________________QUOTE___________________
How To Trash Your PR At The Touch Of A Button: Of Holosync, Bill Harris, and Silencing Critics
by Tori Deaux on December 31, 2009
[www.mindtweaks.com]
“You will literally meditate like a Zen monk at the touch of a button!!”

"Now, those of you familiar with the blogosphere know that there’s one thing a big-wig, multi-millionaire or corporate type never, ever wants to do… it’s threaten bloggers with legal action after they criticize you.

It just never turns out well.

It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It doesn’t matter if you have the money to pursue it until hell freezes over, and that the blogger will probably have to rely on pro-bono legal help. It doesn’t matter if you eventually win the lawsuit, and make the blogger’s life miserable.

You will lose in the court of public opinion, because you’re not really dealing with the ONE small blogger, but the entire blogosphere. See, threatening a lawsuit against a blogger is like, well…

It’s like pushing a big red button that releases a pack of rabid hounds.

A pack of rabid hounds that races wildly around the countryside unchecked, braying about it at the top of their lungs until EVERYBODY knows.

It’s not pretty. It’s very slobbery. It’s wildly infectious.

And it’s very, very bad PR.

Once bloggers have the scent of blood, they tend to spread the very material you wanted to suppress far and wide. It becomes “news”, and passes through blogging networks, bookmarking sites, and Twitter. It elevates the status and traffic of the accused blogger, guarantees that the damaging post in question will be reposted and archived on multiple sites, discussed, Tweeted and debated into infinity. The whole thing will rise in the search rankings of Google, meaning that even non-blog-readers who are looking for product info will stumble upon the controversy.

It’s a serious marketing fail.

And it makes you look like a bully.
...
_____________________________________________

Another interesting post from Cassandra Yorgey where she looks at some of the documents seized and photographed at JRI offices, in particular the third quarter goals of various employees.

As she notes, employees often call a spade, a spade amongst themselves and the goals are quite illuminating when stripped of the marketing-speak.
JAR employees goals

A sample goal:

"Next we come to Greg, good old Greg “I saw Colleen die” Hartle. His goal is to “Make Global Outreach the leading driver of revenue.” Which makes perfect sense because these are his international excursions and are therefore very hard to regulate. I’ve written about Wilderness Programs before and how they compare to what James Ray has been doing and leaving the country is the very first sign of questionable activity when looking at wilderness programs. Let’s dig, dig, dig into these outside-the-country events and really examine what happened. If Colleen Conaway’s death could go by unnoticed in our very own country, imagine what would have happened if she was in, say, Peru for example."

She also directs attention to the bullying tactics employed by Bill Harris against Duff McDuffee in an attempt to silence Duff over the clear commercial links between Harris and Ray:

"If you are determined to worry about someone, perhaps you could direct your attention to blogger Duff McDuffee over at BeyondGrowth.net, who is being legally threatened by Bill Harris of Centerpointe for accurately linking his Holosync CDs with James Ray. It is well known that Holosync was used all the time in all of James Ray’s retreats, a fact which Bill Harris wants covered up. It would be nice if everyone could take a moment to remind Bill Harris that the best way for him to save his own buttocks here is to step up and speak the truth about James Ray. Harassing bloggers is only going to make other previously uninterested bloggers take notice enough to get pissed off and spread the word faster than James Ray tries to spread The Herpes."

Harassing bloggers is as futile as trying to outrun one's hemorrhoids.

In the interests of bloggers stepping up and speaking the truth about James 'Death' Ray, I found this blog post, although a few months old, to be very educational and informative.

stepping up blogpost

Disclaimer: the blogger is well-known as a copywriter and persuasion expert, also a Master Practitioner of NLP so The Anticult's warnings apply when reading this piece.
However this person grew up in a cult and takes a more honourable position on persuasion and selling strategies--I found it worthwhile reading and as I am not in the market for his services did not feel covertly persuaded or manipulated.
There is a video on Milgram's work on authority that starts playing as soon as the site downloads, a bit distracting if you're reading, so I'd scroll down and silence the vid first. The video is well worth watching by itself once the reading is done.

Excerpt:

"Persuading People To Death - When Self Help Turns Deadly

The question most often asked is "what convinces or how do you convince people to take actions that on closer inspection are so obviously illogical?"

The answers are unfortunately easy . . . and complicated. I've bolded the important thinking errors, conditioned responses, psychological principles, and persuasion principles throughout the article so you can easily do more research if you choose.

What I'm about to say is a little bit of a generalization but it is an important thinking error that is easily exploited. We all tend to think that we are smarter, better, stronger, more capable, and that limitations that apply to others don't apply to us. That thinking may be a result of previous experience, training, or and this is especially dangerous, beliefs that come from authority figures or their books of knowledge. For example, when I was a child, we went to a Pentecostal church where snake handling was a part of the worship based on the scripture from the bible: "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." (Mark 16:17-18) "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." (Luke 10:19). Unfortunately, those beliefs don't always prove true and turn deadly.




As a species many of us want to believe that we have a connection to a higher power that gives us special abilities or that that power exists and that if we do a certain set of exercises. For example, fasting, prayer, sensory deprivation, or any number of other measures are designed to demonstrate our commitment or dominion over our physical bodies, our psychology or our physiology. When positive the results are used to demonstrate enlightenment, when negative, they results are often used to demonstrate a lack of understanding or commitment.

As humans we also tend to be intensely philosophically and intellectually curious about our origins as a species. We wrestle with big questions, is there a literal God, from where or what is meaning derived, can that source if it exists be touched or connected with, what happens when we die? All of those questions cause people to speculate, test and explore. Some choose hallucinogens, some study, some choose extreme religious faith, others choose cults like the one in which I was raised. Still others are seemingly not bothered by any of it.

One of the other thinking errors that exists around this kind of thinking and many other kinds of deletions and distortions that allow manipulation to occur is metaphorical subterfuge. For example, when studied carefully, the whole New Age system of belief is a metaphorical description of traditional religious beliefs. For example, The Universe is no different than God, it is ascribed supernatural power or possesses laws that impact everyone. The Law Of Attraction says you get what you think about and religious holdings give that you get what you deserve, cause and effect, if you pray well, God answers prayer. Now, I'm not passing judgment on any religion, simply showing how when different labels are used, something old looks new again.

Additionally, the current overload of information and lack of thorough, logical thinking, and rampant belief of what is written on the internet as factual. Many people fail to get enough correct information to make a proper decision about something they are going to attempt. Their lack of thorough investigation often causes faulty conclusions and further dissemination of ideas that are not based in fact.

As a society we've become accustomed to looking for the "magic pill," that one simple solution that will guarantee our success at anything. How many times have you seen ads for diets, sexual aids, dating, life extension, fitness, health and on and on? The reality is that there are three things everyone wants, they want to know how to get laid, how to get paid and how to live forever. If you promise a magic bullet that will offer them wealth, health, and sex, a large majority of the population will try it, especially if it is inexpensive enough that the risk seems low even if it doesn't work.

People also tend to believe that others have access to secret or hidden information that is the key to their success and the reason for the seekers lack of success. Many are willing to invest large sums of money in order to have access to exclusive knowledge, to find the hidden keys they've been missing to achieve enlightenment. Exclusivity is a very powerful persuasion tool.

Closely linked to exclusivity is Social proof (monkey see, monkey do). Social proof is also a very powerfully persuasive motivator for many people. when an individual sees another person do something with apparent safety and with apparently positive results they are much more inclined to do it. When in a group and everyone else is doing it, it is much easier to go along. And when told to do something by an authority figure obedience and compliance is much more likely as evidenced by The Milgram Experiment. The following video is an essential study in obedience.



So those are just a few of the thinking errors and conditioned behaviors that exist that allow seminar leaders (and marketers and salespeople and ministers) to cause people to take actions that they might not otherwise take or that they might strongly question. With that in mind let's look at the James Arthur Ray situation based on what we know from what has been published and from what is published on his website. Let's start with this from his spiritual warrior event description from his website:

"In Spiritual Warrior, you'll build upon what you started in Practical Mysticism. You'll become privy to techniques (many kept secret for dozens of generations) that I searched out in the mountains of Peru, the jungles of the Amazon (and a few other places I don't care to recall).

Mastering these (quite esoteric) practices required me to think and act more differently than I've ever had to before. At first it was quite grueling, but the results...well...all I can say is, "Wow!"


It wasn't until I had completely mastered these concepts and techniques that I was able to combine them with state of the art scientific technology and, as always, create practical real-life applications (you should know my style by now)."

These three paragraphs (and a couple leading into it talking about how we've been taught to be conformists and must break free of conformity to succeed like Bill Gates) demonstrate exactly how preconditioning starts. You are told that you'll become privy to techniques "kept secrets for generations" that he "searched out in the Mountains of Peru, the jungles of The Amazon, and a few places he doesn't care to recall." With those sentences he further ascribes himself special powers which further builds on his status as a spiritual teach from the movie "The Secret." Only he was able to seek out these mysterious secrets in these exotic locales (plus others which by implication must have been grueling and dangerous, lucky we don't have to do all that work or go to the obvious expense of traveling there and investigating). And, in the Christian religious tradition, lucky that Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you wouldn't have to. The correlation to the Jesus story is barely veiled and it follows the arc of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. (For serious students, The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell is a must watch video).

His website goes on to state:

You'll experience, at the spiritual level, the ancient methodologies of Samurai Warriors; and gain a true understanding of the authority and strength that come from a life of honor...
Look, you've most probably spent your whole life staying within the lines to get what you've got (or at least a major portion of it). Join me outside the lines in this heroic quest for higher consciousness...
There is no sacrifice—only greater and more magnificent results, wealth, adventure and fulfillment.

You owe it to the rest of your life to get to Spiritual Warrior as quickly as you can. The investment is ONLY $9695 per person. "

Ok, the conditioning and layers of suggested authenticity and proof continue. "You'll experience at the spiritual level the ancient methodologies of the samurai (what does that even mean? Sounds impressive but the methods of the samurai were military in nature, spiritually, one of the beliefs of Samurai was that their souls resided in their swords and they also often practiced ritual suicide Seppuku, when faced with defeat or dishonor). By using vague language and pointing to rituals, societies and traditions that most don't really understand they imply (implication is another powerful persuasion tool that causes people to accurately or inaccurately draw conclusions based on context)

"Join me outside the lines in this quest for higher consciousness." This sentence is interesting because it encourages people to join together and participate as a group "outside the lines." The only problem is that group dynamics work best when there is a group.

"There is no sacrifice - only greater and more magnificent results, wealth, adventure and fulfillment." Again, the magic pill appears, offering wealth, adventure, fulfillment if you'll only invest $9695 per person to be a part of this group dynamic experience. That amount of money creates a great sense of exclusivity because only a very small number of people can afford to invest that amount in themselves. The other interesting thing about the sentence is that it sets up the very high fee (There is no sacrifice, only greater and more magnificent results, so no matter what it takes to get the money is not a sacrifice, it is only assurance of greater results, justifying whatever you need to do to attend).

So what happened in the lodge, well, I wasn't there so I can't say, but by first hand accounts, there were several pre-cursors that set the incident up. First, fasting for 36 hours. Fasting causes a dramatic shift in body physiology, according to one report published on the National Institutes of Health, Several hormonal changes occur during fasting, including a fall in insulin and T3 levels and a rise in glucagon and reverse T3 levels. Most studies of fasting have used obese persons and results may not always apply to lean persons. Medical complications seen in fasting include gout and urate nephrolithiasis, postural hypotension and cardiac arrhythmias.

Before the sweat lodge they were given about 4 hours to consume a large buffet style breakfast (cramming your body with food alters body chemistry and physiology). Electrolyte balances are also compromised in a sweat lodge and during fasting.

The real challenge is that people were charged to "play full out" meaning to push past limits, to stick it out if it was painful, to ignore their bodies early warning systems. They were also subjected to two hours of extreme heat in a sweat lodge in the Arizona desert. Even saunas give warnings to sip water and to not prolong exposure. One of James Ray's Quotes is that "Your life begins at the end of your comfort zone." While that quote by itself may seem reasonable, it also encourages people to look around them and see what others are doing and choosing to accept their boundaries rather than listen to themselves.

Now let me be clear, I don't think that James Ray is a sociopath in the clinical sense of the word. I also don't believe that he had any intention of causing physical death or harm. That also does not release him from responsibility for what happened. His behavior afterward has also bordered on Narcissistic, his statement at another event that he conducted only days after the deaths demonstrate that. His focus is on himself and how he'll cope much more than an outpouring of concern and support for the families and others injured at his event.

So, here is what the process looks like that causes people in large group formats, particularly those around spiritual self help, to make poor decisions.

Point to people's shortcomings, their missed hopes and dreams. Where possible tie them to existing large belief sets around religion or philosophical constructs that appear to support the behavior they hope to learn as being the cause of the missed hopes and dreams.
Suggest that there is knowledge that exists, that has always existed, that is available if you know how to access it.
Position a charismatic talking head as the leader and dispenser of the secrets
Demonstrate how the leader has persevered and learned these secrets and is now willing to reveal them to you.
Tie the knowledge to mystical practices, to ancient civilizations or societies, to supposed "laws" or mystical places.
Make very tenuous ties (social proof) back to science, particularly science that most people don't understand (quantum physics)
Make the acceptance of the secrets exclusive (often based on price).
Encourage people to act alike, dress alike, pray together, and to take progressively more aggressive behaviors together. Have them shave their heads, fast, engage in exhaustive prayer, deprive them of sleep, food, contact with others, use noise and light discipline. Practice sensory overload or deprivation. Discourage logical thinking and reward faith. Encourage them by telling them that pushing past their boundaries is part of their initiation into this new way of being. Have them value being misunderstood by their peers and use that lack of understanding by their peers as a validation that they are in fact moving in the right direction.
Offer them progressively more esoteric opportunities (for more money) with no real quantifiable measurable results.
Give the groups names, rites of passage, special ways of knowing or recognizing each other. Forbid them from sharing the secret knowledge or events that occurred during their initiation with others so that those people should they become enlightened enough are not deprived of the opportunity to fully experience what is happening.
When things go wrong, bring it back to the leader's pain, rally the true believers around him, get them to talk about how terrible the leader feels and have them express what his internal condition is, make it about his suffering not that of the affected. Turn the attention to the teachings and the teacher not the failure.
There is a very big shift that happens for many people at these Large Group Awareness Movements and it is thoroughly explained in detail in a book called Snapping. The book is written by two well accomplished psychologists, I strongly recommend reading it.

Ok, all that said, I remain an advocate of properly challenging your body and your mind. I do believe that personal strength and mental toughness are qualities to be admired and achieved. I also believe that in order to properly do either you must have the right training and supervision. You'd never jump out of a plane with a parachute without instruction unless your life depended on it and not doing so meant certain death. So, always strive to be better, but understand that not everyone has your best interest at heart and that manipulators do exist. Watch for the signs and take appropriate action. Bottom line, if you are pushing yourself and you feel like you've reached a limit, stop the activity. There is a time to question authority and gurus, no matter who they are do not deserve to be revered at all costs."

That blog is from Dave Lakhani, someone who has just hit the radar screen.
boldapproach.typepad.com

Of course, one needs to be extremely careful, analytical, and cautious when it comes to Dave Lakhani.

What is Dave Lakhani really doing?
That is as yet undetermined. But his name came up in another thread about Michael Beckwith and "Dr." Alex Benzer aka Ali Binazir from taoofdating.com [forum.culteducation.com]
QUOTE: "Dave Lakhani is the best selling author of Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want. He is widely considered one of the top experts in the nation on persuasion, influence, mind control and creating a cult following.... Dave's unique background of being raised in a cult for more than 10 years was the impetus for him to begin studying persuasion, human influence, and mind control."

Going to take a very close look at Dave Lakhani.
Some of his basic comments seem to make sense, but its very dense material he is using, and it cannot be taken at face value.

He is deliberately very wrong though, (maybe to avoid trouble), when he says James Ray did not intend to hurt people.
First off, "intent" is meaningless, the guy who car-jacks you, probably didn't "mean" for the gun to go off and kill you, so all this "intent" stuff is a red herring.

And now, with seeing the techniques James Ray is using, he IS trying to hurt people. James Ray, and all of these master persuaders, know that in order to sell you have to find people's WOUNDS.
You find their WOUND, and then you magnify their wound, and then sell them something you tell them will heal their wound.
But it does not work, so they keep coming back for years.

Dave Lakhani knows that, that is how you do it. There are manuals that teach exactly that. So he is totally wrong when he says James Ray didn't intend on hurting anyone, of course he did.

Dave Lakhani is taking a different approach than most.
www.boldapproach.com
Dave Lakhani's Subliminal Persuasion Blog boldapproach.typepad.com

He APPEARS to be taking the overt approach of teaching people these types of techniques, so they can use them in their own business. Many people sell these techniques, and most of them exaggerate their claims to charge more money.

But they also use OTHER techniques at the same time they are teaching some techniques. In this case, Dave Lakhani's content is Persuasion, but what is his meta-content?

What about his "Subliminal Persuasion"?
He might mean persuasion that occurs without your conscious awareness, which is invisible influence, or unconscious influence, which is what James Ray, Tony Robbins, and the rest of them do for a living.

One thing that is interesting, is that some persuasion Guru's actually came out against James Ray, saying, look how bad James Ray is, self-help gone bad.
Good thing my products are not like James Ray! So buy my stuff.

So they just use James Ray as CONTRAST in their sales techniques. Many Influence guru's harshly criticize other guru's to market themselves.

The question is, does Dave Lakhani actually teach the real advanced covert persuasion techniques, or does he just appear to teach some of them, while running other patterns outside of people's awareness?
He certainly would be doing many patterns most people cannot see.

Is he actually teaching the specific techniques people can use to protect themselves?
Or is he just appearing to teach some techniques, while upselling to his own products, and teaching the Persuasion sharks how to be more effective?

Some of the James Ray people can't control themselves, and some of their tactics can be seen online.

A new twitter account:
Wizzwup [twitter.com]

Obviously a James Ray follower, who is trying to attack Terry Hall and his wife Amy for their criticism of James Ray.

There have been all sorts of vicious attacks by the James Ray people, normally they keep that stuff behind closed doors, to try and beat-down internal dissent.
Its enlightening to see some of it online. That is what happens inside these groups, if you dare to speak up, they will attack that person with all guns blazing.

'Is he actually teaching the specific techniques people can use to protect themselves?
Or is he just appearing to teach some techniques, while upselling to his own products, and teaching the Persuasion sharks how to be more effective?'

I think it very likely that he is positioning himself as an ethical practitioner of persuasion. I first came across him when he was very outspoken against 'The Secret' nonsense, contributing to a book by several marketers that painstakingly picked apart the whole persuasive appeal of the 'Secret.'

I can't know his intent but I found the analysis by an insider to be very helpful, and he is quite upfront about being a marketer and persuader, not cloaking it in pseudo-spirituality aka Ray, Harris, Beckwith and the other Secreteers. I found his post on the LGAT manipulations to have educational value, whether he is of any value as a human being is not of great concern to me since I do not intend to have any closer contact than reading his useful blog post.

He does encourage further investigation in his readers and provides helpful links and content for further study. We have to be able to recognise this stuff to avoid it. I hope the post can be of use to others.

I appreciated Dave Lakhani's post on James Arthur Ray. I think it was helpful in laying out some of the social psychological principles behind the death lodge.

On the other hand, I'm not a fan of T. Harv Ecker, whom I believe to be one of the worst modern scammers. Here's Dave Lakhani giving a talk at T. Harv Eker's Master of Influence event, listed right on Dave Lakhani's website:
[www.boldapproach.com]

I haven't listened to the 90 minute talk yet, but Ecker is a seriously ruthless manipulator who should be avoided at all costs. T. Harv Ecker conducts "Millionaire Mind Intensive" LGAT's, with the first weekend "free," which largely consists of cultivating mania in the audience and then selling the expensive advanced courses, including a "trainer training" course which allows you to become a ruthless manipulator of the poor and gullible too.

Dave Lakhani may have one foot in ethical persuasion, but he has the other placed right in the lion's den.

Grabbed 3 books by Dave Lakhani from the library, and will give them a quick read.
His information might be helpful, but it also can be multi-layered.

For someone who has watched many of these guys for a long time, there are all sorts of methods they run.

As mentioned, some conceal everything, and try to act like a new age spirit, one of the more subtle is Byron Katie.

T. Harv Ecker is pretty direct, he tells people they can have GET RICH if they buy his stuff, and that always sells.

But what is Dave Lakhani doing? Certainly, he's not to be taken at simple face value.
There are many many people who teach Persuasion, but even then the persuasion content can be a misdirection, for the real persuasion! Hope that makes sense.

So the persuasion "content", in this context can be no different that the Byron Katie content, or James Ray content.

Its not so much about the personal character of Dave Lakhani, but what exactly is he doing?
The way to research that is to look at the products and seminars he is selling, and his partnerships.

Dave Lakhani says he did a lot of training with Richard Bandler personally.
Guys who reach the upper level of this kind of persuasion, always, always work on several levels at once.
Richard Bandler also teaches persuasion methods, but there is lots they DON'T teach, which they do TO you at the same time.
Its very tricky stuff. Even an experienced pro always need to be very cautious, skeptical, and analytical.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2010 02:18PM by The Anticult.

'Dave Lakhani may have one foot in ethical persuasion, but he has the other placed right in the lion's den.'

Agreed, his services are for sale so ethics often take second place to profit in such a situation. (I am not trying to puff him a 'one of the good guys' or particularly trustworthy) Knowing that, however, his analysis can, in this instance, still be of benefit to those looking to avoid such manipulation.

Back to the manipulations of JAR, it seems that a trap was set regarding the disclaimers that participants in the high priced Spiritual Warrior, Quantum Leap etc events were required to sign.

Participants would pay their enormous fees, with a set time period where a refund was available. Three days after the refund period expired the disclaimers appeared.
These disclaimers were the usual, JAR divesting himself and his organisation of any responsibility for any outcome, up to and including death, as a result of participating in the event.
Anyone refusing to sign the disclaimer could not participate and could no longer get their money back.

So a situation of "forced choice" was knowingly engineered.
The participants had spent probably $10,000 (remember, these were less than wealthy people looking to increase their ability to aquire wealth and success--there was encouragement to max out credit cards and go into debt to pay the fees) and were then faced with either losing that money with no redress or signing away all expectations that JAR would behave ethically and accept any responsibility at all for injury, death or loss of any kind while the participants were under his care and direction.

Anyone placed in such a quandry is between a rock and a hard place and is likely to sign the disclaimer in an attempt to get some value from the money already spent and now ineligible for refund. It is also human nature to convince oneself that there is value to be had in such a situation rather than to admit that one is a victim of a straightforward con trick.

Con men rely on this aspect of human nature, the unwillingness of most of us to admit to the 'shame' of being conned, to keep their victims quiet about the con and onside. I think this is behind the massive rationalisation that victims of JAR's con are now displaying on Twitter etc. It is easier for them to see him as a maligned hero than to admit that he has so completely manipulated them.
Very, very nasty manipulation and clearly done intentionally.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2010 02:38PM by Stoic.