Realizing that there are cults in the new age shouldn't be surprising or depressing.

Infact I find it quite empowering when you start to question things like this. Knowledge is power.


Everyone has their opinion on the subject. Everyone is entitled to their religious standing.
Speaking for myself...when I stepped out of my "new age" thought blocking techniques.... I allowed myself to think..to be myself,...
I got my power back.

Here's a great vid on critical thinking posted on another thread by Vera City:

[www.youtube.com]

Another goodie, from the same source, found by Indigo Arthur:

[www.youtube.com]

Hi Stoic,

Thank you for your response. I agree with you about our minds being amazing and that the placebo effect can be a huge factor. Although having said that, I never could figure out why self-hypnosis and the Silva Method didn't work for me. I'm very visual and was very motivated when I tried out these two techniques. But in the end despite other people's enthusiastic claims that these methods worked for them, what matters to me is my own experience.

I am a strange mixture being both sceptical and yet open minded. It's one of the reasons I'll sometimes check things out on Dr. Mercola's site because he questions mainstream reliance on prescription drugs, preferring people live a healthy lifestyle than pop a pill for every ache and pain. I don't agree with everything he says and find he can be very extreme in his views, but in the end I respect that he appears to be looking for answers to help his patients. It was on his site that I first heard about EFT which is why I've been giving it a try to see if it works for me.

Since my last post I have been doing some online research. One of the things I learned is that tapping on random spots was just about as effect as doing the specific points suggested by EFT practitioners.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UTiEmpYGVgsJ:www.eftdownunder.com/sequence.html+eft+gary+craig+Monica+Pignotti+random+tapping&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca]Does it matter where I tap?[/url]

It seems that I am not the only one who has had mixed results with this technique because I came across a discussion in which a practitioner admitted to experiencing inconsistent results with EFT both with his clients and himself.

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Anyway, to be perfectly honest, I have used EFT for myself and for my clients - and I must say I'm still not convinced either. To be more precise, I have experienced dramatic results with all kinds of physical, mental, and emotional issues - intense physical pain totally gone in minutes. I have experienced clients ROLL their eyes, and look at me like I am crazy - and still get amazing results. And I have also experienced the opposite where someone seems totally cooperative and agrees with every bit of the explanation - and no change whatsoever. I have also had the same experience with myself. It has helped me when nothing else worked - and at other times very little happens.

Here is a link for the full discussion:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4rHwAs6LLGsJ:www.nlpconnections.com/chill-out-room/15503-eft-scams-self-help.html+emotional+freedom+technique+scam&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca]EFT and Scams in Self Help[/url]

BTW, I have always loved that quotation by Maya Angelou.

Hi NotEnlightened,

Thank you for your response.

I definitely don't want to pin all my hopes on EFT or any other tool. That would be like saying "Hey, aspirin got rid of my headache, so maybe I can skip going to emergency and take aspirin for my broken leg."

You say:

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My take is that EFT may offer help, but it is not due to the mechanisms that its creator has laid out. So on one hand we can say if something works for someone then it works for someone and who cares why. But on the other I do think it's important to distinguish how things work - what about the people who EFT doesn't work for? What if EFT truly is not suited for some problems? If we just accept the marketing at face value we can't address these questions in meaningful ways.

While on the one hand I am impatient and don't want to wait to try new techniques if they are non-invasive and therefore unlikely to cause harm, more research is still needed. Too often in the world of New Wage if something doesn't work for you, it's all your "fault" because you didn't have enough faith, weren't motivated enough, focused enough, etc., etc. Gary Craig's old site listed the success stories but not the cases where EFT didn't work. Surely there were cases where EFT didn't work! How could this or any other technique be 100 percent effective? It's like when I try a new recipe from a cookbook or wing it on my own, not everything is going to be a success despite my years of experience. I tend to learn more from the experiments that didn't work because I'll stop and figure out where I went wrong so that I can use my new insight for future experiments. But we never hear about the times EFT or the LOA didn't work.

Perhaps EFT works (when it does) because it's a temporary way to stop obsessing about something and then much like taking a deep breath or two the practitioner is then calmer and better able to deal with the troubling thought or situation. Maybe it's that simple. Of course, in New Age circles nothing is ever that simple.

New Age gurus are big on creating make work projects which cut into a person's time for actual living. A person can waste a ridiculous amount of time parroting positive affirmations, visualising, etc., thinking all that work is making positive changes when it would be simpler and more efficient to set goals, break them down into small, achievable tasks with deadlines and then take action.

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I say, if EFT has this much potential, let's really examine it and get it out of the fringes and into the hands of the people who need it and understand it in a real way that will allow it to be applied most effectively. Don't come up with a psuedoscientific explanation for it and assume we know things we don't. As an aside, a lot of what I was tapping with the therapist was essentially tapping away my thoughts that were critical of the process. There are people out there that do EFT nothing less than compulsively. In my opinion, the ability to be present in one's body and allow feelings to exist as they are with awareness is a key to emotional healing (and that is an OPINION). Perhaps tapping on one's body while holding certain emotions in consciousness keeps you aware of feelings that would otherwise remain hidden, allowing them to heal. That sounds plausible to me, but it's a far cry from Gary Craig's theory set forth on EFT. Even acupuncturists I have talked to who deal far more in depth with the cosmology that EFT is purported to be based on find its theory very questionable. EFT theory is a sort of bastardization of acupuncture theory, which I have studied quite a bit.

What you say makes a lot of sense! While I go more and more with my own intuition, thinking abilities and experiences, more research would be appreciated. I understand that the pharmaceuticals have a vested interest in keeping us on pills, but there should be more pressure placed on governments and doctors to help us. I've read statistics (I can't remember where) showing the increasing use of alternative "cures" and this is no accident. People are taking more responsibility for their health because regular medicine doesn't always work and in the process can lead to more problems. This means that people are treating themselves as guinea pigs and can be wasting valuable time and money on cures which could be bogus and could cause more harm if there is something serious that needs to be dealt with by a qualified MD such as cancer.

New Wagers love to target and take advantage of people that are sick and vulnerable. It's been ages since I saw The Secret, but if i remember right, there was a woman talking about how she cured herself of cancer with positive thinking. She could just as easily have died despite her faith in the LOA; it's extremely irresponsible to have included her in that DVD. There are desperate and gullible people out there who will take something like EFT or the LOA and think they have found the cure for everything and become obsessed with it in a superstitious and OCD kind of way. Scary stuff.

But it's time I got off my soap box. I am so glad I found this site. I keep coming back because our governments and the media aren't doing enough to expose this craziness and in fact the media is helping promote this stuff.

Take care. I wish you all the best!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2010 03:10AM by sunshine.