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helpme2times
Why am I not surprised? This is someone who allows himself to be swayed in reporting on Byron Katie by "good friends", at least one of who is a "formerly-inside man".
The Anticult spoke of this not long ago, here:Quote
quackdave
I'm with you, there hm2x. To paraphrase something said a few times before on this thread, there are many so called 'guru busters' out there who actually are putting down all but the guru that they are 'in bed with', as a sort of deflection from the true issues. Did you notice how Jody absolutely steers clear of any response to the Seung Sahn issue, which is glaringly staring the rest of us right in the face? In my 'not even a little bit humble' opinion, Jody is a total fraud; a phony. He's selling something, and what he's selling is unhealthy if not dangerous. Worst part is he's doing it under the guise of someone who is debunking gurus.
qd
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this is how you do it...
You point to the most obvious abusive con-men, criminals and child-rapists who call themselves guru's, like Sai Baba. They become the bad-guys.
But then you misdirect away from the much more sophisticated LGAT groups, who actually make MORE money than the old-school religious cults in robes. The modern so-called anti-guru LGAT groups, which are not classical "cults" with shaved heads, make 10x the money of those other old-school cults.
They use far MORE powerful techniques, most of which are very hard to see, and are literally invisible.
The article says that Mr. Sashen is "highly critical of the "personal transformational business".Quote
Another approach is to view The Secret -- and this UWO course -- as the latest self-help craze peddling hope at a high price. And that's certainly the view taken by Steven Sashen, a self-described "anti-guru" who is highly critical of the "personal transformational business."
"One of the fundamental ideas in a lot of these programs is that once you get something you want, then you'll finally be happy," Sashen says from his office in Boulder, Colo. "The problem is that it's just not true."
Sashen says the lucrative self-help industry, estimated by some to be worth $10 billion a year, is rooted in a familiar set of motivational strategies, including affirmations and reminders.
"All of us are hard-wired to become hypnotized by the promise of a technique that will give us what we want," says Sashen. "It's brilliant marketing."
Indeed, The Secret's official website boasts its system reveals "for the first time in history" the special knowledge that transformed the lives of Plato, Newton, Shakespeare and Einstein.
But Sashen says almost all these "transformational" programs follow a similar format. First, he says, the programs offer participants some kind of unusual experience ("Which isn't that hard when you've got people stuck in a hotel all weekend," he quips.) and then claim it's part of a breakthrough leading to future success.
But Sashen scoffs at such notions. He suggests that if you fed a group of people bad food for a weekend, a certain percentage of those people would later succeed in their endeavours -- but clearly their success had nothing to do with the bad food.
"The best way to make money is to say you have a great way of making money," he says. "And the technique is fixing some imagined problem that's wrong with your customer. . . . And we're constantly suckered into it."
Frood's description of the UWO program sounds eerily similar.
"The things that hold us back are things that have been part of our life forever," she says. "So (the solution) is naming the limiting belief."
And there, says Sashen, is the central misguided tenet of the entire self-help industry: We're not happy because there's something wrong with us (usually caused by some past incident) and we have to fix it.
"A class like this is the kind of uninvestigated thinking that, I imagine, other (university) departments wouldn't stand for," he says. "I'm surprised the economics department isn't boycotting."
Shakti, I respectfully disagree that Jody is supportive to cult survivors - at least as far as Byron Katie is concerned. I say it stinks to high heaven that he would allow a "formerly-inside" person to BK cloud his assessment of her. He's admitted in various comments that his opinion of BK rides in good part on what his friend thinks of her.Quote
shakti
Guruphiliac: Human, has flaws. However, does not deserve to be lumped in with Random Stu. He does not always see the flaws in some of the groups he DOESN'T attack. However, unlike Stu, he doesn't continually attack cult survivors for their weakness and doesn't dismiss the notion of mind control in the manner that Stu does. He is about supporting cult survivors, not attacking them, an important distinction to make between him and Stu. He is still a spiritual seeker and would LIKE to find a guru who isn't completely full of BS, so he lowers the bar if he finds one that remotely makes sense to him. However, I have seen him change his mind about leaders and groups if the evidence is strong enough. Random Stu does not have the kind of open mind necessary to make those kind of changes, he is sealed shut and inflexible in his emotional Fortress of Solitude. Jody seems to have a heart and I applaud his work, if imperfect. If there were more people doing what Jody does, Jody's site would be irrelevant. But for now, he is one of few...
Regarding the sudden shutting down of the "Open Forum" at Byron Katie's "Institute For The Work" site... it's now more than a month since the last date of anyone posting there. So their wonderful "Open Forum" remains closed. What gives?Quote
CruzAn interesting bit of information came up, regarding Byron Katie’s no longer Open Forum. As we know, the very last post on the Forum was by Carol Skolnick, on April 6th. It was about BK and Stephen Mitchell having copied their ‘Tao’-book from ‘Grace Unfolding’ by Greg Johanson and Ronald Kurtz. As it turns out, the penultimate entry to the Forum seems to have been a piece on Stephen Mitchell’s true Valentine’s Story being adulterous in spirit. However romantic and serene the story is being portrayed now, truth is that both Katie and Stephen were in actual fact two-timing when they first hooked up. Byron Katie has a long history of rewriting her books. It will be interesting to see whether her ‘Katie-ism’ “I’m a lover of the truth” will be included in forthcoming editions.Quote
The Anticult
by the way, there appears to have some dissent in the now closed Open Forum at the Institute For The Work website?
[www.instituteforthework.com]
Questions about the cockroach story, questions about the books being copied from other books, etc.
So they closed the Open Forum. Bye bye freedom of thought, and open discussion.
Why is it taking them so long to "fix" that "Open Forum"?Quote
Dear Open Forum Users,
In order to better serve you, we have closed the Open Forum and will reopen it as soon as we can. We apologize for any inconvenience. For information on how to do The Work or to use the free hotline, go to www.thework.com.
Yikes!Quote
Meadow
I just found out that within the BK circles the word is going around that some crazy lady from Europe is spreading lies about Katie.