CosmicConnie,
as seen in threads like this, its very challenging to communicate in plain-text, so its very easy to misintrepret things, from all sides of the issue.
Its true at times there is a lot of speculation in a forum like this.
But that is healthy, its people trying to figure complex counterintuitive stuff out, with incomplete information, as so much of it is concealed by the Gurus and there is so much blatant lying by the Gurus.
But I gotta say, I can't think of anywhere where too many dots have been connected? For example, the hard proof James Ray did study NLP in Hawaii just came up recently.
And the hard proof he uses Cialdini's Social Proof just came up.
And literally ALL of James Ray techniques have been copied from others. James Ray has not thought of ANYTHING original, at all. Its all just cloning of others material. Anyone can see the depth of his insight on Twitter, just misquoting crap out of others books.
So people want to try to understand WHY would people stay in a horrible tent of death like that, and go back for more?
This thread starts to explain why, and how guys like James Ray can do it.
Its not magic, its technique, and selection.
So yes there is speculation. But this is not a journalistic article, or strictly a detached Skeptical deconstruction.
But there are also mounds of hard facts, much harder facts that any newspaper these days. Has any newspaper article on James Ray even tried to look into any of the psychological and covert influence processes behind this? Its almost at zero.
So journalism is not going to inform the public of what is really going on.
Dave Lakhani sells this stuff for a living, he makes money doing it, so he is accountable for his public commercial advertising claims.
Dave Lakhani lost his cool in this forum, because he had his propaganda and BS exposed, instead of being the one jerking the chain for once.
Its very important that Dave Lakhani VERIFY specifically WHO and WHEN and WHERE he got certified as an NLP Master Practitioner. That is a specific thing. [
www.purenlp.com] www.purenlp.com
Going to one Richard Bandler seminar, and reading a book is not being an NLP Master Practitioner.
Is Dave Lakhani hinting he was certified by Richard Bandler? (notice how vague his claims and excuses are)
If he is not certified, then someone is bullshitting and making false advertising claims. Its pretty important if someone's main advertising pitch is false.
Let see if he has clarified that yet...nope, just same old. [
www.speakersite.com]
If Dave Lakhani is falsely claiming to be a certified NLP Master Practitioner, then he is the one who has chosen to discredit himself. He should look in the mirror, instead of making threats against others for asking him to factually PROVE his advertising claims.
Which other of his claims are also not proven, and are false? That certainly ain't the only Tall Tale being told by Dave Lakhani.
Once you get busted lying, then you destroy your own reputation and credibility. Never saw that mentioned in Dave Lakhani's books.
Dave Lakhani teaches in his books to develop/write a "Story" for marketing and propaganda, and then repeat that same story over and over, everywhere. That is what he is doing.
Why doesn't he just admit it?
And those who do choose to go the covert persuasion route like at the Dave Lakhani and Kevin Hogan seminars in Vegas, they really don't care if the seminar Speakers lie their asses off. They don't care, because they know they are lying their asses off to make money, and they are more than happy to do the same thing.
What Dave Lakhani is doing is an object lesson of what goes on in that area, where the persuaders SAY they are teaching persuasion, but in fact most of the real persuasion is concealed, and is being used to upsell you to their seminars, coachings, and inner circle rip-offs where they promise to teach the REAL secrets. They are doing the same thing, in a different package.
Its very clever, to promise to teach covert persuasion, but only teach maybe 20% of the content, while the REAL covert persuasion is not taught, but its being done to the person without their awareness.
Its a good idea to know this, before 50K-100K in alleged advanced covert persuasion training is extracted from the target.
The supreme insight at the end of the LGAT seminar chain that teaches "persuasion", is that you just got scammed over the last 3 years for 100K, and some for 500K if that have it. They then get so pissed off, they want to make their money back, so they go out and do it to others. Its all rather unpleasant, and many people get hurt.
Others might try to set things right again not by scamming others, but by telling it like it is.
Lastly, one of the main techniques to try and disable critical analyses of the covert persuasion being done, is when the persuader says you are being "paranoid" and they are not doing that. They will deliberately use that technique, Byron Katie does that on her website right now, Dave Lakhani tried that too.
How does one overcome that?
Knowledge, training, critical thinking, assertiveness and mental toughness.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2010 05:06AM by The Anticult.