Am thinking of opening a thread based on material shared by persons who were in SYDA/Siddha Yoga during
the period of time (1970s--1996) who have published accounts online.

This is an avenue for speculation.

This already-published material leaves me wondering whether recovery has been greatly hampered because subjects from SY thought they were exposed merely to a toxic patriarchal Hindu guru set up that went rotten due to lack of social controls in the free wheeling context of the US in the 1970s/80s.

I have been struck by how hard survivors have struggled to recover and still feel haunted by the powerful experiences they had--shaktipat or guru's grace.

But...what if they were affected by an ingredient hidden from them--US style LGAT technology.

Google SYDA yoga and 'werner' and 'Landmark' and 'Lifespring.'

And Werner Erhard sponsored Muktananda in one of his early visits to the US.

It may be that those struggling to recover from a seemingly ancient Hindu practice path were also affected by LGAT technology and may be hampered in recovering because they do not know because they were not told that LGAT techn was hidden under the trappings of seemingly venerable Hindu practice.

At least those who took EST or Lifespring, or (fill in name of current LGAT here) KNOW they were affected by this entity. They know what word to put into a Google search. Once at RR.com, they know which part of the data base and forum to go to.

But what if you were hit by a dose of both overt toxic Hindusim and covert LGAT?

A person in this predicament has been betrayed by their guru. And... that person cant even tell his or her therapist or exit counselor the full information needed for that professional to identify the proper antidotes...

More later.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2008 01:29AM by corboy.

corboy,

In following your writing about both LGAT and Syda yoga, I have found similarities with the Chris Butler cult, another Americanized Hindu off-shoot. I think you might be on to something here. Ex Butler members may have some of the same struggles with recovery as you describe.

I would like to see the differences and comparisons between "a toxic patriarchal Hindu guru set up" and "LGAT technology" set ups.

Quote

what if you were hit by a dose of both overt toxic Hindusim and covert LGAT?

That would be an interesting topic.

I am curious about what happens when you take this toxic guru system and apply it in a western culture, without the support of the originating society (India) -- it seems there is more going on.

I'd like to see a flow chart of how the LGAT techniques are applied with Hindu "grace". (I like graphic organizers and charts). :)

How modern or recent are LGAT techniques? Are there any elements that have been used before in history?

This is mostly based on material shared by persons who were in SYDA/Siddha Yoga during the period of time (1970s--1996) who have published accounts online. Matters may since have changed.

But for those in SY still struggling to recover and who berate themselves for being weak of will...do ask if possibly it is time to examine LGAT (large group awareness training) 'tech' for its un romantic but powerful methods may have been concealed beneath the seemingly ancient Hindu trappings, incense and silk brocades.

“LGATs (Large Group Awareness Trainings) were all the rage when I was growing up in the 70s. They include Werner Erhart's now-defunct est, its successor The Forum (aka Landmark Education), Lifespring, and many spin-offs. I've never attended these, though the many Intensives I experienced with Swami Muktananda were heavily influenced by Werner, and gave me a strong taste of the group dynamic. The Truth about Human Potential Seminars is a blog covering the LGATs; The Awareness Page offers many links they say will help Awareness consumers make conscious informed decisions; and Rick Ross' site has the video Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus, a 2004 French TV report with hidden cameras inside an actual Landmark training.”

[home.comcast.net]

This statement caught my attention.

“though the many Intensives I experienced with Swami Muktananda were heavily influenced by Werner, and gave me a strong taste of the group dynamic”.

First, it does appear that a very enterprising American, Werner Erhard, founder of EST, played a crucial role in the history of Siddha/SYDA Yoga. This is from a website that celebrates the life of Muktananda, founder of SY.

(Quote)
"Westerners began to visit Baba’s ashram Shree Gurudev Siddha Peeth…Baba’s ashram took on the quality of an emperor’s court, with a steady line of faithful coming for spiritual advice, to make offerings of flowers and fruit….

"His reputation as a meditation master had spread throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. Werner Erhard’s EST Seminars were a phenomenally popular personal transformation process throughout the U.S. He came to meet Baba in Ganeshpuri in 1973, and invited him as a guest to visit the US. Baba accepted and was introduced to huge audiences in the west...."
(Unquote)
[www.babasfootsteps.com]

Doing Google, I found the following that indicate how pervasively LGAT’s were bundled into SY. This seemingly ancient Hindu practice path was like chocolate covered ants. The Hindu guru theatre was the chocolate. The LGAT techniques were the ants.

[www.ex-cult.org]

Subj: SYDA style brainwashing & est
Date: 96-04-11 07:49:42 EDT
From: Howie Sm

Dear AOL readers,

It was said that the Siddha Yoga intensive format was directly borrowed from est. The following quoted material shows that est and Siddha Yoga use the same techniques of verbal abuse and public humiliation to induce altered states and to brainwash. These cults have important points of similarity.

The following est participant's narrative could be titled "a Siddha Yoga
course," or "the making of a Vedanta-style sociopath," or "brainwashing
narcissists," or "inducing altered states through cult pressure," or "a
spiritual seeker gets his money's worth."

BEGIN QUOTED MATERIAL<<< (begin participant's narrative) "The physical
discomfort and badgering left me horrified, and feeling very weird. Time had stopped running in any usual sense, and I was having unexpected feelings of all kinds. At one point, when the trainer called my friend a TOS for trying to console a woman who was crying, I got enraged; I wanted to see the trainer dead. I realizd that I was beginning to lose any sense of where I was in the real world, and even who I usually was.

And then suddenly it came clear! I was the prisoner of my own compulsion to help everyone and be kind to them. The trainer was right; I didn't have to be tied down by this attitude.

I was free to choose what I might think and feel, independent of forty years of programming.

Then the whole room seemed to slip away, and I no longer cared about eating, peeing, or how long the whole damn thing would run on. I felt liberated, released from a long prison term." (end participant's narrative)

(The AOL correspondant continued)In one sense, this represented a transition to a full-blown "culture of narcissism" in which the individual owes allegiance only to the self. Participants in the est program often feel released from the commitments born out of fidelity to their fellow humans, allowing them to indulge themselves without guilt.>>>END QUOTED MATERIAL

Subj: ManyThanks
Date: 96-04-11 16:45:50 EDT
From: BVena

I am soooo thankful for the internet. ......The fact that I was in SY for 13 years and knew little is very telling of what kind of society exists there. This type of discussion would be possible if the parties involved had to meet by chance. What I myself saw was enough to make me stop going to the ashram. It wasn't enough to make me question the validity of SY as a whole.

But now knowing about the sex, violence and EST like morals of the central people has really done it. It's just too much to rationalize away.

I am sure I would have gone on thinking that was inadequate and a fallen yogi for the rest of my life. Never questioning the appalling circumstances that put that kind of gibberish into my head.

This has all happened in just the last 2-3 months so I'm still kind of raw
and blistered. I remember reading Howies posts and thinking "what a jerk. I
just will not read this!". Dissent scared me. Now it makes sense....(edited for brevity C) …
WGRL
Raj

Subj: Re: ManyThanks
Date: 96-04-11 17:57:58 EDT
From: Dissent222

Raj, I congratulate you on freeing yourself. I also spent about 13 years
under the spell. Please don't be scared of me - I'm a nice guy, just need to
be anon so as to avoid law suits. It's not quite 2 years since I made the
break, and I'm still working on getting myself back together. I lived and
worked there most of those years - of course on a small stipend, no benefits,

no IRAs or 401(k) -- but plenty of abuse. It was just great reading
Outrageous Betrayal, about Werner Erhard, because these gurus are all the same - it could be the story of GM. They lie about their identity, abuse those close to them, live for power and money, are paranoid, obssessive compulsive, and incredibly seductive.

Subj: Landmark Forum
Date: 96-04-12 06:44:56 EDT
From: Dissent222

Someone wrote me asking about Landmark Forum - here is my reply:

Thanks for the note. The Landmark Forum is the remains of the Werner Erhard empire. Erhard himself, the founder of est, and then the Forum, is in exile. ...

Very few of his disciples remained loyal to him, but those who did are now
the heads of the Landmark Forum. They minimize their connection to Erhard, but he is their God. It is a watered down version of the old est training.

The program is a sadistic, confrontational blend of scientology and Dale
Carnegie and Napoleon Hill and a few other really crackpot old mind training schemes. The program pretends to shock people into letting go of all their "stuff", fast, badda-bing, badda-bang, badda-boom. By the end, you're supposed to "get it." What you get is intense sales pitches and extreme pressure to recruit other people, and continue to spend more and more money on endless follow up courses.

All this is detailed thoroughly in "Outrageous Betrayal." Many SYDA people, in New York and Oakland, participate in the Forum.

As if being exploited in one destructive cult isn't enough.

Thanks again for writing…



(This reflects the situation as of 1995-1996 at the time the AOL thread was written. Again...why were that many SYDA people involved with Forum? Was it a cheaper way to get a shaktipat like buzz than doing a SYDA intensive that reputedly incorprated the same tech but cost more? Only some insightful SYDA alums can answer that.)

Vera: I cannot directly answer your questions.

Only persons who have been through a particular group and then study its deviations from the Hindu norm AND also take the trouble to read up on LGAT techniques can answer that question.

I found material pertaining to one group--SY on some old AOL threads from 1995-1996. The situation may be different today in SY--one hopes so.

But in looking at the material published on AOL during that time period, 12 years ago, readers can use it as a case study and then look at their own organizations and ponder the matter for themselves.

Until now we have tended to separate the Asian style groups in one area, and the LGAT's with their un romantic American style impersonal, robotic 'tech' in another area.

But if we dare ask whether some seemingly Hindu gurus covertly shopped for tools in the US Human Potential supermarket...then its worth asking if people may be affected both by the toxic Hinduism and also by covert application of LGAT tech---done without thier knowing they were subjects in an LGAT set up, rather than devotees or chelas following a 3,000 year old path handed down from the forest sages of India.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(This material refers to a situation that took place from the 1970s to 1996. Matters today may be different. The material here and that quoted above is offered as a case history to persons struggling to recover, thinking they were affected only by a guru and who, without knowing it, may be suffering lingering effects from LGAT tech that was covertly used by thier guru.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Discussion Continued Here
[www.ex-cult.org]
Subj: Re:Landmark Forum
Date: 96-04-12 10:05:03 EDT
From: Dissent222

More on Landmark Forum. Did you know Werner Erhard's real name is Jack Rosenbeg, ......

This is the man that so many people have trusted and believed in as their
savior. So many people in SYDA are going to these workshops. It's a bad
scene.

Note this last phrase…’So many people in SYDA are gong to these workshops. It’s a bad scene.’

(C asks: Why were they ‘going to these workshops’? Were they advised to go by SYDA Higher ups? Or did the SY people go to LGATs as a sort of OTC, as a way to replicate replicate the SYDA high, but cost less than doing the SYDA intensives apparently did cost serious money?

Regarding this, within the same thread there is a discussion of how secretive and greedy Muktananda was about money and he apparently was secretive about how many devotees took the intensive (reportedly incorporating ‘tech’ imparted from Werner Erhards EST)

Subj: CQ
Date: 96-04-24 06:21:40 EDT
From: BartlettQ

>"There was always a lot of secrecy around ashram affairs, Lotte Grimes
remarked. During Muktananda's lifetime, that secrecy applied to money matters with a vengeance.

The number of people who came to intensives, for example, was a secret even from the devotees. Simple multiplication would tell anyone how much money was coming in. .."

(C ponders:...here is a question…did some SY people supplement their sadhana by doing LGAT’s because an EST, Lifespring or Forum weekend gave pretty much the same buzz but was cheaper than paying for a SYDA intensive? Again, only the SY veterans can answer that question.)

But its worth putting the question out there. C)



Subj: The SYDA/est conflict, c. 1990
Date: 96-04-12 13:21:55 EDT
From: Howie Sm

Dear AOL readers,

More Siddha Yoga history connecting an est spinoff to the SYDA discipleship. Did you hear about the SYDA mess in Houston during late 1990?

After much three-way conflict between the center steering committee, center participants, and GM/South Fallsburg, a SYDA center closed because SYDAites were promoting LIFESPRING (an est spinoff) events during center programs.

Related to this is the story that around this time, Houston ashramites were
prohibited from doing seva (labor) because of their participation in
LIFESPRING.

and
Subj: est gossip
Date: 96-04-13 02:28:40 EDT
From: Soloflyr11

don't know the details or if this is true but just thought you might like to
hear the rumor that i heard. i heard that replacing george (George Afif, an assistant to Gurumayi, Muktananda's successor) is a woman that
was est-werner's assistant..... so the connections go on? or maybe there's
nothing to it....

Subj: SYDA and Erhard
Date: 96-04-13 06:09:17 EDT
From: Dissent222

Solo, Catherine Parrish is the new George Afif, except of course she's not
also having an affair with Gurumayi and seducing women in the ashram.
Catherine was once the Exec. Officer of the Hunger Project, Erhard's brazen
scheme to collect money in the name of ending hunger without actually giving any of that money to any organization or person that had anything to do with ending hunger. OK, he gave a few thousand of the millions he collected to Oxfam, once. So Catherine Parrish ran that for Werner. She and her husband Bill were both very active in est and the Forum and were high-ups in the Werner Erhard world.


A remark by an exit counselor who had worked with thirty or so SY survivors.

Subj: Baran and Grimes
Date: 96-04-20 10:44:37 EDT
From: BartlettQ

>But Josh Baran of Berkeley, a cult counselor who has worked with about 30 ex-followers of Muktananda, believes that many devotees are victims of mind control and that the late Muktananda was a hypocrite who ruthlessly
controlled and exploited his closest followers.

"At first they were hesitant to talk about it," Baran said during a recent meeting with five former Muktananda followers and a reporter in Baran's home near the Oakland Siddha ashram. "

Then they began to open up and . . . the anger started coming out .
. . the repressed feelings. And they began to say what they actually saw."<

>Said R., an executive assistant to Muktananda during the 1970s:

"I hate to use the word brainwashing, but, for lack of a better word, the
realization at least for me personally that . . . decisions relative to what
to do with my life were completely controlled and manipulated . . . was the
worst aspect of it. It has even now taken so many years for the effects of
that to wear off . . . . In my mind that's the greatest damage that's done."<

Finally, this may account for why many in SY combined that practice with various LGATs.

Subj: "Necessary evil" apologism 1/2
Date: 96-04-26 04:21:01 EDT
From: Howie Sm

PART 1 OF 2

Dear AOL readers,

Many cult apologists are habituated to the "high" conferred by SYDA
practices. These folk use thought-cork favorites like: "Trust your
experiences," "I follow the inner, not the outer, guru," and "though I have
problems with the organization, I continue to evolve from its energy."

And many apologists who claim to have cut back on their participation in SYDA programs are still cultish, and worship (if not the cult leader) THE CULT HIGH--as if it were itself spirituality. Apologists often believe that the
SYDA Foundation is unique in its ability to confer this high, and thus should
be preserved despite its core problems--this is the "necessary evil"
argument. The following addresses this disordered, apologist line of
thought.

SEE PART 2

Subj: "Nec. evil" apologism 2/2
Date: 96-04-26 04:22:29 EDT
From: Howie Sm

PART 2

BEGIN QUOTED MATERIAL<<

www.ex-cult.org/Groups/SYDA-Yoga/aol-syda-discussion-3

“Shaktipat is defined as the spiritual wakening of an individual by a Guru. In the stories of past Guru’s related by Siddha Yoga and even in Swami Muktananda’s own auto biography it is quite normal for people to spend many years of hard work and spiritual practices before being given this gift.

I have wondered how this has changed. Now we have a Guru that promises Shaktipat for a fee. While it is frequently stated that the Intensive is the program, designed by Swami Muktananda, (or was it Werner Erhart) to give Shaktipat, it is only occasionally stated that one can get Shaktipat outside of an intensive. Why is that? Many people take the intensive and say later that nothing happened. Siddha Yoga responds that whatever happens in the intensive is just perfect for that individual, thereby covering all the bases.

“Is it true that Katherine Parrish, who heads raising money for the Prasad project, used to raise money for "The Hunger Project" for EST? Isn’t this the one that most of the money went to people’s pockets and not to the poor?

“Another problem has been the shift towards psychological growth techniques. Why does an enlightened being need to come up with more and more courses to teach us? Aren’t the traditional texts of India good enough? It’s almost like they need to do something different and exciting to get peoples attention (and money). The No Ego Course for example taught about several types of egos. **Someone later found the psych book that the information came from, listing the types of egos.**”
“Submitted: July 1996”

[www.leavingsiddhayoga.net]

To conclude--all the quoted material here and above relates to events that took place up to 1996, the period of the AOL thread.

But it traces out how at least some devotees of a path claimed to be ancient and authentically Hindu demonstrated a predilication for LGATs--and that their founder guru, Muktananda, had been a protege of Werner Erhard, who seems to have functioned in a most interesting way as a talent scout.

To recover from Muktananda and his path, one may also need to study up on LGATs, and their unromantic but very potent 'tech'---an area that many former devotees seem never to examine.

How can one recover from an LGAT if you dont even know your guru applied LGAT tech and did not say so?

At least someone who felt harmed by thier session in (say) Lifespring, would know exactly where to go online or what to tell a therapist or exit counselor.

But if a seemingly Hindu guru covertly used LGAT tech, devotees might never know what was done to them, and lack the full information needed to give an accurate account of their situation to an exit counselor.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2008 05:49AM by corboy.

Vera, creating that sort of flow chart may have to be customized for each person's group. So persons in your group will have to do that assignment. I am just an outsider who can do a flyover and suggest areas for others with 'on the ground' experience to do for themselves.

There was an interesting discussion by persons exposed to different LGATs about the impact on their dreams. Some reported cessation of dreams or that their dreams became frightening, especially after leaving.

Sometimes our deepest and wisest selves speak to us in dreams. To lose access to one's dreams may mean losing access to a buried part of oneself that might otherwise have led you to leave a sitauation that is harming you, robbing you of your integrity.

And if someone has nightmares or heavy and vivid dreams after leaving an LGAT (or a fake Hindu group that covertly used LGAT tech without telling you) such nightmares could tie in with fears implanted that you risk a bad end if you dare to question or leave that guru or group.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Zorro wrote this on September 24 th 2007

Yep it definately affects a lot of stuff.

I even stopped dreaming when I was asleep. I discussed this with another Lekkie when I first started Landmark and she was experiencing the same thing. I've started having dreams now that I've left Landmark. Some are quite disturbing I often wake up with sweat soaked clothes. This used to not happen, not with the temp I keep my place at night.

Anyone else experience this?
ON2LF replied:

I recall my friend telling me once that she doesn't have dreams, and this was prior to her re-involvement with landmark. She had taken a forum over a decade before she got re-involved. That is scary. Perhaps someone could give a psychological explanation for dreams, it may be clearer as to why a person doesn't dream after being psychologically butchered in a landmark forum.

On September 25th ‘Saneagain wrote concerning another LGAT called ‘Quest’

I recall my friend telling me once that she doesn't have dreams, and this was prior to her re-involvement with landmark. She had taken a forum over a decade before she got re-involved. That is scary. Perhaps someone could give a psychological explanation for dreams, it may be clearer as to why a person doesn't dream after being psychologically butchered in a landmark forum.

flexicon1996
Date Added: 07/10/2008
Quote:
ON2 LF
Perhaps someone could give a psychological explanation for dreams, it may be clearer as to why a person doesn't dream after being psychologically butchered in a landmark forum.

My guess is that the serotonin levels have been depleted by the LGAT experience. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter responsible for regulating mood as well as sleep and dreams, among other things, and it can get "used up" if rapidly released, so it wouldn't surprise me that after the group's intense emotional rollercoaster and self-hypnotic "mind-imagery" sessions, the brain simply can't muster a dream.

The same dreamless period (called "Zen sleep") is also noted in users of psychedelics that monkey around with serotonin balance/release and lasts a few days as the brain recovers its normal levels.

And, a discussion thread on an EST derived LGAT and bipolar spectrum disorder
[forum.culteducation.com]

If anyone in an organization that makes itself look Hindu but covertly uses LGAT tech, the stuff described above might be part of what a person in such an organization might experience—not knowing the impact that concealed LGAT tech can have.

This is an avenue that now must be taken further by persons who have themselves been in such organizations.

These days any time I hear of some person ‘spontaneously enlightened’ giving gatherings, and then that person starts offering offering weekend or week long ‘intensives’, I now have to wonder, whether, along with the photo of some Indian guru on the wall, that person might have served an apprentice ship on the ‘American sadhu circuit’—by volunteering for, or working in an LGAT.

Its easy to mention where and whom one studied with in India, give descriptions of visiting Ramana Maharshi’s ashram and his cave on Mt Arunchalaa..but not mention what one has learned about LGAT tech.

Anything that disrupts both sleep and our access to our own dreams is a hindrance to our own true growth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2017 07:29PM by rrmoderator.

Neurolinguistic Programming? Install?

(Drawn from material on AOL discussion thread 1995/96. Matters may be different today. But persons in SY during the period covered by the AOL discussion may find this useful if concerned that they are still feeling lingering effects despite diligent work with therapists and a sincere desire to be free)

One of the correspondants on another thread, The Anticult ,had some questions about a method used during the month long SYDA intensive, whether the word 'install' was used in reference to a visualization of the guru inside the devotee's own body.

[forum.culteducation.com]

(C's introduction) '..in SYDA (the period discussed on the AOL thread) people were at that time trained to be dependent on that guru, not encouraged to be adult and autonomous.

Other people longed to become members of GM's inner circle, slaved away at the comparatively menial jobs, hoping they'd rise to entourage status,and were disappointed. In those days, proximity to the guru ('darshan' 'guru's grace') was everything.

Accordign to a 1996 correspondance on AOL, a former devotee (who, interestingly, mentioned also having done EST), mentioned a particular meditation exercise practiced toward the end of the SYDA month long intensive, as practiced at that time.

This former member mentioned that those who took a month long SDYA intensive were at one point instructed to internalize the guru (at this time, Gurumayi, Muktananda's successor--internalize this guru within thier own bodies.

In the words of psychotherapy, to make Gurumayi their maternal introject.

“As the Course dragged on and the Rule of Silence was imposed, I began to fear I could really slip off the deep end, especially after the "secret" install-the-Guru-in-your-bodymeditation which did NOT feel like a loving thing to do to myself, despite everyone's doe-eyed testimonials to the contrary…”

The full account from this devotee was quoted at length below to give the full context.

(Corboy ponders)It is my educated layman's hunch that if a guru were to encourage a significant number of her devotees to internalize her within their bodies, and then suddenly disappear on them, with no explanation, such abandonment would be especially drastic and could well have left them reeling.

Here, at length is the account given by the person quoted above:

[www.ex-cult.org]

Full account:

Subj: Another ex delurks (cont'd)
Date: 96-04-27 23:48:30 EDT
From: LifeAftrSY

Finally, after agonizing indecision, I quit graduate school and EST and moved into one of GM's ashrams. I had a distinct thought that checking into this institution voluntarily was far better than being committed to one
involuntarily, a direction I feared I was heading. Even my parents were
mildly supportive (though clearly, if cluelessly, concerned). And my state
did improve somewhat.

Unfortunately, I started to see the ashram as my home instead of a temporary way-station. I went on staff in the kitchen and limited my social life almost entirely to devotees. I devoured the Correspondence Course. I took as many courses as possible, and did more than enough seva to win the trust of the management. I took, assisted, and occasionally taught Hatha Yoga. I eventually did virtually every seva in the ashram but manage the place.

I think a lot of devotees may have seen me as a model devotee, with the one annoying tendency of putting down my mind frequently. It took my almost ten years to discover that this is what I HAD to do to keep myself on the "Siddha Path".

I spent as much time with Gurumayi as possible, even going to India twice to be around her in the "heartland" of SY. I had some very deep and tranquil meditations at times. I hoped for the day she might pick me for something special, bring me into the inner circle somehow, but it never happened.

To the end, I remained a gopher, and my main real satisfaction is that I got
pretty good at it.

The end of my relationship with SY was also precipitated by a nervous
breakdown. I decided to save money to take the first Month-Long Course in
Ganeshpuri, (India) and my boss at work agreed to allow me to work 12-hour days towards that end.

A couple months before that summer, I got involved in an affair with another devotee, and a monkey-wrench was thrown into my plans of sailing into the Month-Long Course and becoming utterly and finally purified of this nagging sense of wrongness I could never get rid of.

The short-lived affair was unexpectedly stormy, and it continued into the Course because she was also attending it. To make matters worse, we were discussing marriage in India before the course started. I started having the wierd dissociated feeling I had when I was leaving graduate school, like I was living in a bubble of denial that I couldn't break out of.

As the Course dragged on and the Rule of Silence was imposed, I began to fear I could really slip off the deep end, especially after the "secret" install-the-Guru-in-your-bodymeditation which did NOT feel like a loving thing to do to myself, despite everyone's doe-eyed testimonials to the contrary.

I wrote Gurumayi about what was happening with me and she had her secretary tell me to meet Swami Umeshananda (the former shrink) when I got back to the States, and to do a lot of sports there too. I told everyone I was surprised and relieved at her compassion - I expected her to assign me to garden seva or something..."

Anticult replied"

[forum.culteducation.com]

Install the guru in your body meditation?

for real?!

Did the SYDA people use the word "install" or was that added later?
Because that is a phrase right out of NLP-hypnosis modeling.
"Install the X in your body".

Just substitute the word INDUCTION for "meditation".

"Install the Guru in your body (hypnotic) Induction".

That is flat-out hypnotic engineering out of NLP. (NLP is just a technical and systematic way to model-copy anything).
To take the image of the Guru and INSTALL it in the BODY, is incredibly powerful. And that does not go away quickly, it can sit there for many years, if not permanently, if you don't get it out.

That is very profound.

If people went through that type of deep hypnotic conditioning, and then just walked away from Gurumayi, they would feel a deep hole in their psyche. And they would run and plug that emotional hole with someone like Byron Katie, or whomever.

Put it this way.

(Anticult's hunch)

If SYDA used the word "Install" you can be assured that they hired some of the senior NLP of the time to come in and design some processes for them to use on people. They would have taken an old practice of people visualizing their Guru in their chakra's, or whatever, which is ancient.
But the NLP people come in, and spend a few weeks studying it in great detail, and then they shrink it down to its essentials, and come up with something like...INSTALL THE GURU IN YOUR BODY.

They write it into a MANUAL, like they did with countless other things. (I bet we could find out who wrote this NLP program, could have been Robert Dilts as he was into that, even writing a manual on the Cognitive Patterns of Jesus of Nazareth). [www.nlpu.com]

The word INSTALL is very specific. Its designed to become part of the person.
That comes out of the software world, which Richard Bandler was involved in. (you "Install" a software program).
and meditation is just another word for hypnosis.
So it becomes...

Install the Guru in the Body hypnotic Induction.

Does anyone know if SYDA used the word INSTALL?

Also, Byron Katie uses similar but more refined techniques, as she tries to "fuse" with your identity, not in the mere body, but in your very concepts of self.

Quote:
corboy

Gurumayi, leader of SYDA yoga, has not been seen in public for the past 5 years..about 2003.
...
One former member reveals that those who took a month long SDYA intensive were actually at one point trained to internalize Gurumayi (an abusive woman for whom appearances and beautiful clothes were everything)--internalize this guru within thier own bodies.

In the words of psychotherapy, to make Gurumayi their maternal introject. [www.ex-cult.org]

The Hidden Unspoken Ingredient of the Siddha Spell?

Since there was earlier discussion on this thread that related to how some crossed over from Siddha/SYDA Yoga (often abbreviated as 'SY') to other LGATs and even to BK, I researched some ancient SY dialogues posted on AOL between 1995/6 and found some intriguing material.

This can be read on this thread.

[forum.culteducation.com]


SY survivors struggling with their recovery may need to consider whether exposure to covert use of LGAT tech by thier supposedly Kashmiri Shaivite guru could have been an important part of what has affected them...and that some careful study of LGAT tech might powerfully assist them in the ritual of disenchantment.

For if recovering from what seems to be a spell, its important to find out what all the ingredients were.

In the SY cauldron, along with deep personal needs of devotees, patriarchy that went unquestioned, the founder guru's secret appetites for sex and money and power and his concealment that he was not a Hatha Yoga guru, but actually a secret tantrist, was yet another secret--that he had been sponsored to the United States by the founder of Erhard Seminars training and, according to some former members, incorporated tech from EST (the ur-LGAT) into the supposedly traditional Hindu practices used in the 'intensives'.

Whether the intensives are run according to this same format today...I cannot answer that question. But the AOl thread has a lot of suggestive information for the period in SY prior to 1996/7.

Sarah Caldwell, a survivor of SY, wrote a paper

The Heart of the Secret: A Personal and Scholarly Encounter with Shakta
Tantrism in Siddha Yoga:

"The open circles of female adepts surrounding the aspiring maleSiddha at their center, merging together under the gaze of stars and sky,and Abhinavagupta’s pairs of ecstatic tantrikas lost in the merged innerspace of bliss, seem to contrast sharply with the covert nocturnal shufflingsof pubescent girls, sworn to secrecy and shamed into silence, to the bed-room of their aging guru.

Speaking of herself, Caldwell wrote:

"Part of that painful process of self-discovery involved the aspects of thoselast months of Baba’s life that I had not integrated with my own past. Spe-cifically, Baba’s sexual encounters with young women in a context of to-tally unequal power, especially with no apparent explanation to the womenof the meaning or purpose of the practices, had definite abusive aspectsthat I had not fully faced.

"At first denying the truth value of the stories,then, slowly imagining their validity through the veil of Baba’s odd hintsabout Shakta Tantra, I left the ashram with a muddled sense of erotic mys-tery and unknown, unspoken, secret powers. It took many more years forthis heady mix to percolate with my own buried experiences of incestuoussexual abuse, which finally forced themselves into the light of day. Throughintensive psychotherapy, I was able to think through the odd conjunctionsof Tantric symbolism, buried pain, and ecstatic devotion, attempting tosort out and synthesize these diverse currents. "

It is difficult, if not impossible, to see thoseyoung women as entering freely into conscious

By such conscious acts of dissimulation, the heart of the secret is not revealed. The Tantric core of so many of the last century’simported Hindu traditions has successfully been painted over with amore acceptable Shaiva or Vedantic veneer.

The storehouse of powerthat is the Devi, the tortured fantasies of Ramakrishna’s dreams, andthe erotic generatrix of the universe that Baba sought in the bodies ofreal women, the coiled Kundalini Shakti herself, is not unleashed, notacknowledged, not known.

This denial fuels an unhealthy form ofhypocrisy. Baba, at least in those final months as he was facing his immi-nent death, was raucously joyous about it, seemed eager to reveal it, torelease the secrets to the world, teasing, hinting, playing with the wholething. He enjoyed watching us all squirm. We were not ready for hismessage. We were not ready for Tantra.Such “Tantric dissembling” by groups such as the RamakrishnaOrder and Siddha Yoga is, then, part of a hoary tradition.

"Abhinavaguptahimself was the pivotal figure in the shift from medieval Kaula practices,openly celebrated by kings and courtesans, to a disguised, encoded,secret practice hidden within an outer, more socially acceptable form.

Such dissembling set a precedent that has lasted well into the presentday.

White describes the Abbé Dubois’ vivid eighteenth-century accountof “left-handed” practices in India as another example of poorly main-tained secrets; of public hypocrisy, or more politely, “dissimulation” bythose engaging privately in practices they publicly abhor:

"Persons from every walk of life and every part of the social spectrum areparticipating in a nocturnal rite. What happens on the following day?Everyone dissembles, going about their day-to-day life as if nothing hadhappened the night before. Yet everyone knows where they were thenight before, and…everyone in the village, town, or neighborhood wouldalso have been privy to the fact that something was going on in the cre-mation ground or forest grove out on the edge of town on the last newmoon night..."

[www.leavingsiddhayoga.net]

But, what if there is another part of the secret, something Caldwell missed, something written not in Sanskrit, but in American English?

Something not part of ancient Indian tradition at all--modern American LGAT 'tech' slipped into unknowing and therefore nonconsenting people's psyches during what they assumed, because they were told so--were ancient, authentic Hindu rites.

(quote)(unquote“LGATs (Large Group Awareness Trainings) were all the rage when I was growing up in the 70s. They include Werner Erhart's now-defunct est, its successor The Forum (aka Landmark Education), Lifespring, and many spin-offs. I've never attended these, though the many Intensives I experienced with Swami Muktananda were heavily influenced by Werner, and gave me a strong taste of the group dynamic. The Truth about Human Potential Seminars is a blog covering the LGATs; The Awareness Page offers many links they say will help Awareness consumers make conscious informed decisions; and Rick Ross' site has the video Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus, a 2004 French TV report with hidden cameras inside an actual Landmark training.”

[home.comcast.net]

“though the many Intensives I experienced with Swami Muktananda were heavily influenced by Werner, and gave me a strong taste of the group dynamic”.

And...why, according to more than one correspondant on the 1995/1996 AOL dialogues did so many SY devotees reportedly frequent LGATs, along with their SY practice?

And why, after so many years, are so many haunted by the vivid experiences, and sometimes scolded, saying those experiences were merely the product of their own craving minds?

What if those powerful experiences were produced by a powerful, standardized 'tech' borrowed from Werner Erhard by Muktananda, and incorporated into the SY practices--and possibly the intensives?

In which case, these vivid experiences where not necessarily the product of people's needy greedy minds---but produced by something they knew nothing of--and could not, as informed adults, give consent to.

Only those from within SY can answer this after they sit down and read about LGATs and study what others have shared here at RR.com and elsewhere about LGAT technology.

Possible 'LGAT' techniques in my Hindu-based Yoga Meditation Group.

Large Seminar Rooms in the Hotel kept very cold; much colder than the main body of the Hotel. Hotel chairs set up in theatre style seating.

There were long days of learning. At earlier seminars, students would be listening to the Guru talk for up to ten hours for nine or ten days at a time. (It was a question and answer format, but the questions were short and the answers very long.)

In later years this was reduced slightly to an average of eight hours per day. Even though the seminar days were shorter, students were often hyper-excited by the feeling of shared purpose and there was a lot of 'lovey doviness' between the students. They would often stay up all night talking.

Since students were located all over the world, most students had to travel long distances overseas to countries in which they did not know the language. (The effects of overseas travel have been discussed on the Byron Katie thread.)

Most of the students would be exhausted throughout the Seminars and many would sleep intermittently throughout. Large photos of the Guru would be posted on the stage along with perhaps the logo of the Yoga School etc.

I remember during one overseas trip, that many English speaking students were corralled into a darkened upstairs room which became overcrowded and probably a fire risk too. Instead of very cold it was very hot in there. Due to jet-lag I could not remain awake no matter how hard I tried. I slept almost through the whole seminar and remember very little about the trip!

I also remember traveling to some European countries without enough money for hotel accomodation and food. This practice was strongly encouraged by my group leader and it was taken as a sign of faith to be able to do this despite concerns for ones own safety and well-being in a foreign country.

The general notion was that if we trusted the Guru and had faith in God that it was the right thing to learn more, then 'the money will come' and we would be protected and provided for.

In fact on that occasion, some members of the group ended up providing lodging for myself and another student and even giving us money for food. We did not admit that it had been a foolhardy thing to do and that we had essentially taken advantage of the kindess of others who were more prepared. We felt that we had passed the 'money' test. This increased our faith considerably.

At one seminar a lot of people got sick and (I can't believe this now I had kind of forgotten about it) the Guru told us something very strange. He said that government agencies (The CIA?) had poisoned the air through the Air-Conditioning system to 'test' all of us and see how our immune systems could handle it.

Even now this memory is quite hazy. Did the Guru really say that? I believe so. I will need to fact check with other students to see if they remember, but that is my recollection of the event!

As 'Staff' working the seminar we were discouraged from being friendly with students. We were taught to be very strict with them in terms of making sure they had filled the application correctly with all information, photos and yes, of course ... we had to make sure that they had signed the disclaimer on the back.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2008 04:47AM by solea13.

Solea:

whoever that group is, its clear they have studied the methods and manuals of the LGAT's and use those to persuade, influence, and create profits for the Guru.
That was all being done by the LGAT book.

As far as all the people getting "sick", of course it could have just been the flu virus going around, or some bad food, and he just used that as an opportunity to create group paranoia. (very useful)
(Or if they are really a bad group, of course they could have slipped something into the food to make people feel lousy. If they "predict" people might get sick, and then they do...well...)

There are lots of so-called "Yoga" groups which are little more than front groups for cults. Its the best way to get people in. Yoga is trendy and to most people they think its like an exercise class.

They then start slipping people the Swami, when they are bent over in the Downward Dog...so to speak...

Hey, if I were an ambitious eastern based Guru in the west, the first thing I would do would be to open up a chain of Yoga Schools, or better yet, buy-out or take over local ones, preferably in high income areas. That is the golden harvest.