I have a bunch of books I've already donated a while ago--books by Marianne Williamson, Bryon Katie, etc. with thanks to this forum.

However, I can't seem to let go of others. I feel like I'm going to be back to where I started when I first got into spiritual type stuff.

I'm going to donate the following books by the authors:
Eckhart Tolle
Wayne Dyer
Oprah
Mark Nepo
Deepak Chopra
Louise Hay

Are any of the following authors normal/not cultish:
Brene Brown
Thich Nhat Hanh
Don Miguel Ruiz
The Dalai Lama
Michael Singer
Melodie Beattie

How do you all know which authors are not cultish, and which are? Or should I just get rid of them all?

allalong,

I understand your concern. I would definitely NOT lump The Dalai Lama in with the charlatans. He is a legitimate religious leader. I don't know as much about Thich Nhat Hanh, but i believe that he is also legit.

It is my understanding that the books by Don Miguel Ruiz draw from the Toltec tradition. I have no reason to think of him as a cult leader, but maybe others have more information than me.

The others, (on the 2nd list), i am not familiar with.

I have been "New Age" since the 70's. At that time, it was just a bunch of people exploring spirituality, energy, psychic phenomena, etc. They developed their personal philosophies according to what they intuited/ believed. It was not organized.

Between then and now, certain people saw a potential for profit, started referring to it as "New Age," and tried to impose a structure on it, with themselves at the top. Bits and pieces of old, traditional religions, unfamiliar to the West, also got swept up into the whole mess.

My advice would be to look at the behavior of the people involved. Are they making crazy promises about "empowerment" while delivering just the opposite? The beliefs are irrelevant. Look at the beliefs of most of the Western world. They would seem crazy to some. Yet, our culture is largely based on those beliefs.

kdag Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> allalong,
>
> I understand your concern. I would definitely
> NOT lump The Dalai Lama in with the
> charlatans. He is a legitimate religious leader.
> I don't know as much about Thich Nhat Hanh, but i
> believe that he is also legit.

Oops. I meant no disrespect to Buddhists. I don't know why I lumped The Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh in there. I think I'm just being careful of spiritual types of messages. My apologies if I offended anyone. That was a mistake. I know so little about this, and I am just looking to understand who the true gurus are. Thank you for pointing this out.
>
> It is my understanding that the books by Don
> Miguel Ruiz draw from the Toltec tradition. I have
> no reason to think of him as a cult leader, but
> maybe others have more information than me.

From what I've read and heard, he isn't cultish either. I should not have included him or TNH either.
>
> I have been "New Age" since the 70's. At that
> time, it was just a bunch of people exploring
> spirituality, energy, psychic phenomena, etc.
> They developed their personal philosophies
> according to what they intuited/ believed. It was
> not organized.

That is interesting to hear. Too bad we can't get back to the way things were back then.
>
> Between then and now, certain people saw a
> potential for profit, started referring to it as
> "New Age," and tried to impose a structure on it,
> with themselves at the top. Bits and pieces of
> old, traditional religions, unfamiliar to the
> West, also got swept up into the whole mess.

The history of how this happened is good to know. It's too bad a bunch of charlatans had to go and try to make a profit out of this.

> My advice would be to look at the behavior
> of the people involved. Are they making crazy
> promises about "empowerment" while delivering just
> the opposite? The beliefs are irrelevant. Look
> at the beliefs of most of the Western world. They
> would seem crazy to some. Yet, our culture is
> largely based on those beliefs.

This is all helpful to read. I've since realized one of the groups I referred to as a soft cult wasn't a cult at all. It just had a few people in it who used the teachings in somewhat harmful ways, but that's not how the person running the group meant it to be.

What you wrote here sort of reminds me of the teachings of the book "The Secret" that one of my yoga friends had recommended to me a while back. I just don't believe in that sort of thing.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2020 09:41AM by allalong.

I'd like to edit my original post. I am embarrassed. I was in a place for a moment of wanting to discard anything that reminded me of spirituality. But I know that is not necessary.

I'm going to donate the following books by the authors:

Eckhart Tolle
Wayne Dyer
Oprah
Deepak Chopra
Louise Hay

I'm going to keep books by the following:

Brene Brown
Thich Nhat Hanh
Don Miguel Ruiz
The Dalai Lama
Pedra Chodron
Tara Brach

Feel free to post about books you passed on or books you kept.

Allalong,

I generally tend to pass on anything that sounds authoritative. LGATs and cult leaders are noted over and over to be very authoritarian. You can feel a definite contrast on exposure, especially if you have had experience with the ones that are not like that. You can usually tell just by cracking the book open in a few places and reading a few paragraphs. Theres a whole different "tone" to it. Then you can just avoid buying them in the first place. The books i like give information. Some of the information i like and accept, and other parts i might reject. The main point is that those books don't tell me what to do.

One of my all-time favorite authors was Jane Roberts, who wrote many books in the 70's, (the Seth material). Her material was channeled, though, so that might not be your cup of tea. Some people find her material hard to grasp, and this could have led to some misunderstandings by some, and attempts to lead people down the garden path by others.

If you read the Bible, there are many possible ways to interpret much of it. Some are inspired to be a better person and love their neighbors. Others choose to start crusades and torture people. It depends on the reader as much as what is written.

Go with your gut, and do what works for you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2020 01:12PM by kdag.

> I generally tend to pass on anything that sounds
> authoritative. LGATs and cult leaders are noted
> over and over to be very authoritarian. You can
> feel a definite contrast on exposure,
> especially if you have had experience with the
> ones that are not like that. You can
> usually tell just by cracking the book open in a
> few places and reading a few paragraphs. Theres a
> whole different "tone" to it. Then you can just
> avoid buying them in the first place. The books i
> like give information. Some of the information i
> like and accept, and other parts i might reject.
> The main point is that those books don't tell
> me what to do.

Good points--I immediately thought of a Tony Robbins book I borrowed from a friend years ago.

I've read books on another particular subject where it was easy to see who was just trying to sell something as a fake guru/sly businessperson, versus who knew what they were actually talking about.
>
> Go with your gut, and do what works for you.

Thanks for the important reminder for us all.

This just flitted through my mind, and you might find it mildly amusing;

From my point of view, as someone who has watched the whole thing deteriorate: Groups like Landmark are to the metaphysical community, as Dolores Umbridge was to Hogwarts.

(And no thanks - I'm a Weasley! ^^)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2020 01:36AM by kdag.

Allalong, just a note about Pema Chodron on your list. I, too, have enjoyed a couple of her books, but I like to dig into the teachers' lineage before going too far down a path with a "popular"/reknowned author and teacher. Especially important if the work resonates with you, if you are citing quotes or engaging more deeply in their practices. She had an abusive and disgraceful teacher that she and others protected, denying abuse allegations when young women approached her in trust. When all was revealed publicly she had to do some backpedalling and step away from the organization. Not to negate her wisdom, but it comes with a hidden cost.

[www.lionsroar.com]

[tricycle.org]

Resilient has given excellent advice.

Information about the abuse behavior perpetrated by Pema Chodron's guru, Chogyam Trungpa, can be hard to find online because Trungpa has a large body of loyal students who work hard to bury this information online. To learn whether any teacher or guru has generated abuse complaints, you need to use negative thinking, not avoid it - you have to play devil's advocate. You have to do the opposite of what gurus and their followers advise us to do.

For example, suppose you admire Pema Chodron's writings or have benefitted from her meditation tapes. She says her teacher was Chogyam Trungpa. We will give Trungpa the benefit of the doubt, even admire him, trusting in the good results we got from the methods Pema said he taught her.

How can we imagine that Trungpa abused alcohol? Or that while drunk, he sent his bodyguards to yank reluctant guests from their room and forced them to participate in a drunken humiliating "vajra retreat" party?

[www.google.com]

Pema Chodron's teacher, Chogyam Trungpa was an abusive guru. Worse, Trungpa appears to have left a toxic legacy of abuse, for Trungpa's own son and successor, Mipham has generated abuse reports, as did Ozel Tendzin, the interim successor Trungpa himself appointed during Miphan's majority. Reggie Ray, a Trungpa student has recently generated abuse allegations.

Trungpa's toxic legacy is multi generational.

Here is a talk given by Pema Chodron, analyzed by Matthew Remski. Make sure to read the comments following the article.

Pema Chödrön on Trungpa in 2011: "I Can't Answer The Relative Questions"

[matthewremski.com]

Am sorry to report that the legacy of abuse continued after Trungpa died.

Trungpa's appointed successor, "Vajra Regent" Ozel Tendzin, was HIV+ and believed himself so spiritually advanced that he was incapable of transmitting the virus to persons he had sex with - his students.

[www.google.com]

Pema Chodron's teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, generated a lot of abuse reports.

These abuse reports go back for many years. Trungpa has many loyal followers who have worked hard to bury this information online and elsewhere. To read about Trungpa's abuses, you have to play devil's advocate and use specific search terms.

The poet MS Merwin and his wife did *not* want to participate in one of Trungpa's drunken parties and hid in their room. Trungpa ordered his bodyguards to pull the Merwins from their room.

[www.google.com]

Trungpa also trained many loyal disciples who became celebrated spiritual teachers.

One such teacher, Reggie Ray - and who rationalize Trungpa's abusive behavior and worse still, rationalize his own fear of Trungpa as having been a spiritual experience.

Mipham Rinpoche, Trungpa's son and successor has recently generated abuse allegations. Chip off the old block.

[www.google.com]

Reggie Ray, one of Trungpa's students rationalized the terror he felt around Trungpa as being a spiritual experience. Reggie Ray is now facing abuse allegations.

Reggie Ray Spiritualizes The Terror of Disorganized Attachment in Relation to Trungpa

Rhttp://matthewremski.com/wordpress/reggie-ray-spiritualizes-the-terror-of-disorganized-attachment-in-relation-to-trungpa/

Reggie Ray Abuse Allegations

[www.google.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2020 11:14PM by corboy.

Pema Chödrön on Trungpa in 2011: “I Can’t Answer the Relative Questions”

[matthewremski.com]

Quote

Chödrön’s “I don’t know” carries a further charge. Arguably, a large part of her popularity comes from her ability to poetically mobilize the language that values personal vulnerability (recently made more popular by Brené Brown and others) to reinforce a doctrinal belief not just in the unknowability of “relative” answers, but in their irrelevance.

For those who try to engage it — I speak from some personal experience — the impact of M?dhyamika contemplation can be startling to the point of ecstasy. The feeling of “groundlessness” to which the Shambhala literature continually refers reflects the sudden epiphanies of deconstructive logic. I was used to this austere pleasure from my university studies, where it was applied to pull apart the mechanisms of social and linguistic power. To think that this could also be used internally, soulfully even, to pull apart internalized power structures was thrilling. It’s a hook, for sure.

But groundlessness and “spaciousness” as responses to not just life in general, but particular instances of harm in organizations like Shambhala, should now be looked at in a different light. Trauma studies have made the reasons for dissociative responses in relation to abuse part of popular discourse. We know that abuse victims can enact disembodiment reflexes in order to avoid further abuse or pain, or to recover from past abuse. Those to whom dissociation occurs describe sensations of floating above, or vacating the body, or shrinking down to imperceptible size, or inflating to an ungraspable immensity. (These are all, in fact key features of Vajrayana visualizations.)

The free-falling qualities of groundlessness and spaciousness are coded as states of freedom and courage by Chödrön, who honours her training well. We have to now ask, clearly, whether, how, and when that training spiritualizes a trauma response. We have to ask whether when students are told that they “can’t come up with a ground”, but are to occupy no position at all, they are being given tools to:

Sublimate their own experiences of abuse, and/or
Ignore the victims of power abuse, and/or
Protect themselves from the pain and moral injury of having their critical thinking and agency stripped away by an Iron-Age thought experiment, weaponized by a high-demand group.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2020 11:07PM by corboy.