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jeffaroonyo24
This post is mainly for eximpact and formerimpactgrad, but any one else can post.
My best friend has been through impact, all levels including TIT 3...Let me tell you I am very strong in the LDS Mormon church, and he was to. Last semester he was taking a lot of LDS religion classes and I was to. He was very spirutual, possibly even more so than I in the LDS way not impact "spiritual". Ever since he has started the trainings he has gone down hill, he drives me crazy in the way he talks about things and whenever I try to ask him about stuff, he says I won't understand because he is "vibrationally or spirutally above me" ...He has gone off the deep end and is clearly brain washed. Is there anything I can do to get him back or reverse the brainwashing?
I fully understand both your mental and religious concerns for your friend. Please understand that I do not share the LDS faith, but I was born Mormon and left when I was nineteen. Leaving the church did not keep me from remaining interested in theology, even LDS theology. I hope to be able to give both concerns equal attention.
Jeff, I will attempt to better frame the situation your friend is in so that you may be able to help him more effectively. And note that I said “may”. First, the after effects of the mental conditioning techniques Impact employs. Your friend’s religious views are a secondary problem, a byproduct if you will of the mental conditioning he has received. His new religious views are reinforced by this conditioning. He has been humiliated, torn down, emotionally scarred and has been conditioned to view his mind as “the enemy”. What he was like as a child, his relationships with his parents, any kind of pain and/or mental or physical abuse he endured has been brought up and used against him. He is in a state of mental trauma, and rational retardation. This damage can be mild or severe, but from what you’ve told me already, he is in neck deep.
Religiously, he is no longer LDS, so you can’t treat him as such. Any discussion you have in that vein will be seen as an attack, or in the least, impotent. He is now ILDS (no offense intended for members of the International League of Dermatological Societies. I for Impact. TITLDS would have been more humorous, but this is serious business, right?) and believes that mainstream Christianity has Christ and His message wrong. Also possibly that the early influence of mainstream converts to the LDS faith perverted the true message of Joseph Smith and that Smith had to make changes for practical reasons. This is a common belief among the ILDS members of TIT, but it is not explicitly taught. He believes that the Celestial glory is not a glory that can be obtained, but rather that he has obtained it already. That we all have, it simply a matter of how we are using our Divine powers. Hans Berger says that the knowledge of how to create a world is within each one of us. Your friend now believes that not only Hans and the other office staff are prophets, seers and revelators, but that he is also one of them. The trainers take great pains to claim that the trainees have equal status with the trainers (hence the term Trainers In Training. These claims of equality are wholly bogus in practice btw.), but also have equal status with Jesus Christ, Archangel Michael, Saint Germaine, Buddha and more. They also use universal and inclusive spiritual practices to take away the warlike boundaries between religions, and that for some is very refreshing. An example being, “You are right and I am right! Even though one of us is totally, completely, without a doubtly, ass over tip, WRONG!” It is also logically contradictory. They don’t even know the definition of the word “equivocation”. For Impactees reading this, here you go, a-la Encarta:
E-quiv-o-ca-tion (noun)
3. wrong logical conclusion
LOGIC: an invalid conclusion based on statements in which one term has two different meanings
Something that was interesting to me is that your friend actually told you that he was at a higher spiritual vibration than you etc. Not all trainees will do that, only the insecure or immature will do this, because the spiritual elitist tone of the ILDS fills this gaping void of inferiority and they feel compelled to shove it down the throats of the non-believers. Even the ones who appear more secure do this, but in more devious and subtle ways. It is my opinion that your friend, in expressing this, has a well developed inferiority complex and that is how Impact was able to get to him. His foundation of faith was also very flimsy, whether you think it was strong or not. It wasn’t. Any ILDS person who says they had a strong faith before going into it is delusional. Now, just because you have a temple recommend or an authoritative position, or are active LDS, if you are in TIT, you are I-LDS, not LDS. Thinking otherwise is nonsense. It’s going to make him very, very stubborn. Now he feels he is one of the moral elite and is actually tight-rope walking on the iron rod to the Tree of Knowledge. Although he now believes the tree is inside him as opposed to outside and he is balancing on the rod for all he is worth, because if he falls, he’d have to admit how utterly stupid and naïve he has been, and the avoidance of humiliation and shame can be enough for us to keep doing crazy, crazy crap, even though we may have doubt. It is my opinion that the tendency for most LDS is to believe they are of the moral elite gives Impact an “in” they may not have with the irreligious.
The truth is, your friend may never come back to the church after this. Again, I said “may”. The few Mormons I have known who have left the training after TIT because they know it is bullshit, never went back to organized religion. They, like me, now think that it is all crap, and you must understand, it is because we ourselves were irrational religious fanatics, and it is hard to see religion as anything else but. The main reason is I feel I was raped by my religious beliefs, and going back to anything resembling religion is like re-visiting the scene of the crime. Some do retreat back into their religious beliefs, stronger in that faith, but, honestly that is an assumption. I don’t know anyone who has done that after the TIT level. Quest and Summit though, yeah, sure. The religious conditioning hasn’t really begun at that point. You are goung to have to be okay with this possibility, Jeff. He needs to recalim his mind and his dignity before he will ever be ready to take on God again. If you want to help him, put religion away and use logic. Reaquaint him with it, poke him and prod him with it. Get that brain going.
Before I can help you further, any more detailed information you can give about the kind of person they are (were) mentally (most important) and/or religiously without giving away their identity is needed.
What do you think Jeff? I’m at your disposal.
E to the X