Take these precautions before going to a retreat or seminar
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: October 07, 2013 02:18AM
Do background research on the group. If they tell you not to go on the internet -- its a red flag. Go on the internet and research them. Use search terms like cult, abuse, money, scam, etc.
Here is a first hand report by someone named luckyescapee who trusted his gut and extracted himself from an LGAT named the Mankind Project.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Keeping in mind what luckyescapee wrote, here is advice for anyone going on a workshop or retreat. Having read what lucky wrote, you will see this advice is not paranoid, it is plain common sense.
One Person One Car
What follows is advice about maintaining autonomy. Its like going out on a blind ate. If you find you are in bad company, you want to be able to get home under your own power, without depending on the other person for transportation.
This is not paranoia. Its being a street smart adult. The kind of advice you pray and hope your teenaged kids will follow -- especially your daughters.
Always maintain complete ownership and control over your means of transportation to and from registration for a workshop you know nothing about. Make sure you have a full tank of gas just before you arrive where the workshop is.
Park your car where you can easily drive away, and with no risk of it becoming boxed in by other participants' cars. If possible, try to find a lot where other participants are less likely to put their cars.
If this is an overnight or several nights gig, get your accommodation at a motel or hotel independant of the event, and have your own room. Or rent a vehicle that you can sleep in, so long as its legal to do so.
Do not agree to car pool with someone else, and under no circumstances, give in to pleas or coaxings to let someone ride in your car, even if they are head of your tribe, someone you are madly in love with, frail, elderly, charming or promise to pay for the gas. Dont agree to any last minute pressure to let anyone carpool in your vehicle.
This is not a time to be 'green' or to worry about keeping a low carbon footprint.
Why? Because if you see signs that this is an event you want nothing to do with, you will hesitate to leave and drive away if you fear that you are ditching other people who car pooled with you.
You may risk staying and having your brain and body fried.
Never give up keys to your car, your ID or cell phone.
If you find yourself at an event and you decide its not good, get out. Dont talk to anyone, dont try to argue, just turn around and get out. dont try to argue. If anyone says you are being a coward, they're trying to push your buttons. They're like car salespeople. Dont argue. Dont give them anything to get at or grab onto. Silence is powerful, because it gives no handholds.
Forget Hollywood scenarios. Dont try to be a hero or heroine.
(Hollywood is the last place to look for realism. Ask any Vietnam veteran who signed up, under the influence of the John Wayne movies, and then ask if that was realistic preparation for what they encountered)
Dont stay in there and try to rescue your friends. Thats like staying in a smoke filled building. Its best to avoid becoming a casualty and get out.
The longer you stay, the more you risk succumbing. People who run these events have a protocol for dealing with everything --- including people like you.
These set ups have been around for decades--maybe longer than some of us have been alive.
Dont argue, stay silent, get out.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2018 08:04PM by corboy.
Here is a first hand report by someone named luckyescapee who trusted his gut and extracted himself from an LGAT named the Mankind Project.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Keeping in mind what luckyescapee wrote, here is advice for anyone going on a workshop or retreat. Having read what lucky wrote, you will see this advice is not paranoid, it is plain common sense.
What follows is advice about maintaining autonomy. Its like going out on a blind ate. If you find you are in bad company, you want to be able to get home under your own power, without depending on the other person for transportation.
This is not paranoia. Its being a street smart adult. The kind of advice you pray and hope your teenaged kids will follow -- especially your daughters.
Always maintain complete ownership and control over your means of transportation to and from registration for a workshop you know nothing about. Make sure you have a full tank of gas just before you arrive where the workshop is.
Park your car where you can easily drive away, and with no risk of it becoming boxed in by other participants' cars. If possible, try to find a lot where other participants are less likely to put their cars.
If this is an overnight or several nights gig, get your accommodation at a motel or hotel independant of the event, and have your own room. Or rent a vehicle that you can sleep in, so long as its legal to do so.
Do not agree to car pool with someone else, and under no circumstances, give in to pleas or coaxings to let someone ride in your car, even if they are head of your tribe, someone you are madly in love with, frail, elderly, charming or promise to pay for the gas. Dont agree to any last minute pressure to let anyone carpool in your vehicle.
This is not a time to be 'green' or to worry about keeping a low carbon footprint.
Why? Because if you see signs that this is an event you want nothing to do with, you will hesitate to leave and drive away if you fear that you are ditching other people who car pooled with you.
You may risk staying and having your brain and body fried.
Never give up keys to your car, your ID or cell phone.
If you find yourself at an event and you decide its not good, get out. Dont talk to anyone, dont try to argue, just turn around and get out. dont try to argue. If anyone says you are being a coward, they're trying to push your buttons. They're like car salespeople. Dont argue. Dont give them anything to get at or grab onto. Silence is powerful, because it gives no handholds.
Forget Hollywood scenarios. Dont try to be a hero or heroine.
(Hollywood is the last place to look for realism. Ask any Vietnam veteran who signed up, under the influence of the John Wayne movies, and then ask if that was realistic preparation for what they encountered)
Dont stay in there and try to rescue your friends. Thats like staying in a smoke filled building. Its best to avoid becoming a casualty and get out.
The longer you stay, the more you risk succumbing. People who run these events have a protocol for dealing with everything --- including people like you.
These set ups have been around for decades--maybe longer than some of us have been alive.
Dont argue, stay silent, get out.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2018 08:04PM by corboy.
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
liminal
()
Date: October 07, 2013 05:10AM
Quote
Information from people who have attended these workshops:
When you enter the venue you must sign a waiver that states POV is not responsible for anything that happens to you. Doesn't matter if you have health challenges or not. You sign this, everyone already present witnesses this and also signs it, then you get a name tag and are allowed in.
Next everyone is supposed to "dance to the music". There is peer pressure to dance, and the dancing continues til Chuck and Lency show up. Chuck and Lency sit in nice cushy chairs, in front of the audience, whose chairs are arranged in a horseshoe shape. Where exactly you are seated is supposed to be symbolic of various issues you are unconscious of - such as birthing, death, "deep rooted chronic", etc.
There is also a chair for a participant chosen to be the "group mind". Everyone is supposed to listen to what they say, because as the Spezzanos claim "There is only one of us here".
Before the public workshop even begins the Spezzanos meet in private with their trainers, they spend about an hour working them over emotionally, they "process" them, often this is very intense and emotional.
At the beginning of the workshop the trainers stand up front of the group and read the ground rules about confidentiality and commitments. You stand up to show agreement. You are reminded of these commitments during the entire event. You cannot attend part of an event, you have to be there for every day, all day, if it is three days, ten, whatever. You are pressured to stay in the room, told that if you get up and leave to use the washroom that you are in denial of your issues.
Everyone is paired off in a buddy system and given work to do with each other. Trainers keep scanning the room, looking for people to target and upset.
Chuck sometimes roams the room, stares at people to get them worked up.
Trainers work the room, massage people's shoulders, tap their backs, touch them, and whisper to them to get them upset and emoting.
Sometimes participants basically pass out, while several people are doing supposed body work on them, the participants end up screaming, vomiting, going into delirious laughter (which is supposedly "bliss" - the goal)
A trainer held a participant and tapped their throat area hard while whispering that they needed to let go, the person was sore for weeks after this treatment.
Some people have break downs and end up desperate and incoherent. Some behave aggressively flirtatious.
Chuck tells a lot of sexual jokes. He gestures with the mic as a penis, raising it up and down. He also states with words and motions that if a woman opens her heart, her body will be open for sex.
Chuck has promoted gambling for after workshops as he claims participants' luck has improved.
There is a lot of pressure to keep taking workshops, keep paying, keep up to their standards.
Anyone who has critical questions is told they are in resistance and not doing the work.
Anyone who leaves the group is shunned and mistreated.
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4179.msg35696#msg35696
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
liminal
()
Date: October 07, 2013 11:17AM
These Psychology of Vision trainings are so incredibly unsafe. No confidentiality, immense pressure, extreme push to get people to freak out. Chuck and Lency Spezzano, along with their top trainers, claim they have special mystical abilities.
Chuck keeps people stressed, like any destructive group leader, by telling people that they have to do certain practices to prevent ever looming danger.
People go to trainings, then get recruited to do more, all while becoming more and more entranced. Their entire lives become about POV.
There are various spin offs, including Vision Works for Life, run by Jeff and Sue Allen http://visionworksforlife.com/about-us/ There is some involvement in schools, and also in charities.
Chuck Spezzano has written quite a few psycho babble books. He also keeps his followers hooked by doing a "daily reading" from his Enlightenment Pack of divination cards, along with others, he posts on his blog and facebook his supposed drawn card for the day, and what it means.
People wait for his daily announcement, and then structure their thoughts around it.
POV has their own loaded language - including their definitions for joining, downloads, and giftedness.
Chuck keeps people stressed, like any destructive group leader, by telling people that they have to do certain practices to prevent ever looming danger.
People go to trainings, then get recruited to do more, all while becoming more and more entranced. Their entire lives become about POV.
There are various spin offs, including Vision Works for Life, run by Jeff and Sue Allen http://visionworksforlife.com/about-us/ There is some involvement in schools, and also in charities.
Chuck Spezzano has written quite a few psycho babble books. He also keeps his followers hooked by doing a "daily reading" from his Enlightenment Pack of divination cards, along with others, he posts on his blog and facebook his supposed drawn card for the day, and what it means.
People wait for his daily announcement, and then structure their thoughts around it.
POV has their own loaded language - including their definitions for joining, downloads, and giftedness.
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
liminal
()
Date: October 09, 2013 11:39AM
A survivor reports that the basic structure of POV trainings is:
Break down people's boundaries
Have them reveal personal hardships and info
Make them emote and purge
Rebond them to POV
Break down people's boundaries
Have them reveal personal hardships and info
Make them emote and purge
Rebond them to POV
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
liminal
()
Date: October 17, 2013 01:00AM
Some people end up with uncontrollable shaking http://griftershotel.blogspot.com/2013/10/uncontrollable-shaking.html
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4179.msg35851#msg35851
Quote
Lency has often spoken publicly about being called a cult leader, her reply is that people just don't understand, that POV is all about healing, and any who criticize are just trying to attack their healing work.
"It doesn't matter what complaint you have , they will always turn it into an issue of 'rebellion, shadow, or the dark soul patterns' "
Some people have experienced psychotic events from POV that have affected their lives for years.
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4179.msg35851#msg35851
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
liminal
()
Date: November 12, 2013 12:02AM
Chuck Spezzano claims he was enlightened at Oneness University in 2007. Through Psychology of Vision he, his wife Lency Spezzano, and their trainers, all teach Oneness practices, including claims that they do Oneness Blessings.
Oneness University had been compared to a locked down facility, it has guards and barbed wire http://griftershotel.blogspot.com/2013/11/oneness-university-locked-down-facility.html
APTN Investigates just aired an episode, Plastic Shamans, concerning two high demand groups - Psychology of Vision one of them, that are affecting communities in B.C. Canada. A woman reports in this episode that youth have felt suicidal after a Psychology of Vision event. http://aptn.ca/pages/news/category/investigates/
Oneness University had been compared to a locked down facility, it has guards and barbed wire http://griftershotel.blogspot.com/2013/11/oneness-university-locked-down-facility.html
APTN Investigates just aired an episode, Plastic Shamans, concerning two high demand groups - Psychology of Vision one of them, that are affecting communities in B.C. Canada. A woman reports in this episode that youth have felt suicidal after a Psychology of Vision event. http://aptn.ca/pages/news/category/investigates/
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
liminal
()
Date: May 26, 2014 02:16AM
http://the-truth-about-chuck-and-lency-spezzano.com/
This web site is an attempt at reputation management by Lency Spezzano. The testimonials read almost like loyalty oaths. As a high demand group this group follows a common pattern: the followers are rallied and expected to declare loyalty, and any criticism is described as vicious emotional attacks by immature people who just don't understand.
Hopefully continued consumer education will help people make educated choices concerning this high demand LGAT.
This web site is an attempt at reputation management by Lency Spezzano. The testimonials read almost like loyalty oaths. As a high demand group this group follows a common pattern: the followers are rallied and expected to declare loyalty, and any criticism is described as vicious emotional attacks by immature people who just don't understand.
Hopefully continued consumer education will help people make educated choices concerning this high demand LGAT.
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
liminal
()
Date: July 10, 2014 01:03AM
I'm very concerned about the psychiatric casualties that result from Psychology of Vision events. The Spezzanos recently did a 10 day event in British Columbia, and at least one participant is not doing well.
The B.C. crisis line is 1-800-784-2433, they also have online chat available http://crisiscentre.bc.ca/get-help/
I encourage anyone feeling distressed after a POV event to contact trustworthy professional help, and to get themselves clear of POV.
The Spezzanos sent out a cease and desist type letter to several critics, along with someone who has never said anything about POV, the letter was intimidating, demanded an apology, stated there was a time limit of 10 days - but ultimately the letter was worthless and did not silence critics.
Some of the links now in this thread no long work, POV has taken some things down, and some blogs by critics are now down. Also POV has adjusted some online bios of the Spezzanos, references to Oneness University for instance have been disappeared.
First Nations people in B.C. are especially targeted. POV claims to help people who are survivors of residential school trauma, but POV instead leaves people distressed, upset, and in some cases suicidal.
For survivors of POV and their family members, there is help available. A good place to start is here http://www.culteducation.com/help.html
The B.C. crisis line is 1-800-784-2433, they also have online chat available http://crisiscentre.bc.ca/get-help/
I encourage anyone feeling distressed after a POV event to contact trustworthy professional help, and to get themselves clear of POV.
The Spezzanos sent out a cease and desist type letter to several critics, along with someone who has never said anything about POV, the letter was intimidating, demanded an apology, stated there was a time limit of 10 days - but ultimately the letter was worthless and did not silence critics.
Some of the links now in this thread no long work, POV has taken some things down, and some blogs by critics are now down. Also POV has adjusted some online bios of the Spezzanos, references to Oneness University for instance have been disappeared.
First Nations people in B.C. are especially targeted. POV claims to help people who are survivors of residential school trauma, but POV instead leaves people distressed, upset, and in some cases suicidal.
For survivors of POV and their family members, there is help available. A good place to start is here http://www.culteducation.com/help.html
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
liminal
()
Date: July 15, 2014 01:24AM
Lency and Chuck Spezzano were both born in the lower 48 states USA. They eventually settled in Hawaii, which is where they are now based, and where they do some trainings. Otherwise they hit Asian countries, UK and Germany, and Canada. For some reason they do not offer trainings in the lower 48 states USA anymore.
They behave like classic "Ugly Americans". They sell their large group awareness trainings, claim that they are creating cultural renaissances, and leave people upset and very confused, sometimes suicidal.
This video is especially informative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fds1BgICdBY Some good things to know about it: this is all staged, not spontaneous, the format of "It's your birthday!" etc. is all scripted and something that the woman this is being done to, Babs Stevens, has had done to her many times before.
Ms. Stevens is a prominent political leader in her area, so the fact that she is a POV trainer and missionary makes a huge difference in her community. She has enlisted many people into this dangerous large group awareness training.
You will see Lency Spezzano move her arms around in an odd fashion. Some of this is informed by her past work in American Sign Language, and apparently for POV she has invented her own signs. I figure the arm waving, the odd head movements, grimaces etc. are all her efforts to dramatically manipulate her victims/viewers.
Music is used to manipulate emotions quite dramatically also.
Ms. Stevens eventually ends up crying, then laughing, all while going through tremors.
Staring sessions with Lency result in victims looking like they are having strokes and seizures.
Followers of Lency and Chuck are very devoted, they express a lot of love and gratitude. But when followers need help after being messed over at a POV event, the Spezzanos do not provide aid. They tell followers that they just need to do more group practices.
The Spezzanos have funded most of their living expenses over the years by doing these manipulations/performances. They are making a living, while their followers at best end up with a piece of paper giving them the right to do meaningless POV practices also.
They behave like classic "Ugly Americans". They sell their large group awareness trainings, claim that they are creating cultural renaissances, and leave people upset and very confused, sometimes suicidal.
This video is especially informative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fds1BgICdBY Some good things to know about it: this is all staged, not spontaneous, the format of "It's your birthday!" etc. is all scripted and something that the woman this is being done to, Babs Stevens, has had done to her many times before.
Ms. Stevens is a prominent political leader in her area, so the fact that she is a POV trainer and missionary makes a huge difference in her community. She has enlisted many people into this dangerous large group awareness training.
You will see Lency Spezzano move her arms around in an odd fashion. Some of this is informed by her past work in American Sign Language, and apparently for POV she has invented her own signs. I figure the arm waving, the odd head movements, grimaces etc. are all her efforts to dramatically manipulate her victims/viewers.
Music is used to manipulate emotions quite dramatically also.
Ms. Stevens eventually ends up crying, then laughing, all while going through tremors.
Staring sessions with Lency result in victims looking like they are having strokes and seizures.
Followers of Lency and Chuck are very devoted, they express a lot of love and gratitude. But when followers need help after being messed over at a POV event, the Spezzanos do not provide aid. They tell followers that they just need to do more group practices.
The Spezzanos have funded most of their living expenses over the years by doing these manipulations/performances. They are making a living, while their followers at best end up with a piece of paper giving them the right to do meaningless POV practices also.
Re: Psychology of Vision - Chuck and Lency Spezzano
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: July 15, 2014 09:20PM
More discussions here on the website offered by Native Americans
[www.newagefraud.org]
Discussion on same website of another practictitioner who appears to use
same method as the POV
[www.newagefraud.org]
[www.newagefraud.org]
Discussion on same website of another practictitioner who appears to use
same method as the POV
[www.newagefraud.org]
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