jj, all I can say is the guy appears to have openly told a bunch of BS? I don't see anything wrong on calling that out in the open.
Also, I have never seen anyone break out of an LGAT without get a bit pissed off. Nothing wrong with being a bit angry, its healthy boundaries. With very strong boundaries, its much more difficult to get sucked in. Forceful boundaries keeps them from hammering your mind.

Personally, the guy openly was not being honest, and posting ambiguous stuff that was meant to Turnaround doubts.
I don't see ANY barbarians in this forum, zero, just people telling the truth as they see it, some more blunt than others. The barbarians are the ones who are wrecking people's lives, with lies and LGAT's. The damage can go on for years. Byron Katie is the barbarian, and much worse. To do what she is doing without telling people? Its beyong unethical...

But getting entangled in an endless vague dialogue about The Work, and all that, its very easy to slip right back into it. Very easy, many will slip right back in. A person in a BK friendly forum might just go right back into it, they can suck them right back in.

also, so-called "trolls" can deliberately derail entire threads. We've seen that before countless times in other areas.

Also, linking and getting the WARNING out CAN help a few people, BEFORE its too late. This is very dangerous stuff. If there was a WARNING label on her CD's about hypnosis, it would not work on most people.

But that being said, I think this type of forum is not like a cultish group, so people don't have to agree, or think the same, or behave the same. People can be different, some can be nice, some can be gruff, some can be angry a bit. Unlike what BK says, strong emotions are fine.

that's my 2 cents on it.

I feel really bad to people who are having their Identities and Minds hammered by these people. Its literally abuse that will last for a very long time. there appears to be no easy answer to any of it.

But another 2 cents from me would for folks to be very cautious around BK people. Personally, I would say a former BK person should not talk to people like Carol Skolnick...they will flip you right back into the Katie trance, with all of those Triggers and Cues. Its sadistic, what they do. No ethical hypnotherapist would ever imagine doing that to people.

jj,
I am going to be really blunt here...those are extremely fucking dangerous people. I am not making this stuff up. They want to hammer people's minds down to nothing, rip it apart, Dis-Assemble your Identity, and reform it focussed on Byron Katie for her own vanity and self-interest. Meanwhile acting all sweet and holy, and saying the exact opposite.
Its sicko stuff, and plain as day to the moderately trained eye.

That numbess is a somatic response to the ingrained hypnotic Triggers and Cues she Anchored into you. It does nothing to me, other than piss me off ethically, as I can see her do it.

Openly calling out people's techniques as they do it, and they don't work on the subject.

It makes me very angry to see this type of abuse going on. Its Mind-Rape.
Why do they do it? I guess as they say...Power Corrupts. They get some power, and then they want more, and they get carried away with it.
From what I heard on the CD, Katie is in charge, sounds like Stephen is under HER spell too!

Those folks don't even believe in evil, or that anything is bad or good. One can imagine where that leads to, as the Power gets greater. Anything goes...
In a way, Byron Katie is one of the worst I have ever personally studied, mainly due to the unthreatening presentation.

Too bad Dr. Milton Erickson wasn't alive, so he could teach us about the realities of this type of covert hypnosis, and its ethical application, and the reality of the evil of its abuse.

Quote
jj52
My legs went numb while I was reading your notes. I bought that book, read a few passages, and got rid of it the next day.

by the way, I am not saying "hypnosis" is bad, not at all.
Self-Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy can really help people...IF it is done by a licensed professional, with FULL DISCLOSURE.

Milton Erickson helped a lot of people.
But all of this Katie stuff is open, flagrant abuse. One wonders if licensed hypnotherapists could investigate it?

and also remember, its not just the covert hypnosis, its all the LGAT stuff, and also the Cialdini Influence stuff, and dozens of other things as well.

It must be that since Power Corrupts, as soon as they get some power, and people start worshipping them, a part of them starts to believe it, and crave it, and need it.

So its beyond the hypnosis only.
Its more about the covert unconscious influencing and exploitation.

One thing I still don't "get" is why Byron Katie is so obsessed with death, cancer, murder, rape, disease, there no such thing as evil...it leads into such a dark dreamworld of horrors...Love is a Murderer, type of core beliefs...one wonders if that is what she believes, or if that is where she just wants to lead people...

A part of it is certainly Marketing...that is her market. Mostly women, but people who have been truly hurt in life, and are feeling a lot of terrible pain right now, divorce, depression... Pain is the motivator to seek help...
So the marketing is part of it. Pain = Profits.

But something does not sit right. Some other LGAT's I have studied do have "empowerment" at the core in the end, they really do, even thought the process is screwy.
But Katie seems to have "pathological love attachment to an one-way exploitative relationship" at the core and end game of her system?
"Love" that is a constant source of pain.

Pathological bonding to an abuser? don't quite have it yet...

Quote
The Anticult
One thing I still don't "get" is why Byron Katie is so obsessed with death, cancer, murder, rape, disease, there no such thing as evil...it leads into such a dark dreamworld of horrors...Love is a Murderer, type of core beliefs...one wonders if that is what she believes, or if that is where she just wants to lead people...

just for some perspective...someone I know promoted/booked lots of Richard Bandler seminars over the years, and I've heard most of his material.
For example, his Neurosonics Inductions, and all his books, HDE, etc.
Bandler is a questionable character, questionable ethics.
BUT, his material is actually about 1000x more empowering than the Byron Katie stuff. 10,000x.

For example Neurosonics (don't buy it!) and a bunch of this other stuff, are all similar Inductions like Byron Katie, but set to music. But those materials are really about EMPOWERMENT. The ideas behind them, and in them, are about making you a better person, even if they don't totally work as advertised, and despite his character. There is some GREAT stuff in them. They are for having a better Mind.

Milton Erickson's inductions are so uplifting, they really are great, and simple.

But the Byron Katie stuff, is the OPPOSITE. It sucks the life out of you, it beats you down, it gives you a headache. Its meant to cut you off from reality, and then become dependent on HER. She is trying to suck your life and energy out of you.
Its DIS-EMPOWERMENT.

I am playing a Richard Bandler Induction right now called LIFE SUPERCHARGER... just to reverse some of the mind-damage from just listening to one Byron Katie CD. That BK is some serious evil shit folks...

Bandler knows how powerful this stuff is...to take it to the dark side...I can't even put it into words...
I have a sense if Bandler heard those Byron Katie CD's , he might scrunch up his face and say...that woman is the (insert profanity string) evil incarnate, a vampire...
Bandler stuff is about coherance, and lining up the unconscious to support you...learning...

I've never heard anything, personally, so manipulative, twisted and abusive as BK, that I can recall...that is so slickly done...

PS: consider ending off any Byron Katie House of Horrors session, with some positive psychological stuff, whatever works for you. I am going to use some of the Bandler audio, I feel much better already.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2008 04:39PM by The Anticult.

Quote
The Anticult
jj,
I am going to be really blunt here...those are extremely fucking dangerous people. I am not making this stuff up. They want to hammer people's minds down to nothing, rip it apart, Dis-Assemble your Identity, and reform it focussed on Byron Katie for her own vanity and self-interest. Meanwhile acting all sweet and holy, and saying the exact opposite.
Its sicko stuff, and plain as day to the moderately trained eye.

That numbess is a somatic response to the ingrained hypnotic Triggers and Cues she Anchored into you. It does nothing to me, other than piss me off ethically, as I can see her do it.

Openly calling out people's techniques as they do it, and they don't work on the subject.

It makes me very angry to see this type of abuse going on. Its Mind-Rape.
Why do they do it? I guess as they say...Power Corrupts. They get some power, and then they want more, and they get carried away with it.
From what I heard on the CD, Katie is in charge, sounds like Stephen is under HER spell too!

Those folks don't even believe in evil, or that anything is bad or good. One can imagine where that leads to, as the Power gets greater. Anything goes...
In a way, Byron Katie is one of the worst I have ever personally studied, mainly due to the unthreatening presentation.

Too bad Dr. Milton Erickson wasn't alive, so he could teach us about the realities of this type of covert hypnosis, and its ethical application, and the reality of the evil of its abuse.

Quote
jj52
My legs went numb while I was reading your notes. I bought that book, read a few passages, and got rid of it the next day.

Anticult,

I am going to respond to both of your posts at the same time. I'm going to be blunt here, too. This is very important to me, and I want to be sure that I understand you correctly. I would also like for you to try to understand me. It's not necessary, but it would be appreciated.

Yes, Jon told some BS. I totally agree with you. I'm sure I spewed plenty of BS while active in The Work, too. How can I possibly hammer the guy for doing this? He expressed his fears about participating in this forum openly, too. I have held back details of my involvement with BK and even changed some... LIED... to protect myself on this forum. I did that after YOU advised me to. Could it be possible that Jon was trying to protect himself from being slaughtered? I don't know if that's what happened or not. I didn't ask him.

Did you?

You're talking about MIND RAPE... while you're going on and on picking apart Jon and what Jon was thinking, what he wanted, what his motives were... etc, etc. Has there ever been a time when you were wrong about your assumptions of people, Anticult? Did it ever occur to you that maybe things were not what they seemed? Reading people's minds... is that not mind rape? It's one thing to spot manipulation and hypnosis... it's another to completely assume that you know what another person is thinking, feeling, and what is motivating them.

Earlier today, I got a private message from someone giving me some advice... that had nothing to do with the reality of me, my situation, or my mind. It took me half an hour to figure out what that person was even talking about. It's very easy to assume that you know what someone is thinking because you see what they are doing... but the fact is that you can't know what's going on inside someone else's head.

I was aware that Jon was not totally honest about his level of involvement with Byron Katie from the start. However, I was not triggered by him like I am triggered by Carol Skolnick, and the like. I did not feel the same level of manipulation going on, even though I felt that manipulation was present. I really wanted to hear what the guy had to say about all of this... for my own selfish reasons. But, we've offended him, and I don't think he will be back.

As far as this not being a cultish group and not having to think alike... I wonder how in the world you got such a wacky thing out of anything I said? I was only asking people to be more civil, so that we can get the message out there and be taken seriously. Generally, people don't listen to irrational, angry people. Haven't you noticed?

I don't remember saying that there were barbarians on this forum, and I think that's a pretty convoluted interpretation of what I really did say. I said there were amazing people here, did you catch that part? I said that we look like barbarians to other people when we act like this... did you get that? I did NOT say there were barbarians here. To outsiders, that is how it looks at times. When I first found this group, I was hesitant to join because of the verbal wars going on. I've shared this forum with others, and they all say the same thing.

Simply put: if you want people to listen to you, you will probably need to speak more softly. No one is going to hang around or listen to you when you are screaming in their ears.

I never said anything about strong emotions not being all right. Where did you get that from? I know I've expressed some pretty strong emotions on this forum, and I've welcomed the strong emotions of others, and tried to be sympathetic at the same time. Considering what I know about myself... I think it's ludicrous that you would insinuate that I am somehow trying to squash strong emotion. But you don't really know me, do you? So why don't we just stick to what I actually said-- what I meant-- and leave all this mind-reading to the cults?

I wonder, am I now to be treated like a troll, too?

I'm not an expert in psychology, but I do know some things. Something I do know is this:

Healthy groups bond FOR people.
Unhealthy groups bond AGAINST people.

My understanding was that this forum was FOR the people who wanted to learn more. I don't remember being told that being a part of this forum would require me to fight against people who came in here... especially the ones stating that they wanted to learn, and then actually read the threads. Yeah... Jon was out there... I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU... at the same time, I recognize his civility, and his actual attempts at participation. He might have needed to hear what we have to say. What happens when someone more authentic, but equally messed-up comes in here? Will they get the royal whipping, too? Seriously, the way this is going, it actually resembles an unhealthy group, and more like a cult than I'm comfortable with.

I see how Jon was defending The Work. I also see how he might have felt his belief system was challenged from the start... by virtue of just being here. He may have felt like he needed to justify himself to us. Who knows? If we are putting people on the defensive before they even settle in... how do we know we aren't chasing away the very people that we are supposed to be providing information for?

Did you ever think of educating Jon about his behavior, before sending him to the slaughterhouse? I acknowledge that it is a total boundary violation when trolls show up here. I also know that you can't fault someone for violating a boundary if they don't know the boundary exists. Educate them about the boundary, and then, once they've been educated, if they continue to violate the boundary, you know you've got a real stinker on your hands.

Anticult, I would like to ask you to come back to my original post later and reread it. You are preaching to the proverbial choir, here. I'm on your side, believe it or not.

But, are you listening?

I want you to know right now that the outcome of this conversation will determine whether or not I stay involved with this forum. I realize that may mean nothing to you... but I really don't know. The people here and their participation means a great deal to me. I've been relying on all of you through the last week or so. I wouldn't want anyone to leave. And, I don't want to leave... in case my being here might actually be helping someone else, too.

I came here for help, and to help others. Not to belittle, degrade, or demean anyone. I don't want to be angry with Byron Katie forever. I want to get through this and move on with my life. I got hooked in with Byron Katie because I seek peace and happiness in my life... and she was promising it. That's what I wanted. I don't want to fight.

I think it's possible that you like to fight, Anticult. If it continues, I am going to leave. This is me educating you that what's happening here is violating my boundaries. As a part of this forum, who is also allowed to be different, I have that right. If the boundary continues to be violated, I will need to leave to maintain my integrity... the same reason that I left Bryon Katie in the dust.

I do not want to offend you. I hope that you can really hear what I'm saying. You have helped me immensely, and I appreciate that. But, this stuff is hurting me and others. I'm asking for civility so that I may stay and continue to get the help... and to help others, if possible. I'm thankful for all you've shared with me, but I will not let my good feelings and positive experiences here stand in the way of my own needs, and better judgment. I'm not willing to keep supporting the anti-troll smear campaigns.

rrmoderater does not hammer trolls. I think that his way of dealing with them is much more effective, and creates a healthier, safer environment for everyone concerned.

Now, regardless of how you interpret it, there's is nothing wrong or "cult-like" about my asking people in a public forum to behave civilly, thereby adhering to social norms. It might actually be a very healthy and positive step for all of us. I understand that many of us are angry. There's nothing wrong with expressing it in healthy ways. And, there's nothing wrong with me asking for this here, in this forum.

It is possible to speak the truth without having to use it as a weapon. Sometimes, the way truth is used in here... frankly, it borders on verbal abuse. I don't feel good about it, or feel good about taking part it in. It's too easy to get caught up in it, as I have learned. As hard as I've tried, I can't turn a blind eye to it, either.

Like you, I feel really bad for people who are having their identities and minds hammered by Byron Katie. I feel even worse for those people who may come in here and have their identities and character hammered by the Byron Katie busters. It doesn't make sense to me to treat people like this in this type of setting. You can say whatever you think is true, but you don't have to beat people down with your opinion.

That's my 2 cents on it.

-jj



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2008 04:53PM by jj52.

PPS: just noticed that the Bandler Neurosonics recordings are up on the torrents networks.

Of course, again, I am NOT suggesting people purchase any of this stuff, we've all spent more than enough on this stuff!! No more buying junk for any of us! :-)
But maybe if a friend has it, or whatever, it MIGHT help in deprogramming from Byron Katie.
It will show you how the waking hypnosis stuff is SUPPOSED to be done...to help you, not harm you.
It can really be very beautiful, elegant, and empowering in the right hands.

Don't ever allow anyone to ever lead you into the dark side using this covert Waking non-logical metaphorical hypnosis using "stories" and visualizations.
Just don't permit it, walk out, leave, tell them to fuck off. as in FUCK OFF. That boundary is a good boundary.
Tell them to STOP IT NOW. STOP, and GET OUT. Firm, and powerful. Use your powerful cognitive mind to block them 100%. Clap your hands and say...wow, that's some great waking hypnosis you are trying to do. Why don't you stop it now? Then GET OUT. Don't sit there, don't sleep on the floor in the back of the seminar. (That is why Katie wanted people there even at the back, it can still work).

don't read their TEXT, don't watch their hypnosis videos on YouTube, don't listen to the CD's...

Its very very important to balance the exploration of the negative, with things that are more helpful. And I am going to take my own advice, from here on in...even those will a lot of experience and tools can get their heads messed with pretty good if they are not very careful.

ok, I feel waaaaaaay better now...recovered from the Byron Katie hypnotic mental abuse..

Listened to another Bandler audio in the background called..."Welcome To Planet Earth"...
(Reality).
you see, Bandler got it right from Milton Erickson.
Its about trusting your OWN Unconscious, about aligning your own Mind and Unconscious...the Mind is wonderful and natural, of course..and Learning, Knowledge...its great.

Byron Katie is trying to wreck your Mind, say there is no Knowledge (that is the Werner Erhard nihilism to crush your mind).
And she is trying to link your unconscious to HER. That literally is evil.

The Unconscious needs to be linked only within your own Self, in a healthy way an aligned with your wonderful Mind,and enjoy learning Knowledge of Reality. Its good to get some external perspective, from even someone like Bandler, who though far from a perfect person, at least know about a zillions times more about this than The Mistress of Misery.

I have had problems posting messages this morning - the system told me I wasn't logged in after trying to post it twice - if the post did happen to get through and just hasn't appeared yet then I'm hoping the moderator picks up on this and deletes the duplicates.

Thanks,

Jon
-------------------------------------

Hi guys,

So first of all, thank you for all the posts, questions, etc - rather than try to respond to all of them individually, I'll try to respond to most / all of them now.

Secondly, I apologize if I have offended or upset anyone - absolutely 100% - it's a learning curve, not just with the knowledge about stuff, but with people involved here.

I hadn't appreciated what this forum is about / who it is for - I did take a look at the mission statement for the Rick Ross Institute and I liked it, alongside the general title of the forum "Cult Education" - so really I'm here to get educated - one thing that I have learnt from my own use of the work (the process of inquiry, none of the other stuff) is that the truth is nothing to be scared of, even though for me it can feel that way at times. I actually have been back to look at that mission statement again and I still feel inspired by the quote from Carl Sagan at the top of it:

"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."

So if the truth is that The Work and / or all of the stuff around The Work is a cult and/or applies and uses methods that are cult-like, damaging, etc, etc then I'd rather know that than not - and I'd rather something was done about it than not. I said in an earlier post, following up on what Anticult said about registering complaints with the relevant authorities, that I agree with people doing that, if that's what feels right for them.

Again my logic here is that truth will come out one way or another - I'd like to think that if there are any aspects of cult-like stuff going on with Byron Katie International that they would want to know about that, be open to looking at it and do something about it - and if that's not the case, that it is a cult then someone else doing something about it is a good thing.

Here's where I am on it personally - from what I've read here, there does seem like there's some stuff to be looked at and addressed around the LGAT stuff. I'm not currently of the opinion that it is a cult, but I'm also open to that being the case and I can certainly see how people can develop cult-like tendencies with it - and I've also not been to The School, so I'm not privy to what goes on there.

OK - enough on that for now.

Referencing the websites [edited].com, [edited].com, [edited].com , yes the first 2 are registered to me, the last one was and I just recently terminated it as I was no longer using the domain name.

I'm quite happy to give a full history of these if wanted, the summary is that www.jonwillis.com was registered several years ago after I left my corporate job - the intention was to develop it for the life coaching business that I was trying to build. I discovered two things - (1) I'm not a very good business builder (2) I have zero aptitude for building websites. I now use the email address attached to this website for sending my resume out for work (I came back to the UK from the US about 6 months ago, when my now ex-wife and I split up) - I have kept this domain name simply because I've thought I might regret giving it up at some point, although more and more I simply see it as an unnecessary expense.

[edited].com simply started out as a blog for me to explore ideas about self happiness - and yes, part of my own exploration has been about The Work, so it included references and thoughts on that. I set it up through Blogger.

Just4Questions I was inspired by someone else's blog that included a daily Work inquiry on a stressful thought - I felt like I got a lot of benefit from reading then - and I decided to do the same thing - mainly this was about showing more of me to the world (thoughts that I'd kept hidden away) and sharing my inquiries for the benefit of others - if they found them useful then great. Over time I discovered that I was posting inquiries here and not posting much on the selfhappiness blog so it was time to close one of them down - I decided to shift the inquiry blog over to selfhappiness and close down just4questions .

Much more recently, I realised that I was no longer feeling inspired to post inquiries on the selfhappiness blog - in addition it had a lot of old inquiries on there that I felt like were weighing me down in some way so I decided to delete them. Turns out there is no easy way to delete all posts using Blogger, so I either had to go through all of them one by one or I could delete the entire blog - so I went for the easy option. I may use the selfhappiness domain name for another blog at some point, although at the moment I'm more inclined to get rid of it altogether - the only block to that at the moment is all my online accounts for banks, amazon, etc are linked to it and changing them over is a hassle I could do without at the moment.

Sorry if this is going on a bit - just being clear about it.

I'm learning a lot from being on this forum - I know it was mentioned about checking up on me having gone to the school - I don't know how you would do that, but by all means check away - as I've already shared, my ex-wife went to the school a couple of years ago, I've not been. If someone else called Jon Willis has been then please check up on them so that you can find out that they're not me!

If I had I probably wouldn't have made such a mess with jumping in on this forum - I'd have been a bit more aware of stuff you're talking about regarding LGATs, thought reform, etc.

For the record, I'm generally quite nervous about being in large groups in person - someone mentioned the 'borg mind' in a previous post and I think that can happen quite easily without realizing it. One of the reasons, aside from the fact that I don't have the money for it, that I've not been to the school for the work.

And I think this can happen with online groups as well, which is why I'm keen on checking stuff out for myself rather than blindly accepting what is said - and for now, that includes what is written in this forum by others, regardless of how long they've been on here, number of posts, etc, etc. And you're right to do the same with me.

OK - this seems like enough for now. If you want a full history of my use of The Work, what I've read and what I've listened to, etc, etc then I'd be happy to give that - hell, I'll even give reviews, opinions on them if you want that (this is a joke - definitely).

If there is anything I have not answered for you satisfactorily or that you feel that I have avoided then I'm happy to respond over time, either one on one or in the group - generally I prefer to keep things on forums as I've been involved in other groups where one on one conversations can undermine what's going on in the group - I certainly don't want to get into what seemed to happen with the member called Ralpher. Given the suspicions about me it would seem sensible to conduct conversations with me through the group rather than in private (for the benefit of full disclosure, jj52 did contact me one-on-one - her sharing of her own experience in coming into this forum has been invaluable in helping me to stick in here rather than run away).

jj52 has mentioned on this group about contacting the relevant authorities in California regarding her experience with The Work - if that's feels right for her I say do that. Scrutiny hopefully keeps people and organisations honest and exposes people and organisations that aren't.

Lastly, if you want me to leave this forum I'll respect that as well - I've already learnt a lot of good stuff from my short time on here and I would walk away with a much better feel for where you're coming from with this stuff. If I'm simply making a bigger hole for myself then I'm happy to leave rather than keep digging

Lastly, lastly, I'm aware there's probably a whole bunch of stuff I've not covered in what's been said, but this already feels like a long posting and I'm now feeling tired and have others things to do, like job hunting :-)

With love and thanks,

Jon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2008 09:55PM by rrmoderator.

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