Terry Hall @bizsayer [twitter.com] pointed out the James Ray website...www.worldwealthsociety.com is offline.

Most of the text can be grabbed from the internet cache.
Search for this in Google: (and then press Cached)

site:worldwealthsociety.com worldwealthsociety.com

I would add that even those with some skepticism can be sucked in as well. I had some background in social psychology and communication before attending Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Within LGAT, so I saw some of what he was doing with his coercive sales pitch, but for years afterwards I still wanted to attend (the only reason I didn't was because I didn't have available credit). The person I know who had psychosis after a PSI Seminar was an "aware, conscious" person as well.

This stuff doesn't just affect the gullible. Think about it in terms of abuse. If someone is physically abusing you, you might be a martial artist even but you'll still get bruised at the very least. This is psychological abuse--the only way to avoid being hurt is to leave the situation and avoid similar situations...ENTIRELY.

Now that doesn't mean avoiding all of religion and therapy, just all of the abusive New Age scammers and salesmen.

Its absolutely true that even skepticism isn't enough.
(although professional level Skepticism can be enough).

But in fact, the more intelligent a person is, the more they can get duped. These LGAT's don't target more "blue collar" people, as they often see its a scam.
Often, people who are more intellectual, are easier to dupe.

The people who are the most vulnerable and gullible, and too nice, get hammered the worst. They are the ones who get cleaned out.

There are some people who like the LGAT's, those are the SHARKS who like what they learned from the Guru on how to manipulate the flock, and then go out and do it to others, often to get revenge from being scammed themselves.

But going to LGAT seminars on free tickets, tricky refunds, and other free methods, can be a good method to learn exactly what they are doing first hand. But that is extremely dangerous, as its easy to get sucked in.
But sitting near the back, and pretending to play along, and making careful notes as the LGAT Guru runs their patterns, is very enlightening. (they will often try to take your notebook from you, or kick you out if they notice what you are doing. Of course if you have enough training, one can deal with that easily).

Using the martial arts metaphor, once you have done enough training, going into the ring with a blackbelt is a good way to learn.
But for the average person, they gotta stay away, or they are going to get seriously hurt.

But these days, one can learn so much and spend no money at all, by getting most of the material for free on the internet. (usually put up there by people who are getting revenge on the LGAT Guru for scamming them!).

As far as Tony Robbins and his Mastery University, here is the lesson that costs people 50K. In the end, the salespeople in the group who are paying attention learn that they have been sold an illusion, they have been sold nothing, for 50K, and much more than 50K.

Interesting interview with Dave Lakhani about James Arthur Ray. He seems sincere in his skepticism--both in the podcast and in the ensuing comments--yet I'm still skeptical of Lakhani given his associations with Vitale (who was in The Secret, by the way), T. Harv Ecker (who sells get-rich-quick LGATs), and how he makes his money which appears to be with his own expensive courses on persuasion:

[exploringthemind.com]

Lakhani is full of BS. On this page he shows his true face:
[www.subliminalpersuasionbook.com]

Quote: "I'm also going to teach cult mind control tactics so that you can understand how people become indoctrinated and brainwashed. I'll also demonstrate the ethical use of these techniques (this was one of the areas that made my publisher uncomfortable)."

NEWS FLASH: there are no ethical uses of coercive mind control techniques. Period. That's like saying "I'm going to show you the ethical ways to scam people for everything they are worth (this was one of the areas that made my publisher uncomfortable, because unlike me he has a conscience)."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2010 07:50PM by buffman.

Here's a direct quote from Lakhani's book Subliminal Persuasion, viewable on Amazon:

QUOTE: "Subliminal persuasion occurs when you are able to successfully implant a message in the mind of a person or group of people whom you target for change without their conscious evaluation of the change, and encourage them to spread the idea organically to their associates."
~p2 of [www.amazon.com]

All the talk of "thinking for yourself" from the podcast interview is then total bullshit, since the aim of his work is to bypass rational thought altogether. I wonder if Dave Lakhani consciously decided to implant a message into the minds of others that he's an ethical persuader by coming out as critical of James Arthur Ray while meanwhile continuing to sell the same persuasion techniques used by Ray including "cult mind control tactics"?

On page 3 he suggests that you use subliminal persuasion to get what you want, "whatever it is that you want...money, sex, power, fame, or anything else."

Note that he only suggests things that are associated with abuses of power and corruption. He doesn't suggest "becoming a better parent," or "becoming more kind and compassionate," or "speaking the truth more often" as things that you might want. No, he plays off of the worst in human beings in order to sell more and more and endlessly more--the same thing that James Arthur Ray did in conflating greed with spirituality.

Dave Lakhani is no James Arthur Ray critic--he's cut of the same cloth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2010 07:52PM by buffman.

Lakhani's home page says he specializes in marketing "start ups, small business and especially micro-enterprises (businesses under $250,000 in revenue)."
[www.boldapproach.com]

In other words, the sucker market--people who don't understand business and haven't yet been ripped off by marketing consultants, haven't attended business school, and are ripe for the scamming. The sucker market also includes those who get suckered into multi-level marketing or pyramid schemes, which by there very structure ensure that 99%+ of those who join will forever remain in the "micro-enterprise" category.

Those in this market demographic have usually already put much of their "startup costs" on credit cards after manic multi-day "sales conferences" put on by MLM companies themselves. MLMs hire motivational speakers like James Arthur Ray and Tony Robbins to artificially pump up their "business owners" which distracts from the corrupt rules of an impossible-to-win game.

Dave Lakhani wouldn't last 5 minutes in the corporate environment, where everyone is on the lookout for sharks and con men.

Dave Lakhani is playing a lot of cards at once, for the purposes of attempting to market himself.
As was noticed immediately from his material, he is not to be taken at face value.

On one hand he tries to play the "ethical persuasion" card to try to market to people who want to manipulate, and not feel too guilty. Those are the dupes.

He also criticizes James Ray a bit, to talk about those who abuse advanced persuasion. But at the same time he is sending the message that he KNOWS the techniques that can get people to risk their lives, like James Ray did.
That is actually marketing for Dave Lakhani.
Dave Lakhani puts in enough clues for those who want the Dark Side of persuasion. There are many websites that market directly to people who want to control other people. Many of those sites are full of lies and false claims, and just exist to extract money from wannabe sharks.
But its a large market, those who want to learn to screw with people's minds, for their own profit, money, sex, and power.

So Dave Lakhani is like a fisherman, who throws out many fishing lines, seeing which fish will bite.

The REAL material from Dave Lakhani would likely come from his mailing list. One could subscribe to his persuasion mailing list from an anonymous email account, and monitor it, and cross-post parts of it.
You can be 100% assured, that very expensive "coaching" and seminars will be marketed, perhaps in a subtle way in his email newsletter. He'll use his strategy of "selecting" you to pay him thousands...that is the sucker-test, literally.

That is the WARNING that was put out about Dave Lakhani right from the beginning. He certainly is not about "ethical persuasion", whatever that means. He says its about good "intent" but that is literally nonsensical, and Lakhani knows it. The worst cult leaders often have pure "intent" and many do believe they are what they say they are, they are the dangerous ones.

James Arthur Ray clearly had 100% full conscious intent that he was exploiting, using, and controlling people to the maximum degree possible, and knew people had been hurt in the past, and knew people had died in the past, and covered it up. That is reality. James Ray knew Colleen Conaway died, and concealed it. He knew people got seriously injured doing the same seminar. So of course guys like James Ray know they are hurting people, that is why they are dangerous. Even after 3 people die, and many other get injured, they still claim a pure "intent". So its completely ridiculous.


On top of all this, Dave Lakhani is an expert using STORIES to persuade, and using embedded hypnotic language within those stories. Its in his persuasion book.
Everything Dave Lakhani is saying, is literally a part of the Story persuasion process.

So again, these are the types of guys one has to approach with extreme caution.

But no worries for Dave, he will like that criticism. That is why he uses a photo with his eyes staring straight into the camera trying to look intimidating. He deliberately cultivates that "danger" image, with his Stories of being in the military, and cults, and using mind control, and creating a cult following.
He knows that sells, to those who want to learn to manipulate and control people.

So he is trying to show many faces at once, for marketing purposes.

But its was great to bring him up in this thread, as he has a little more substance than the obvious scam-artists like a Joe Vitale.
Dave Lakhani says he trained with Richard Bandler, but that could mean anything. If he really did carefully study with Richard Bandler for a long period, then watch-out.
These guys can literally run circles with most people's minds, and they won't have a clue of what they are doing to them.

From a trained person's perspective, this is how to approach a guy like Dave Lakhani, and many others like him.

Never give them one dollar.
Everything they say has to be verified and proven.
All communications from them have to be carefully analyzed for the patterns being used, whether verbal, spoken, or visual.
Don't go into a one-on-one meeting or phone-call with them, unless you have at least 10+ years experience in persuasion.
Read all contracts many times, and have them double-checked, and never sign anything in their presence.

These guys have chosen to be professional manipulators, so they reap the Karma from that, which is that they get handled like they are radioactive by those who can see what is going on. You don't jump into a shark tank or lions den.

That is why they try so hard to "Pre-frame" themselves as ethical persuaders, to overcome the healthy skepticism people have about them.
Its a version of "trust me".

Quote
buffman
On page 3 he suggests that you use subliminal persuasion to get what you want, "whatever it is that you want...money, sex, power, fame, or anything else."


Note that he only suggests things that are associated with abuses of power and corruption. He doesn't suggest "becoming a better parent," or "becoming more kind and compassionate," or "speaking the truth more often" as things that you might want. No, he plays off of the worst in human beings in order to sell more and more and endlessly more--the same thing that James Arthur Ray did in conflating greed with spirituality.

Man, that is it! You have hit the nail on the head. THIS is so key to understanding what they are all about, these scumbags.

qd

Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want
by Dave Lakhani

Quickly read that book, its not that bad, its worth reading for free from the library, or on the internet to learn a bit about persuasion. Just beware of the embedded persuasion tactics and upselling and self-marketing.
It covers some of the most basic aspects of persuasion, including the fake Exclusivity, Permission Granting...as in telling the customer you have to approve them before you take their money, to prey on their insecurities and find vulnerable people.
Of course Dave Lakhani is going to take your 3 grand, that is a sucker-test.

They troll for easy targets, and won't spend more than 10 minutes on most hard sells, they look for easy sells to exploit.

He also talks about how he and others all have an inner circle of customers who have spent money, who get the "hard stuff" in terms of persuasion. They do that to charge them as much as possible, just like James Ray's fake "wealth society".

He also offers the bogus "free seminars" which of course are just sales recruiting, looking for easy targets..

So its a basic overview of some aspects of persuasion, no really advanced material though. He's saving that for upselling.

_____________________
(Not endorsing these links , they are for educational research.)

Search Google for:

pdf "Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want"
torrent "Dave Lakhani" pdf
torrent "Dave Lakhani"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2010 02:34PM by The Anticult.