In the early 90's I took Justin's Sterling's Women's Weekend and was lured into joining the Family of Women, which I became heavily involved in for three years. Thankfully I managed to get out when I saw that they were demanding more and more of my time, energy, and resources. I was the head of enrollment in NY for a short time, and they told me that if I left that position my life would fall apart and I would never have a "successful relationship" with a man.

Thankfully, I had the fortitude to leave when I awakened to the fact that my financial security was on shaky ground because all of my time was going to FOW activities. Essentially I was working for Justin without getting paid for it. I needed to devote time and energy to the new business I was starting.

I'm just learning now through the Cult Education website that I was involved in a cult. What a relief it is to have so much validation reading the experiences of other people. To help my healing process, I would like to connect with other people who were able to get out of this cult.

Welcome to the message board community.

Congratulations on heeding your self care instincts and getting out when you did.

One thing what will be helpful is learning both how LGATS (Large Group Awareness Training Seminars) work.

Recruitment. I learned some new and valuable things about recruitment from
reading Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out.

[www.google.com]

(This book has 5 star reviews and 1 star reviews -- indicating that it is well worth reading!)

Often, a trusted friend or family member who is high and happy after a seminar will be set up to serve, without realizing it, as an "agent of deployment" -- aka recruiter.

Recruitment through existing relationships based on trust, friendship, love -- this is the most powerful kind of outreach there is. We are human, we have to trust someone. And very few of us think to do background checks on something recommended to us by someone we already trust.

And the people who are all worked up an serve as "agents of deployment"?

They are subjects who have been processed through the LGAT sausage grinder.

Subjects are not given full disclosure about what has been done to them. Subjects not told the actual background of the people running the operation.

The LGAT takes credit for our successes and we take the blame if we get hurt.

An LGAT contains much more than include features that target subject's bodies (stress, sleep deprivation).

No person no matter how intelligent and healthy, can preserve critical thinking if sleep deprived. When we run short on sleep, this literally hits at the "hardware" of the human central nervous system.

Critical thinking is disrupted.

Other components of the LGAT foster regression -- take subjects to the part of themselves that corresponds to very early childhood. We all have this buried within us; an LGAT cracks it open -- and in front of strangers, with no safeguards for confidentiality or after care.

[culteducation.com]

Other information on this message board about SIR.

Sterling Institute Weekends.

Sterling Institute of Relationship

[forum.culteducation.com]

Looking for Sterling Wives

[forum.culteducation.com]

Sterling Institute Debunked?

[forum.culteducation.com]

Corboy, thanks for all this information. I'm going to keep reading. Hope to hear from a few Sterling survivors here.

CEI is about liberty. You are under no obligation to reply to questions. On your profile, make sure
to hide your email.

If you get any questionable private messages, please send a copy to Rick Ross, the moderator. The only way he can know if someone is abusing the private message option is when we tell him.

He can be reached at: [forum.culteducation.com]

What defines a cult is that they don't want potential recruits to know the entire story of
the operation, the methods used during seminars or the finances, either.

People who are high and ecstatic
from the LGAT cocktail fear anything that would disrupt that high.

There are indications that Sterling may have borrowed some methods from Werner Erhard's est training
(now known as Landmark Education.)

If so, Werner Erhard was a master of grammar and rhetoric. His presentation was well rehearsed and strategic. Many of us are bored by grammar and composition coursework. But grammar, composition and rhetoric are the tools of communication and power. Werner knew this.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Fuck with grammar and vocabulary and you fuck with people's minds and disrupt critical thinking. Add in stress, yelling, and sleep deprivation, sit people so closely together that their boundaries are compromised - it adds up to a potent cocktail.

As a further illustration, Victor Baranco (now deceased) launched a sex cult called Morehouse, which still exists. His disciple, Nicole Daedone, went on to create the One Taste ventures.

Quote

"Victor had not yet returned from his afternoon rhetoric class at the Berkeley campus of the University of California...a course described by Bobby as "the art of persuasion" (Baranco says he doesnt read well: his wife attends classes with him to take notes."

From a chapter entitled the $19.95 Banana page 135 of Robin Green's article on Victor Baranco, taken from the book, "Mindfuckers: A Sourcebook on the Rise of Acid Fascism in America, Including Material on Charles Manson, Mel Lyman, Victor Baranco and their Followers by David Felton, Robin Green and David Dalton, Straight Arrow Books, 1972.

So friends, here it is. While the kids were mostly getting stoned, becoming trustful and yet more trustful, this man is taking or auditing a university level course on rhetoric.

To say the rhetoric is all about the 'art of persuasion" is like saying you learn a lot about anatomy in medical school.

In a well taught course on rhetoric, you learn tio think consciously about language, how to analyse language and learn terminology and catagories that empower you to use language with greater precision.

In rhetoric one learns the deep structure in language,and metaphor. One learns the conventions in usage, and how to asses when it is most effective to stay within the conventional use of language and when it is more effective to break the rules.

One learns the use of metaphor, how to insinuate an idea without actually mentioning it. One learns the use of story/narrative, how to use phrases, how certain methods of repeating words or phrases or use of interruptions can bring attention and build suspense.

Plato argued against rhetoric precisely because he feared its potential for abuse when in the hands of unscrupulous people.

Quintillian and other teachers insisted that only persons of good character be given a full rhetorical education to keep the subject from falling into the wrong hands.

Again, it indicates a lot that in 1971 or 1972, Victor Baranco, who was so trusted by so many hippies, was taking a course that most hippies would have shunned --rhetoric.

For the rest of the post, read here.

[forum.culteducation.com]

and

[forum.culteducation.com]


[www.cultnews.com]

[culteducation.com]

[forum.culteducation.com]

The ones earning money and getting ego affirmation and power dislike anything that sheds
light on the stuff they prefer to keep hidden.


One thing to keep in mind about recruitment, especially to an LGAT, is this is a routine that has been refined and rehearsed for years, even decades. It is not a spontaneous human encounter, not at all.

Recruitment and indoctrination in LGATs is well rehearsed. They have a protocol for any situation.

Quote


[culteducation.com]

And he puts down skeptics with a mighty hammer.

Last February, at a male-only reunion and recruitment open house in Oakland, where the Sterling Institute of Relationship is headquartered, he was pitching his special self-help sessions (known as "the Weekend") to a boisterous crowd when a thin, tweedy-looking man in his mid-twenties rose to speak.

Compared to Sterling's macho mainstays, with their ripped T-shirts and crusty jeans, this frail specimen was clearly in the wrong movie, but determined all the same. "I haven't heard one thing here tonight that would make me want to spend $600 for the Weekend," he announced to Sterling and the audience in a nasal, reedy voice.

A wall of hisses and curses greeted him immediately.

"Your agenda doesn't recognize the equal role of women," he continued, loud and proud. "It demeans the..." "You know what you are?" Sterling yelled back, shutting him off. The crowd hushed. The wanted to enjoy this. "You're a pussy! That's what you are. A big pussy! Of anybody here you need the Weekend most. But guess what? I don't want you in it! Get out of here. Be a pussy somewhere else. Go!"

Security guards in white shirts and black pants then materialized seizing the lone doubter and giving him a bumpy ride off the premises. "And guess what?" Sterling shouted after him. "It's too bad you don't get to take it, because your dick would have grown two inches!"

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2015 04:53AM by corboy.