. Byron Katie Inc also offers "deals" where you pay for a overpriced LGAT seminar on installments, and that locks you into Byron Katie Inc for years.

Where did these LGAT Gurus get the idea to use unpaid "Staff"? From groups like Scientology.
You slash labor costs, and profits go through the roof. You just have to con-vince them that they are "coaches", and not an unpaid illegal labor force.

Anticult wrote:

"Where did these LGAT Gurus get the idea to use unpaid "Staff"? From groups like Scientology."

And NLP, from it's inception NLP used "helpers", "assistant coaches", "guardian angels", who were NLP students who paid full seminar price to "help" newbies.

At $2k-$5k a seminar plus room and board, it is a very expensive proposition. It also explains why those trainers who do this, never have to work at a real job. Trainers like Robert Dilt's AFAIK never held a real job in his life, since he was one of Bandler's early students, he just jumped on the seminar bandwagon and never looked back. And why anyone would take advice from a guy who looks like a patient with a terminal wasting disease and talks like a robot is beyond me.

The same goes on with people like the secretive Bru Joy and Bryon's predecessors several of whom their names escape me at the moment but also peddled similar new age sewage. Crooked churches do the same thing as well, though they call it "volunteering".

And making your seminar helpers pay their own way, should be construed as a big red warning sign that you are involved in some sort of scam/cult and no good will come of participating in it. Honest businesses or enterprises pay people to work for them, not the other way around.

So run, don't walk away from any group that forces people to pay big $$$ to assist others.

I have a question about Byron Katie. Does she still do her "homeless" exercise? I wondered if she had abandoned that practice after James Ray had a lady commit suicide at a similar activity.

Not a chance would she stop doing that, or something similar, BK wouldn't let that stop her.

There were a number of cases in the past shown in this thread, where followers of Byron Katie have killed themselves, or other incidents.
John Wayne Dulaney [forum.culteducation.com]

Byron Katie Hotline facilitator Rochelle Laudenslager and the murder case [forum.culteducation.com]

There were other very suspicious cases brought up, where some BK defenders/bloggers became extremely defensive, when the subject of suicide of those who attend the seminars came up.
When they are activating PTSD and pushing people to the edge, then blaming them with the Turnaround guilt, there are going to be suicides, and not just one, but many.
Perhaps someone in news, if there is anyone left in news anywhere, will investigate the cases of suicide linked with those who have attended these seminars.

The bottom line is people in the BK delusional mindset, don't really care if people kill themselves, to be frank. They basically say the person chose to leave school early. They don't even believe they died, but just left the body.

They blame the victim for not taking even more seminars and coaching. Meanwhile, trained PTSD professionals know that those who open-up their traumas need 24/7 care during that time, with 24 hr emerg phone support. Otherwise activating the trauma is a suicide machine.

But they don't care at these seminars, they activate the trauma, then cut them lose. If the person starts going nuts and losing it, they kick them out of the seminar. They will literally have security eject them out into the street. They are not going to call 911 and then open themselves to liability. They just kick them out, and then forget about them.


In fact, there are quotes about Byron Katie herself telling a Story about how she would drink a double-suicide death cocktail with her husband, the self-professed worlds greatest writer. [forum.culteducation.com]

In fact, the BK system can actively trigger severe trauma and PTSD in people, and then just cuts them lose. They don't care if people then have a mental breakdown after the LGAT seminar, and then kill themselves, or die.

Proof?
Read Byron Katie's disclaimer, where it says right there about their DEATH CLAUSE in the contract everyone has to sign.
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]


Byron Katie (the Work) and Trauma PTSD, suicide [forum.culteducation.com]

Byron Katie (the Work) and PTSD suicide rates [forum.culteducation.com]

Byron Katie and "The Work" Participant Reports [forum.culteducation.com]

When a good friend gets lured into going to the school, we discover afterward what happened to them. We start doing our home work and learn a great deal about the power imbalance that is orchestrated. By now our friend has moved on to facilitator certification. Now they oscillate between being submissive to Byron Katie and her organization and being dominating to the new recruit. They are learning contradicting roles.

corboy started the discussion but would love to expand on it: What is the long term effect on a person that, as facilitator, systematically dominates clients?

corboy
Problem is, all too often there are folks who exploit the yearning and find ways to split off our magic yearning inner child and disable the inner parent, by disabling the adult parenting/protective critical thinking skills.

That leaves our eager yearning inner child highly vulerable to exploitation.

THis does not have to happen. Your yearning for magic can coexist with the best and finest adult level thought and awareness of real word responsibility - and legal risks and consequences.

A note on Cry in the Desert

According to Bookfinder.com there have been no editions in English since 1996

[www.bookfinder.com]

However a Dutch edition was published in 2000

De roep in de woestijn
de weg van Byron Katie
Auteur: Christin Lore Weber
ISBN: 9789020282030
Verschenen in maart 2000

€ 16,90 - [Bestel nu]


[www.la-colombe.nl]

Re-posting here for easy reference

[skepchick.org]

"...Finally, it was time for the Keynote Speaker: Jenny McCarthy. Like Wakefield, she received a standing ovation before she even began her talk. Jenny started out great. She’s a compelling speaker and started with a cute, adorable, touching story about how her autistic son Evan likes to ride escalators, so she takes him to the mall often just to ride the escalator up and down. She also talked about her frustration with having an autistic son and how she has learned to accept it.

Less than 10 minutes into her speech, she turned the mic over to Byron Katie, a self-help guru that promotes a program she calls “The Work.” Byron Katie asked the audience members to fill out a worksheet in which they had to describe someone they’re angry or frustrated with. She then called select audience members on stage to read their answers and would respond by turning their statements back on them.

Here are some actual examples from the conference (note: since audio-recordings were not allowed and I couldn’t write fast enough, it is paraphrased):

Parent: I’m angry with my husband because he does not accept me as a whole package.
Katie: Does your husband not accept you, or do you not accept your husband?

…

Parent: I’m frustrated with my son because he always puts himself down.
Katie: Does he always put himself down or do you always put him down?

…

Parent: I’m angry with the pharmaceutical companies for hurting my son.
Katie: Did the pharmaceutical companies hurt your son or did you hurt my son?

She would then force them to repeat the opposite of their original statement.

“I don’t accept my husband as a whole package.”
“I always put my son down.”
“I hurt my son.”

Seriously. She forced people to say these things and then told them they had to change their thoughts accordingly. Her whole point was that any time you are angry or frustrated at someone/something else, you actually caused those things to happen because of your thoughts. Therefore you can’t change it without taking responsibility. It’s basically a blame-the-victim mentality — If anything bad happens to you, it’s your fault.

I took some time during Byron’s presentation to fill out my version of the worksheet (graphic omitted: [friendlyatheist.com]).

Once Byron Katie was finished, Jenny McCarthy came back out to thank her. Then, instead of giving her own talk, which I was expecting since she was keynote speaker, she left the stage and played a video of herself talking about her journey with the autism community.

Let me repeat that. She played a video of her talk instead of actually giving it, even though she was there as the keynote speaker...."

Be very careful when you attend something for a serious, emotionally loaded topic such as autism and they dont start with data but start with a STORY, a grab-em-by-the-tits, grab-em-by-the-balls STORY.

And it should be noted that Wakefield has been discredited. Problem is, as one scientist has put it, its so much easier to scare people than to unscare people.

[www.google.com]

Quote

She’s a compelling speaker and started with a cute, adorable, touching story about how her autistic son Evan likes to ride escalators, so she takes him to the mall often just to ride the escalator up and down. She also talked about her frustration with having an autistic son and how she has learned to accept it.

Less than 10 minutes into her speech, she turned the mic over to Byron Katie, a self-help guru that promotes a program she calls “The Work.”

Byron Katie asked the audience members to fill out a worksheet in which they had to describe someone they’re angry or frustrated with. She then called select audience members on stage to read their answers and would respond by turning their statements back on them.

Could this escalator up and down be a metaphor for up and down moods.

For comparison examine The Anticult's analysis of BK's Washing Machine Story.

Quote

Here is a educational excerpt for analysis, of the text about the "Washing Machine" from the book "A Thousand Names For Joy" by Byron Katie. At the end of CD#3, 3 hours into the program, 3 minutes from the end, Byron Katie tells a long story-induction about a "washing machine" and her "doing the laundry" while in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The elegance of these types of Inductions is that they have multiple meanings.
There is the straight forward everyday meaning of the text.

And there is also the DEEPER symbolic meaning to the unconscious, when done in the full-context, and with voice-cues. That is what Ericksonian style hypnotherapy is all about, building these types of symbolic and metaphorical meanings into stories, with a purpose. Communcating directly to the unconscious mind and by-passing the conscious critical mind.

For more, read here:

It is Never 'Just a Story'[forum.culteducation.com]

Corboy note:

Anyone still willing to listen to Wakefield derive material is in the catagory of person least likely to fact check Byron Katie.

And note this: persons who have an autistic child are probably already very exhausted and stressed out people. Tired people, emotionally wrought people are all the more vulnerable to suggestion. And in states of high emotional arousal and chronic lack of rest, its much more difficult to access critical thinking. The more worn out you are, the more reactive you're going to be. This isnt stupidity. The best educated most intelligent person will break and grow shaky when worn out caring for a child with heavy medical psychiatric needs.

My mother once said, 'There is nothing more galling than having a sick child.'

THe crisis a betrayed wife or bereaved person goes through is real, but eventually one recovers unless there are compicating factors.

The crisis of having an autistic child is life long. And the vulnerabilty is indescribably greater.

Corboy,
I think your compassion for parents of special needs children is obvious.
However, you may be unaware that in the U.S., more that 1300 children have been compensated by the Vaccine Injury Compensation program for brain damage caused by vaccines. This is an ardous and in some cases five year or more process involving lawyers and medical testimony.And these people all won.How many others, exhausted with caring for a vaccine brain damaged child, did not stay the course?

A recent study tracked down the medical records of some of these cases.The seizures/brain damage resulted in an autism diagnosis in approximately 40% of the cases they studied.

I think that the scientific evidence is strong for a subset of children being particularly vulnerable to vaccine damage, and if you wish I would be happy to share some of the peer reviewed journal articles that would seem to indicate this.
Unless we can find a thread where this discussion would be relevant however, it might be better to do it in pms.
If it is not an area of interest for you, that is fine too.
Again, I really enjoy your discussions and comments, just don't agree with you on this particular issue.