Wefe

What your husband is experiencing is typical of what happens in a LGAT. It happened to me when I attended several NLP seminars(NLP is another kind of LGAT).

I lost interest in my hobbies, my job, my view towards my close friends changed, I couldn't emotionally relate to people anymore, I had bouts of helplessness.

The good news is that generally the person starts reverting back to their old self after a month or two - provided they have no contact with the group or it's printer or internet materials. This is important: any tapes, videos or printed materials from the group will only make his mental state worse and more dependent on them. Make sure he has no access to the informational material from the Mankind Project or communicating with them in any way.

But if he is depressed or emotionally detached, please see a mental health professional that deals with depression. It's that important. Explain to the counselor that it all started after he attended a Mankind project course.


Walter

It is so disgusting to see people on here, like the so-called 'free thinker' poster, defending LGATS.

It cannot be overstated the deep damage and havoc and destruction that such groups wreak on people's lives. There is absolutely NO defence of such a thing.

There is no need for LGATS to be in operation. None whatsoever. There is no need for people to purposefully attempt to ruin somebody's mind for their own gain. It is parasitic behaviour. It's evil.

To hear somebody make excuses and rationalizations for something that caused someone to lose their minds and commit suicide is beyond pathetic.

I know how much damage has been done - unnecessarily - to my own life as a result of having been involved with an LGAT. I had NO idea what I was walking into, and found myself in the darkest place that I could have ever imagined going to mentally.

I cannot stand to hear these cowards who cannot think for themselves come on here and talk nonsense, and defend depravity and try to make it sound good. Go away please, and let the grown ups get on with what they have to get on with.

Question for Walter1963:

What can someone who has been "processed" read and work on so that he or she will eventually find ways to ID and fend off LGAT style sales tricks--and triggers?

These triggers are not confined to a particular LGAT.

First, many sales techniques, even for non LGAT products, incorporate strategies that are used in LGATs.

I recall being pressured to purchase an upgrade, when I didnt want an upgrade.

I pleasantly let the salesperson know that I had no interest in the upgrade so that the person would not waste time on me and go on to the next phone number. (A cousin of mine who grew his own business said he had learned to endure ten rejections for every sale--he never pushed where he was not wanted, he just moved on to the next opportunity)

To my suprise, my "Am not interested" was treated as a cue to push me harder.

I was asked, "What is holding you back?"

If I had been through an LGAT or an NLP course, I might have been re-triggered.

Instead, I was triggered into good healthy indigniation at having my perferences disrespected. I had learned a lot on the Rick Ross message board, I recognized this was a generic sales technique designed to convert a NO into a YES.

I bellowed into the phone that only when I chose to do so, would I call them for an upgrade--and then hit the off button.

This is aggressive high pressure sales shit that can retrigger someone who has been processed through an LGAT.

What can someone who has been "processed" read and work on so that he or she will eventually find ways to ID and fend off LGAT style sales tricks?

Aggressive sidewalk salespeople will push double bind choices, such as "Spare a minute to save the planet"--implying that if you refuse, you dont care about saving the planet.

Many different LGATs are out there, and a lot of high pressure sales people use NLP techniques they've learned somewhere.

And, some employers or companies get persuaded that an NLP or LGAT may have useful "employee development" material and introduce it (and triggers) into workshops.

--
Warning: All information discussed here is for the emancipation of people into full adult autonomy and to regain agency in their lives and relationships.

Anyone who presumes to use discussions on RR.com to make their sack of shit LGATs more effective will be turned into a monster in human form.

You will become more and more dependant on this technology and lose ability to enjoy and function in face to face human relationships.

You will turn into nothing more than a meat-robot and come to depend on the technology because you will have lost your humanity.

And the most dangerous thing is, when moral/empathic frostbite sets in, you will lose that last bit of humanity without your being aware of it, because you will be numb.

Get out before your conscience is entirely frostbitten and while it can still be revived.

We allready went to a psyhologist, it was hard. He became a person wedouth feelings. I could not recognize him at all. He is totaly into the coure thing, reading some strange books, and telling to me that I am his enemy. He has some new best friend from the course, and this is a big problem for me, because we spoke about this before even he decided to go there, and he promiced me that he will not make friends atbthis place. ( ecactly because of the "sharing") so.....the only excuse what he gave to me is that he gave me this promice before this course, so it is bot counting. I can not except that. It is hard to see and hear my husband asking for divorce, if I can not accept this friendship, .....and one more thing.....he got task to flirt with every beautiful woman that he would meet , collect their phone numbers, and. Bring them to the point that they would be ready to sleep with him. How can some serious organisation give such a task to a marrid man???

Wefe, because of the person my husband became through MKP/NWTA/I-Groups, I now live with PTSD.

I would seriously think about what kind of future you want for yourself.

I fought for my relationship with my husband. We are still together, and he tells me he is no longer involved in MKP, but I will never trust him the way I did before. A part of me does not believe him, he became a cruel, hateful person who lied to me and treated our children and myself abusively. He came to believe that as long as he doesn't agree with me that it is acceptable to lie to me and keep secrets. How can I EVER trust anything he ever tells me again? I can't, our relationship is changed and will forever be changed and NOT for the better. He damaged us, he damaged me, he damaged how I felt about him. The nieve, believed he had my best interest at heart as I had his, love I had for him is gone.

I will never have that niavette love for him ever again. MKP changed him, caused him to be abusive, and it changed how I feel about him.

We are now the roommates I never thought we would be before MKP entered our lives, raising our children together, keeping a house together, but certainly without the love and without the trust. Their is something gone, something very important which we will never get back.

Think hard about what it is you believe you will be fighting for. It may not be worth it, you may lose a part of yourself in the process as I did, and I don't want to see that happen to anyone, ever again.

Good luck either way.

I recently completed a NWTA weekend here in Australia, followed by a "homecoming" event and my first closed I-Group. I have had some mixed feelings about these experiences and wanted to record them here in the MKP thread at Rick Ross. Hopefully, my observations are useful to others.

First off, NWTA is a LGAT. When I was contemplating doing the weekend, I came across several suggestions on the Net that MKP was a "cult". This was not helpful and shut down further enquiries by me. As a LGAT, it risks all the usual traps that this website points out so well.

I went into the weekend looking for an immersive setting where I could contemplate some difficult decisions and my own resistance to them. Within these limited parameters, I felt like I got what I came for. I did not come for a "life-changing experience", although I was open to whatever the weekend might provide.

The weekend is built around a psychodramatic centrepiece ("The Hero's Journey"), and bookended with a bunch of T-group processes, a celebration dance and a sweatlodge. There were several kooky elements throughout, some of which were a poor cultural fit (such as the Native American borrowings). The oddness began at the camp gate, where a paranoid staffer quizzed us about why we were there. The check-in process - with its intimidating stares and boot-camp heavy-handedness - was unpleasant and unnecessary. I particularly did not like being searched while staring into another man's eyes. I put up with all this pantomime knowing that I was not really in danger, but it still annoyed me, as did being assigned a number in place of my name.

I made the mistake of not eating a meal on Friday afternoon, something the instruction packet failed to mention. The food provided over the course of the weekend was inadequate - meagre cups of dry muesli, fruit and juice. By Saturday afternoon, I had a pounding headache and nausea. I wish there had been a way to opt out of this diet, something I also found pointless and arbitrary. If I have any lasting "trauma" from the weekend, it's around muesli - MKP has ruined muesli for me ;-)

It wasn't like the whole weekend was a wash. The nudity - of which far too much has been made both here and elsewhere - turned out to be liberating. The "trust walk" was dumb, yes, but dancing around the fire was exhilarating. At first, I thought it was weird that some guys had flown interstate just for this bit, but looking back, it actually makes sense (Barbara Ehrenreich's "Dancing In The Streets" talks about this as "collective effervescence"). After the final nude activity on the Sunday, one of my fellow initiates remarked, "It feels strange putting clothes on again!" True that was. Some guys found the nudity challenging and I can only hope that they came to some peace about that. For me, I came to feel much more settled about my own body and about being around male nudity in general.

I think MKP is inauthentic when it claims that it isn't doing therapy. At the very least, the psychodrama is a therapeutic process, and I would argue that several other processes fall under a similar banner. Similarly, the claim of non-profit status makes MKP sound more benign that it actually is.

While I respect MKP's request for confidentiality around other men's disclosures, I did not feel similarly obliged around secrecy of their processes. It is one thing to keep the processes as a surprise for potential initiates, but another to keep needless secrets from your partner.

I have since completed a proper psychodrama weekend with an experienced therapist, and I can report that it was remarkably superior to MKP's attempt at the same. This goes to the heart of the real problem I have with MKP, which is that it allows amateurs to conduct its therapeutic practices, and pretends that they can be trusted in the same way as a trained professional. It especially galls me when such amateurs tell me what to say and how to think.

I have read a lot of this thread and I take issue with several of the hyperbolic claims which pass uncritically (e.g. that MKP "attempts to break the male psyche down in 48 hours"). While I am not a big fan of MKP, such uncritical acceptance of negative claims dilutes the otherwise solid work that this forum does.

Would I recommend NWTA or the I-Groups to anyone? Probably not, and I am troubled about that. I find MKPers to be a little too "earnest" in their endeavours. It's a good thing to be earnest, but it can also be a little creepy when you get too serious about your group's culture, lingo and so forth. I can think of many other men's groups that I would recommend ahead of MKP. Having said that, I do think that the "elders" and regulars that I got to know have the best of intentions, for whatever that is worth. This does not strike me as a nefarious organisation at the grassroots level, at least here in Australia.

@epyx - I'm not sure if you know this but staring into another person's eyes for a long period of time is a technique for inducing a trance-like/hypnotic state. You have to ask why such an organization would want to put people into a hypnotic state without their permission and what they stand to gain from having people in such a position.

You say they don't strike you as nefarious yet from reading your post I can pin point several things that were done which are clearly nefarious, not least the eye-staring activity. What's with the food deprivation? What's with the intimidation and bootcamp? etc etc.

I'm glad you got out in one piece - not everyone is so lucky. Have you had any unusual experiences or symptoms since?

NF.

@newfuture - While I don't feel obliged to defend MKP at all, I'm no-one's conspiracy theorist. MKP's motive is spelled out in their own NWTA Protocol Manual (Version: 2009-03-01):

"The search is partially an intimidation process and highly practical because we do not want to risk any weapons coming into the training."

Charming. I notice that the forced eye-contact was not specified in the manual and was a local interpretation. I don't see this as "nefarious" though. "Retarded" would be my preferred word choice.

"What's with the food deprivation? What's with the intimidation and bootcamp? etc etc."

Yes, what the hell is up with that BS? What valuable purpose does it serve? For me, it undermines the trust that normally flows from observing a competent professional at work. It just doesn't make sense to pull this authoritarian crap on people, and then switch into a co-operative/authoritative mode for the rest of the weekend. I know this probably reflects respective contributions of Tosi and Kauth, but they really should have worked this out between themselves better.

"Have you had any unusual experiences or symptoms since?"

Just the one - the reaction I had at the end of the I-Group. I ran out screaming. Well, not literally screaming, but I bolted out of the place before anyone could hug me and I ran to my car. They went on far too long (3.5 hours), talked too much crap and wheeled out one too many poems for my liking. Allow me to articulate this in the language of the NWTA Protocol Manual:

Empowering Intent: I am getting the hell away from this place. Do not even think of touching me.
Energy Embodied: Majorly pissed off

For the record, I don't feel like a "victim" of MKP. They haven't pulled a fast one on me, and I don't regret the NWTA weekend. There was a lot I got to enjoy in hindsight, things that I haven't experienced in personal therapy or support groups. But that's not to try and sell NWTA or MKP either, because I have major misgivings.

I don't see MKP as a "cult" per se, but it does have a certain kind of culture, a kind of outlook. I think it tries a little too hard to work the Robert Moore material, the Jungian archetype stuff. It takes it all far too seriously and with its lack of transparency, it comes across as a bit churchy, like you can't bring fresh ideas. That would be true of a lot of organisations, including many workplaces.

By contrast, I have been in another men's support group for a few years. It is organised loosely around the work of a popular men's psychologist, particularly his book and his podcast series, but it also welcomes other material. It's no-nonsense stuff. I run the ideas by my partner all the time, not only because I value her buy-in, but because I see the long-term quality of my relating as the acid test of any personal development I attempt. And this kind of transparency, this kind of inclusion, fosters trust and support.

I think I end up being a poor fit for MKP. Maybe if I had come to it as a fresh-faced youngster, it might have been quite different?

Prolonged eye staring is hard wired into us as aggression.

And is used to establish domination.

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and

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