Excellent article here

[www.selectsmart.com]

Reader Michael Hopkins shares this with us.


'I grew up in a house where people claimed to see disembodied spirits, live with spirit guides, read minds, did whatever that load of people do when they hold jewelry and tell you about the owner. I dealt with psychics and indulged heavily in the 70's proclivity for "warm fuzzies."

'Other "on the same wavelength" stuff ran rampant, as did automatic writing, meditation (Red [feel your feet begin to relax], orange [your legs are floating light as air], yellow [now your stomach feels very easy. Feel the stress fade away], blue [now your forehead, every little muscle, is free from tension]…now you're with your spirit guides, and you're being bathed in white light), Tarot, and a penchant for carob over chocolate.

'I can't tell you how many years it took me to rid myself of that very harmful claptrap. I'm an intelligent fellow, but to live since childhood convinced that you're surrounded by unseen beings (you could see if you'd just tune in) and forces that drive every single atom to some purposeful end, driven by the infinite battle between good and evil, to which you yourself must play a fated part (it will become clear to you when you can get in touch with your past lives. That's when it will all become evident) — well, I can probably add up the years where that sort of thing destroyed my emotional stability — as well as my drive to live in this world and do something with this life — and I'd make it ten, at least.

'I didn't begin to live until I learned to trust my observation and intelligence over my upbringing and exposures to all that nonsense. Only it isn't just nonsense, is it? It's harmful, dangerous, and destructive.

'Others around us set up shop and taught courses in this stuff for something akin to $250 per person. Nice bit of change. I suppose I could have made a handy living, had I not been restrained by the knowledge that I was somehow unable to do those things, had I not somehow — who knows how or why — been born with an ethical underpinning that makes it very difficult for me to lie, and more difficult to cheat people, no matter how gullible they are or even how much I dislike them.

'Somewhere right now, there's a kid (thousands or hundreds of thousands, really) who is being indoctrinated into these things by people who he or she trusts and believes. A schism is developing because love and devotion can't undo the observation that these things aren't really happening. The child is terrified by the unseen or terrified that there isn't an unseen to be terrified by. The alternative is parents who are not to be trusted in the most basic and fundamental ways. If the child forces himself or herself to believe, the love for the parent can remain intact, whole, and the parent can be admired, looked up to, revered.

'Well, that's my theory anyway, born from experience. My mother, whom I have no contact with these days, used to pop up from her slouched sitting position and stare amazedly as Nefertiti (Yeah, Akhenaten's wife) walked through our kitchen. No one else saw Nefertiti, of course, but mom had this connection: she said she used to be a prostitute in ancient Egypt. Automatic writing yielded that little item, but I can't quite figure out how the queen of Egypt was connected with a common Egyptian prostitute. Must be those enigmatic fates at work again, eh?

'As an aside, not one of these enlightened, spiritually guided people lived a happy life. Not one that I can count. Eventually belief, love, and fuzzies crumbled for all of them. None walked away with any benefit from the self-deceptions. Misery, loss, hate. That's what the spirit guides failed to warn them of; that's what the white light couldn't bathe away. But I'll bet they're all still intrigued and take fleeting hope and succor from John and Sylvia.

[www.randi.org]



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My dear friends are caught up in this flim-flam! [www.azuritepress.com] Anna Hayes also known as Ashayana Deane is the fluzzy at the helm of this starship going to freakville. She's made claims that she started this whole Indigo child thing, but actually she ripped someone else off in 1982. Oh I guess I should mention that Mrs. Deane wrote a couple of books called Voyager 1 & 2. You can check out the reviews at amazon. If anyone else has any other info on this group or Mrs. Hayes please let me know.

I first saw Indigo child stuff posted on an otherwise good website for parents of children with ADD.

If you have a troubled child, you're so vulnerable.

It's time to shut these monkies down!!!

Oh my goodness, I couldn't even read all that weirdness at [www.azuritepress.com.] I clicked on their Indigo link. What are they talking about?? -- wait, I don't want to know. It must take a lot of time and a fair amount of intelligence to figure out a complete system like that. If only they would use that intelligence for something rational and helpful instead of targeting kids as supernatural beings. These poor kids are expected to have the answers to solve the world's problems. They'll be so confused about reality that they won't be able to function.

Sometimes I feel like I stepped into the Twilight Zone. How can we fight it? I have even gone onto a New Age organizations's bulletin board to try to influence people to be a little suspicious, to use some critical thinking, but I'm completely ignored. It's like they can tell I'm not one of them. I have a completely different way of looking at reality. Like, I think there really is an actual reality. It' s not all illusion. Gee, what a concept! I believe that some things do happen by coincidence and luck and chance, and that if I'm thinking about my friend right before she calls me, I didn't make her call me with my thoughts (although I like to joke that I did.)

I started investigating the claims of one New Age leader and discovered charity fraud, and more. I reported it to the police and other agencies, but I have no idea if they can or will do much about it. Most are overburdened with more serious fraud cases. Sometimes they need actual victims to complain, not just an anonymous tip. But the victims here don't know they are victims, and many just don't care if they are misled because of all the "good" the person is doing. Easy to please, I'd say.

Meanwhile, I want to get the truth out to the public. I hate knowing something and not letting everyone else know, but I don't want to disclose my identity because I don't want to open myself up to a wave of criticism (or retaliation) for trying to bring down a great spiritual martyr. Ugh, this could drive me crazy. Any ideas? Is there a popular website (because it would be pointless to put it out there if no one would see it) where I could post my main piece of evidence anonymously, or should I just wait longer and let the authorities decide what to do? It has only been about two weeks.
Thanks.
Peony.

Your right! Where do you post something like this? Even Rick Ross won't let you post something unless you have a considerable amount of evidence. I can understand their reasoning, because of law suits and such. So where does a person post this stuff? Perhaps it would be wise to create your own web site. I personally have had to do all my own research and I'm just about ready to stir the pot. This group (Azurite Temple) is so paronoid about everything that it won't be hard to get under their skin. Not that I think I'd really want to be under their skin, but they deserve a good old fashioned scrubbing!

First, how to educate the world?

One way is via [www.Craigslist.org]

Craigslist is a free bulletin board that has franchises in most major cities.

Note to people who use Craigslist in New York City

Hope and I put cult alert warnings on Craigslist in both SF and NYC. *We only do this with groups that have a documented track record of abuse.

But warnings about worrisome groups are often flagged and removed from the NYC board within a few hours. It appears that New Yorkers are easily offended.If enough people who use the board vote to flag, the post is removed. (Kind of like Survivor).

In NYC if people dont like your post they do not counter-post. Instead, they flag your post. When enough of them do this, your post is removed. *No one gets to read your information and decide for themselves what to do with it.
Thus an informal censorship dynamic exists on Craigslist in NYC that does not appear to exist other CL city boards. *The webmaster has nothing to do with this.* It is a quirk in the behavior of the people using the various websites.

This 'trigger happy' response does not appear to be tied to any one group. The NYC attitude seems to be, if you dislike someone's post, you kill it because it should not exist.

BTW Hope has been through this too. She reports the same problems you have.

But, every time she and I get tired and are ready to give up educating the public, someone thanks us.

So, dont give up

Peony, I had that same 'not-in-the- same-tribe' feeling while sitting in on a lecture by a big superstar in the human potential movement.

IMO he was a snob, lacked empathy, yet his audience doted on his every utterance. Later, when I fact checked a lot of the things he mentioned, the guy turned out to have lied about some very important things.

At one point the guy mentioned Carlos Castaneda--either knew him or claimed they were friends.

Everyone in the room (this was spring, 2002) went 'Ooooh!!!'

I sat there and thought, 'But Castaneda's work has been exposed as fabrication and that he got his Ph.D on false pretenses. Doesnt anyone here know about any of this or care?'

This was a audience mostly composed of psychotherapists and other types of healers who were mostly in thier 40s and 50s.

But--despite having academic degrees, most of them apparently did not care about rational thinking, scientific method or the use and evaluation of evidence. Inspiration and experience were all that mattered. Despite thier age and social sophistication, and the time they'd spent in school, this was a group of people who looked like adults but and seemed to still hunger for magical parent figures. People like this are easily led if you know how to find their fantasies and tweak them.

When you've rejected (or never came to terms with) rational thinking and objective reality and instead crave a magical fix, you're fresh, ripe meat for New Age sharks and piranhas. Without rational thought and a willingness to do your own fact checking, you're as defenceless as a baby. And there are people out there who are ready to prey on you.

The 'New Age' is a profitable niche market. Out in the New Religions thread there's scary info about a bogus tantra master. He targets women in the alternative healing arts, studies their biographical info using their brochures and websites.

Then he calls them up, claiming to have a psychic connection. And lots of them have fallen for it.

The ones he's exploited are the ones who are excited about all things psychic. They dont think to ask 'Maybe he learned all this about me from my website.'

My hunch is a lot of people sincerely believe that being spiritual means rejecting rational thought and regressing to a blissful child's state of mind.

If you regress to childhood and ditch your adult reasoning, you are easily manipulated by someone who has the mentality of a child molester and is smart enough to target people who are children in adults' bodies.

I just want to say that I appreciate your responses, and they make sense. I'm in the right tribe here.

It is upsetting to me to see how psychotherapy has gone backwards rather than forward since I attended college for the same decades ago. I felt disgusted then too.

In all fairness to those who fall for New Age manipulators, I think there are those who clutch to the fantasy world and there is probably nothing we can say to change that, but there are also people like me. I just tossed out the last of my homeopathic remedies about a year ago, and certainly bought my share of fat magnets in my life. I just didn't know how to evaluate such things, and now I'm getting better at it, but still fall for unproven things sometimes. And it took me decades to realize that a certain close relative of mine was not much different than the manipulative cult and seminar leaders we talk about here. I defended him to the hilt and accused his victims of lying. People tried to tell me what was happening sometimes, but I just turned it against them. An arrest to me meant he was being "railroaded."
So, I'll try to lighten up on people who defend manipulative creeps. They may come around to see the true dynamics at some point, like I did.

Thanks again. I like this forum. It's just what I need right now.
Peony

My therapist specializes in working with traumatized people and those with dissociative disorders. So he sees lots of people with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

I asked K if he used EMDR, a technique that is supposed to be great for alleviating PTSD.

He replied 'No I dont use EMDR. I reviewed the literature (which meant he went to high quality peer-reviewed journals) and overall the reports were that people either did not have their symptoms alleviated by EMDR, or they experienced temporary relief, and then their symptoms returned--sometimes worse than before.

'So it appeared with EMDR the risks outwiegh the alleged benefits.'

Only reason K could do this was he'd gone to a good clinical social work program, sat through all the obligatory classes on research design and statistics, and trained himself to think like a scientist--while still keeping his warm, loving heart.

The rules and methods of science protect us from mere wishful thinking and fantasy. They force us to test our dreams and let them go if the dreams cant pass the test.

To do that means being willing to grow up and tolerate some frustration.

But a lot of therapists either dont get rigorous training on research design and how to tell quality research from hype, or if they do get such training, may risk forgetting it once they graduate, pass exams and go into private practice.

And as good hearted people eager to help, many therapists may be unaware that they could be targeted by entrepreneurs who are charismatic, have plausible credentials, but aggressively peddle interventions that have not been rigorously tested and peer reviewed.