Re: Looking for anecdotal accounts from LGAT victims, familiy members of victims, or other concerned individuals
Date: November 12, 2019 09:38AM
"Additionally, I think that to focus on Erhard in all of this is akin to focusing on Jim Jones, or Koresh, or Raniere, as the prime movers in various cult debacles.
In all cases, there are many, many enablers, and enablers are different than KoolAid-drinking dupes."
The thing we need to remember is that people are in this to make a lot money, Both the figureheads and their entourage. Plus a parade of coat-tail hangers. Jones and Koresh may have been ideological wack jobs but Erhard is a salesman - a two-bit con artist.
Money is certainly a motivator for many. But, I see other possibilities that should not be discounted.
People with advanced degrees are exploiting people in many ways and LGAT seminars are just one example.
For sure, and the academy's primary function has been degraded by professors who set up personal money-making fiefdoms. Too many examples of this to count.
And the Harvard professor(s) who are name dropped to give false credibility to one particular LGAT spoke from their own opinion - not the view of their department or professional body. And in this case it was a business school professor - not psychology or psychiatry. But then even psychiatrists can exploit people. There have been doctors found out to be perverts and even serial killers.
In the case of certain professors and a certain LGAT, I would dispute that their involvement was limited to the expression of an opinion. It is my understanding that Warren Bennis consigned institutional resources to perform research on behalf of that LGAT, and that he made a small fortune publishing books "Warren Bennis Press" promoting these solutions. He did this with full knowledge of his institution, and with its imprimatur.
Yes, Bennis was a business professor, but his interface with psychologists (Carl Rogers, and many others) was very significant.
Let's face it if you can take some pop-psychology, basic self-help concepts and mix it up with a MLM marketing model - then persuade people to hand over large sums of money for the "training" - then you've created quite an impressive money spinner. If you can get a willing and enthusiastic unpaid workforce to run the operation then you can really supercharge it.
Yes, for sure, and as I said above, there are countless cases of business professors, and psych professors leveraging some bit of research to make millions and via drone armies of enthusiastic followers. In a sense, Ed Schein (psychologist) at MIT was a pioneer of this, and via the formation of an alleged practice group, OD Network, which has become his sales channel.
No surprise I'd say that some business school people might want to study it and figure how how to maximise the potential for cashing in. They're even more interested in things like crypto-currency. Just look at how these same type of people behave when let loose on Wall Street. Major banks collapsed because of them.
Not one argument from me on this point. I still question, however, that money is the only, or even primary driver.