about 8 months ago I started taking classes at Berkeley Psychic Institute for meditation I. I loved the techniques they told me to do and it really created a sense inner peace and I kept coming back for more. Now, 8 months later I recently joined thier one year intensive clairvoyant program. I am only a week and half into it and I can still cancel before two weeks is due. I am having second thoughts about doing this. Originally, I took classes to relax me and an escape from my daily hussle and bussle. I spend already hundreds of dollars for the classes and spent almost $4k for the clairvoyant program. Then I saw a you tube video of former member in which he exposes all the deep programming BPI does and other new age religion places like this do. I am torn. there is one side of me who wants to do this and the freedom i can supposedly posses after the program and the other worrying about the long term consequences of this place. What should I do?

Good thread here at Rick Ross's forums. [forum.culteducation.com]

Then here is a blog entry. There are several interesting posts there on BPI besides this one.


[berkeleypsychiccult.blogspot.com]
Shows parallels between Scientology and the Berkeley Psychic Institute.

Quote

Scientology = Berkeley Psychic Institute
Almost all of the teaching at the BPI were and are based on Scientology. They were reconstituted in a format which Lewis prefered; IE "psychism"

Many of the terms and practices are very similar.

Although I am not nor do I ever want to go through Scientology, the information I have gathered from Anonymous and in comparison to all the techings of Scientology, they are strinkingly familiar. Here are several comparsions between terminologies

Scientology----------------------------------Berkeley Psychic Institute

Mental Image pictures--------------------------Mental Image Pictures

Going Exterior---------------------------------Being out of your body (or being able to leave your body at will

Body Thetans---------------------------------Beings, Snakes & Spiders

Auditing-------------------------------------Readings/Erasures

EMeter----------------------------------------Truth from a lie rose

Enthusiasm----------------------------------Enthusiasm
(highest reading on the tone scale, highest emotional state possible,in reality this is nothing more than hypomania!)

Havingness----------------------------------Havingness
(a term used to describe a sense of entitlement IE Narcissism)

Xenu Myth-----------------------------------Snakes and Spider Myth
(One comes from another planet, the snakes and spiders from other dimensions)



Now the story around the grounding cord technique taught at BPI was that Lewis found out about it working with trance chanellers (Dissociation in reality). Then there was the story that this was taught at the highest levels in Scientology. I suspect that Lewis learned of grounding from Scientology. A good source revealed to me that Lewis was a top auditor in Scientology before founding the institute.

Past lives were and are looked at quite a bit in both the institute and Scientology as having a direct effect on one present day self. Now the belief in past lives is nothing new, but both Scientology and the Institute take it to a much larger degree.

One last thing about the background of the Institute and Scientology, they both promise you "super powers" or in the case of the Institute "psychism" I suspect that they are the same thing.

And Lewis also said in my presence when asked where he got all of this information......"I STOLE IT!"

Article on several Psychics and frauds
[www.bohemian.com]

Quote

Institutionalized

The Academy for Psychic Studies is tucked into a tiny office space off Lincoln Avenue in San Jose's Willow Glen neighborhood. On some Saturdays, the school advertises its presence with balloons and a sidewalk sign offering a free psychic consultation.

The Academy's website includes a list of its classes, from beginning meditation to advanced aura reading. On Tuesdays, it welcomes members of the public to an open, complimentary "energy healing clinic."

Unfortunately, the Academy does not welcome members of the media, and refused to speak with me for this article.

"We're not interested because that's not what we're about," a woman from the Academy told me before she hung up the phone (and before I could ask why). The school also requires that visitors sign an agreement promising they're not investigators or journalists.

I encountered the same testy attitude when I called the director of the Berkeley Psychic Institute —the most well-known, established psychic school in Northern California since 1972.

"Who's your antagonist?" Susan Bostwick asked me before we began our interview. I told her I just wanted to know more about her school, and how anyone can learn to be psychic.

"I'm not inclined to go there," she repeated stiffly, still hesitant.

"Well, it's going to look weird to our readers if you won't at least talk about your school," I said.

"Don't threaten me," she replied. "I won't be threatened!"

"Um, I'm not threatening you," I said, heat rising to my forehead. "I'm just frustrated because I've been honest with you about this story."

Bostwick paused and seemed to lower her guard.

Finally, awkwardly, we began to talk about the basics of being psychic and how Bostwick believes we can find our "innermost heart's desire" by tapping into our inherent intuition.

Pretty soon, she was speaking passionately about "spreading the word that we're all psychic." She even gave me a few tips on aura reading and how to tell if a phony psychic is asking too many questions.

"All I need to know, Vrinda, is your name," she told me. "As soon as you speak, I know your spirit. Pretty much right away I can assess you."

That was why she consented to our interview after the bad start. "When you became angry, it looked like this black, purple energy. It was really ugly," she said (over the phone, speaking to me from Sonoma County).

"But I knew that was not coming from you as a person, but from your office. I can look past that and read you, and that's OK with me," Bostwick continued.

Then she gave me a boost of encouragement about my psychic potential.

"You're probably already ahead of the game because you're a journalist," she said. "It would take about three weeks to two months to get you to where you have some certainty about reading an aura."

Bostwick says one of her clients turned his chaotic workplace around with his newly developed psychic abilities. What was once a tense, snappy startup company became a harmonious environment where people actually laughed.

The truth is, people "read" other people's emotions all the time —whether they call it psychic or not. It also happens when humans communicate with animals: no one is talking, but somehow, you just know when your pet cat is jealous of your new girlfriend.

Someone with trained intuition just uses their "natural equipment" more deftly —and can possibly point out your blind spots.

"A psychic isn't supposed to tell somebody what to do," Edward says. "They help pull away the [external] layers in order for the person to come back to their center. From the center, we realize what is best for us and make decisions about where to go."

Hope that helps you get a start on what you are looking for.

jocas1875,

GET YOUR MONEY BACK IMMEDIATELY! If you really believe in clairvoyance then buy a USD$1.00 paperback book in a bargain-bin at a used book store. THIS IS A SCAM. Trust your feelings. GET YOUR MONEY BACK! (shouting/off).

yes, get your money back right away if you can!!
Its a total rip-off. Don't let them talk you out of a refund either.

and once you get the $ back, there is a way to test if you have psychic powers.
A friend once claimed he had telekinesis. So we set up experiments for him to TEST it.

Cost= free.

What happened? nothing. He had no powers.

Sadly, later he died from a brain tumor, and his belief in supernatural powers which came on later in life, seems to have come from that.

But regardless, keep your money.

Set up free tests, to see if it works. Contact a local Skeptic association, and ask for help to set up controlled experiments. Really! They will help, and won't charge a penny.
They would be shocked someone actually asked to TEST this stuff.

You can learn to do cold reading without even knowing you have learned to do it.
Read what this person has said and read the whole article. She said she had actually picked up the cold reading technque through cultural osmosis. (google cold reading to learn more. Also google 'yes set' its a common sales technique to break down resistance and it can be done to you over the phone. Also google milton erickson and handshake induction. This is a potent trance induction technique and any pretext by which to grasp someone's hand can be used to launch it.)

Quote

In my education, I didn't gain the skills I needed to help me understand what was occurring when New Age and metaphysical ideas and techniques seemed to work. My empirical experience "proved" the validity of things like psychic skills, auras, chakras, contact with the dead, astrology, and the like - and I had very little in my intellectual arsenal at that time to help me understand what was truly occurring.

For instance, an understanding of cold reading would have helped me a great deal. I never knew what cold reading was, and until I saw professional magician and debunker Mark Edward use cold reading on an ABC News special last year, I didn't understand that I had long used a form of cold reading in my own work! I was never taught cold reading and I never intended to defraud anyone - I simply picked up the technique through cultural osmosis.

[www.csicop.org]

This mention of how cold reading can be learned without knowing one is using it, is important for it may be that such items as tarot cards, the enneagram and palmistry
are all contexts and foci which can be used to do cold reading.

Very good point on cold reading.

Here in the UK we have a psychological illusionist called Derren Brown.

This guy is damn good at cold reading.

In one of his shows he went to the USA (where all good UK TV entertainers go once they become too recognisable over here!) and did the new age circuit. He firstly pretended to be psychic and had the sedona lunatic community creaming themselves with excitement at his so called psychic powers. He then pretended to be a medium and totally convinced the audience that they were receiving messages from their deceased loved ones.

Derren Brown is very skilled at NLP, Hypnosis and also "mentalism" stage magic etc........... but he is also a total sceptic

Its well worth checking out his clips on youtube because a lot of the techniques he uses for entertainment are used by cults and scammers to exploit people.

[www.youtube.com]

Ah heres some info on his trip to the USA.

Derren Brown- Messiah

[www.rmjs.co.uk]

I studied with BPI from ~1995 thru 1997. Compared to scientology, I'd say they are 'mostly harmless' - from what I can tell they are an enthusiastic group of people entirely without any skill what-so-ever in managing a business. I can't say I'm that impressed by Susan Bostwick, I'm much more impressed by the many senior students of her husband's who left the church after lewis died. I never met Lewis, he was already dying when I first came around.

My belief is that if you take all the techniques you learn in med I and med II and "run your energy" every day you will eventually get many of the benefits of the clairvoyant program, possibly most. But it will take you a lot longer. meditation I and meditation II are 6 weeks courses that cost a hundred fifty (?) bucks each.

Will you be able to go into a laboratory with the Amazing Randi and do controlled experiments proving psychic skills? I doubt it. Will you sometime have completely inexplicable experiences? yes. and will you be totally wrong a lot? absolutely.

My understanding is that Lewis Bostwick, who created BPI, studied with scientology - this is what his son in law told me. And he studied with a lot of other sources, including the masons and rosicrucians - the rosicrucians are where he got the device of using a rose as a symbol. The basic 'grounding and running energy' meditation is a variation of the 'tree of life' meditation that is very old and common to many traditions - I don't think it came from scientology.

BPI emphasizes finding your truth, which could be different from my truth. And they do a lot of things in 'kindergarden space' - where things are really simple and easy and don't need elaborate explanations - and they draw with crayons a lot - which is very different from the deadly ernest seriousness that one finds in scientology. BPI believes amusement (not enthusiasm) is the highest vibration and they spend a lot of time laughing at each other, and telling bad jokes. They believe you are completely responsible for your life - that you chose your parents (for example)

It is my belief that Lewis may have learned some information from some of the same people that L Ron Hubbard learned from, however my understanding is that the scientology people deny that LRH learned anything from anybody.

I believe the technique of erasure, which I think scientology calls duplication, is basically the same in both schools. I don't know where the technique originated from.

"Truth and lie rose" is a visualization technique that you do by yourself with your eyes closed to determine truth for yourself. an e-meter is a physical device - a skin galvanometer - that measures conductivity of the skin, and the scientologists use it to "measure" "emotional charge."

I can tell you that for most people the super powers you get at BPI are pretty limited. You get to know yourself better, you are more likely to notice the difference between what you believe and what others want you to believe. Stuff like that. Look at their staff, their buildings, their budgets, their school - they've been around since 1972 and they exist on a shoestring and I wouldn't be surprised if they go bankrupt in the next couple of years. I personally believe that what they teach you works to a certain degree/in certain ways - you will learn to become very very perceptive - if, and only if, you practice a lot - like an hour a day for a year and then don't stop - which doesn't require their supervision or paying them money. But if you practice with them, you will probably get better at it faster, imho.

I would suggest that you should look at BPI as a form of entertainment. If you enjoy it and think the money you spend gives you good value in terms of fun, go for it. I think meditation 1 and meditation 2 classes are well worth the money, and fwiw I use the information from the healing 2 classes to reliably get parking spaces in downtown san francisco, however this doesn't seem to work as well for the hundreds or thousands of other people who've taken those same classes. I guess I'm just special <joke>

I would say the organization is mostly harmless, yes they will try to convince you to take more classes, but they are pretty transparent and, at least when I was around there, they have no particular ability to sell and they don't try very hard. I would say as a whole, that they are one of the more entertaining groups of people that I've spent time with, and you've probably never seen any group of people have as much fun from singing off key as you will see at their church services.