Philosophy-Impact’s Internal Conflict

exImpact has expressed that philosophy was a positive factor in overcoming some of the effects of LGAT type training so I thought I would point out what I see as major philosophical flaws in Lift Off and more advanced mastery training. First though I should say that I believe there is often a fuzzy line between philosophy and religion, but it is more appropriate to oppose Impact philosophy than Impact religion. Let them worship as they choose. In Lift Off, trainees are taught about the philosophy of opposites, that is --without darkness there can be no light; without cold nothing could be hot; without down, there could be no up. Then in the little book Sally uses in training where we have a dialog between God and the little angel the notion is presented that there is no absolute right and no absolute wrong. So much for convoluted Impact philosophy and logic. It is clear to me that the prophets have used reasoning, analysis, logic etc., and did not always depend on revelation for everything. Impact training repeals the law of agency that LDS folks are taught to believe, but for some strange reason many don’t seem to grasp and understand that and immediately flee from it. Perhaps it’s because the core training is cleverly designed to suppress reasoning, analysis, thinking, logic and understanding. Later in mastery training Impact teaches that there is no such thing as damnation. This is a total philosophical absurdity that you can have salvation without the possibility of damnation. Only Satan and his followers subscribe to that discredited notion if you are LDS.

There is invaluable truth within the experience of those former Impact mastery level graduates posting here, who now are aware that Impact Trainings fails to deliver what was promised. I want to get at that precious information for my own use and to help other impacted/processed souls and those around them.

What can I do to suppress the condescending arrogance of TIT III folks?

Why do Impact trainees of whatever level seem to have an on and off switch to being impatient, critical, demanding, and mean; while when the switch is in the other position they are exuberant, ecstatic, and elated?

In short I guess I’m asking if there are any tools short of professional counseling that they refuse, which will help to soften, mute or eliminate the undesirable and unwanted dangerous side effects of Impact Trainings? My patience is wearing thin with the real, demonstrated effects of Impact.

Hopeful

Let me clarify my position about Impact and "philosophy". Impact does not do philosophy or engage in philosophical dialog. None whatsoever. They put people in a room, blindside them with abuse and control, manipulate their trainees against one another and emotionally traumatizes them into falsely believing that their lives have miraculously changed during the last four days or so. Then they bring their twisted LDS-based beliefs into those vulnerable and bleeding minds.

Also, if you think there is a fuzzy line between philosophy and religion, you don't quite grasp what philosophy is. In fact, they really don't have anything to do with one another. Philosophy can be utilized as a lens with which to look at and scrutinize or examine religion, but it is most definitely not limited to viewing that subject. Religion is only about God, and is only a fraction of what philosophy seeks to dissect, and a small one at that. Philosophy is not an individual's set of beliefs or the way someone looks at the world, which is what many people think. Elementally it is the implementation of logical and rational arguments presented in premise and conclusion form. In order for an argument to be rationally sound, it must be free of assumptions. Does that sound like Impact to you? They definitely use logic (of sorts) but it is irrational and always skewed and self serving. They bank on the fact that most people are sheep looking for a shepherd. Impact provides the flock with a wolf in shepherds clothing, with promises of becoming a shepherd themselves. In the end, the trainee becomes only a sheep in shepherds clothing, and occasionally graduates to wolf status. But never the alpha or even beta wolves. Despite the claims of equality, the pecking order is established in marble blocks, and even the staff and junior trainers are always omega in the pack. Why do you think there have been so many thefts and spin-offs of the LGAT format? All the newly-minted wolves want their own flock, and want to get fat off of it.

I have a question for all of you regulars (and all of you silent observers): After leaving for good, did your activity with the trainings, more specifically with the TIT (now the Life Mastery Trainings) mess with your spirituality? I was a good person who was always searching for God before I found the trainings. I was on again/off again LDS for a good stretch there, and when I found TIT, I thought I had found God. While I was there I saw abuse of "authority" and arrogant presumption run amok. Everything had spiritual and religious meaning to us, EVERYTHING. Now, I can't even simply meditate let alone sit somewhere where they talk about God for any significant period of time (unless of course it is to criticize or analyze belief and perspective). I am curious as to what you all have gone through with this. It's gotten to the point where I don't even really think that thinking, talking or discussing religion or "god" is important. It feels like I have both gained something and lost something at the same time. At this point, when I look back at my life, I see that I never really knew what God was and my beliefs about it were prescribed to me by my family and religion, so, thanks to Impact, I now know that I only accept what I know about it, which is to say, I don't know. All the countless hours of trying to see the angels Hans and Pamela were telling us were all around us. Hans saying Jesus was in the room when all I could see was the cheap training room with it's cheap wooden boarder work. Having countless people go up during the testimony meeting part of the TIT Monday nights, saying they "see" all of this crap, but qualifying the statement with, "Well, not with my EYES, but with my etc." I felt like Jean Luc Picard on the Next Gen episode where he was being tortured until he was willing to admit there were five lights when there were only four. And at the end, he actually believed he saw the fifth light. That was me in TIT3, breaking my brain to try to hallucinate a false and suggested spiritual life. I remember trying so hard to see anything, that I would go weeks without attending to the simple necessities of maintaining my life. Seeing was my priority, because everyone who admitted to some kind of supernatural sight or power got both silent and verbal praise. And anyone who consistently did not, was used as an object lesson which usually ended up, "You see, you could see it after all! Just not in the way you thought you could!". Bullshit. It is so arbitrary and subjective, there is no reason or meaning. It's a mishmash of nonsense that people use to justify being unjust to one another. I think J.J. was set up and any sexual accusation aimed at him are unequivocally false. But I have seen others who were accused of sexual misconduct and abuse based on ghosts of feelings or memories implanted by Impact's myriad of spiritual councilors and seers. If I wasn't so used to the disgust I feel when I think about it, I would be nauseous right now.

I remember watching from the back of the room as a woman who had terminal cancer was given false hope by a room full of fanatics as they knelt under a tepee of apostolic staffs with their hands on her head, the Mormons giving priesthood blessings while the others invoked Mother God or other goddesses, masters and spirits of light to protect her and heal her. Others in wheelchairs or incurable birth defects, sitting in the wood tepee, awaiting their miracle, claiming they felt better or something, only to be back under it time and time again, complaining and hoping. The woman with cancer died a month or so later and Hans, instead of admitting failure, said she was transmutated right after burial, had Ascended into the light and escaped death, and if we were to dig up her remains, we would find none. Immediately I thought, "LET'S GO GET A FUC**** SHOVEL, JUST TO BE SURE!", but I ignored it and started going over the mantras that were supposed to repress my Ego Mind. After that night I remembered why I kept my visits to the Training center few and far between. Damn the few people who credited Impact with a remission of their diseases. One staff member continually reminded people of how TIT cured her breast cancer, another homosexual trainee claimed it cured his AIDS. Come on, people go into remission all of the time! It's rare, but it happens! As far as the AIDS guy goes, if his doctor found out that this was true, why wasn't he on the phone to every major medical journal in the world the next day, telling the world what happened with his patient so that doctors and scientists could study him to find out what happened? Why, if the guy was the loving caring guy he claimed to be, didn't he offer himself as a lab rat if science could possibly develop a cure for this global epidemic? And I could go on, and I may if I get some responses to this post :)

Yes Ex, attending Impact and TIT definitely messed with my spirituality. I was not raised in any specific religion but I attended many while growing up. For most of my life I believed that "finding God" was the most important thing that I could be doing. I was an active member of the LDS church when I began attending Impact and as I became more involved at Impact, I became less involved in the LDS religion. After all the crap in TIT, much of which you mentioned in your post, I began to see just about every religious group as being manipulative and/or useless. I no longer have any interest in anything spiritual.

As far as the stuff with JJ is concerned one of the following possibilities must be true. Either JJ is a child molester and was given access to thousands of children through his involvement at the Impact trainings (and now the Great Life Foundation) or Sally Berger is so vindictive and self centered that she would make up a terrible rumor about a former employee and spread it around the center as truth to achieve some result that she believed was necessary. It seems to me that one of these two options must be true and neither one speaks very highly of the Impact Trainings and their owners.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2007 10:49PM by formerimpactgrad.

Ex-

I think my name says it all. Somewhere inside of me I hope there is this thing called god and that somehow it will all make sense someday, but for now, I settle for the I don't know. Some people talk to me about god, but most of it is stuff I don't agree with, full of contradictions and misguided beliefs in a superstitious dogma that brings little to no comfort when the shit truly hits the fan. I can't tell you how unsympathetic is sounds to quote rote statements during the time of someone's true distress. It's even to the point now where anything that hints at being emotional, "touchy-feely", or "mushy" promotes a sarcastic response from me. Believe me, this is a habit I'm attempting to squash.

When I was in TIT 2 I remember my "coach" talking to me about it being OK to be part of a religion, but not to get stuck in the dogma of it. At the time I played along and pretended to understand what she was talking about. Now I look back on it and realize the whole conversation was just another way to justify the contradictions between what Impact was telling me and what I was learning in church every Sunday. Now I believe that when Impact talks of the dogma of religion they're really referencing any traditional ceremonies that mostly have to do with Christ. After all, if we're all supposed to be christ or god how can we possibly believe in the one and only true son of god that saved the world from sin. This especially causes conflict when Impact brings up the whole thing about how there is no sin. Their resolution for this conflict? Get out of the dogma of your religion.

On another note, I remember the person who said they were cured from aids. I believe right after that claim he moved to New York and was never seen or heard from again around Impact. At least, he was never mentioned in any of the group meetings again. I wasn't good enough friends with him to warrant personal contact. I wonder how he's doing now and if his aids is still "cured".

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exImpact
The woman with cancer died a month or so later and Hans, instead of admitting failure, said she was transmutated right after burial, had Ascended into the light and escaped death, and if we were to dig up her remains, we would find none.

Yeh, right, escaped death. LMAO! Always a way to twist and rewrite reality. They'll save you from this, that and the other. But if you get this, that or the other, you didn't really. HUH? I remember seeing the contradictions in the lgat I was in and I remember playing mindgames with myself to talk myself out of them or to not consider them significant. One mindgame was the mantra: trust the process <gag>

Hey guys,

It's was interesting for me to get home from church and read ex's most recent post. I had some similar thoughts today in fact. My exposure to the TIT trainings was limited, but I must admit I found Hans a bit compelling, to begin with. But the LDS church has always been a home to me, and I have trusted my faith since I got involved with this LGAT stuff. In doing that, it was obvious to me what Hans and Sally were doing was way, way, WAY out there, so I never really got sucked in. I may discuss this more later, gotta go home preach! I mean, teach!

- Impacted positively by this forum

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Impacted
Hey guys,

It's was interesting for me to get home from church and read ex's most recent post. I had some similar thoughts today in fact. My exposure to the TIT trainings was limited, but I must admit I found Hans a bit compelling, to begin with. But the LDS church has always been a home to me, and I have trusted my faith since I got involved with this LGAT stuff. In doing that, it was obvious to me what Hans and Sally were doing was way, way, WAY out there, so I never really got sucked in. I may discuss this more later, gotta go home preach! I mean, teach!

- Impacted positively by this forum

Though I am not religious in any way now, I do respect that Ed, I really do. If more Mormon trainees would do the same, we would have more sane people in the Salt Lake/Utah valley areas. I think the TITLDS were the craziest of the bunch, including the ones that leave the church, but don't see it as leaving the church, but rather a graduation into the higher meanings the church alludes to. Unfortunately the concept of faith can be a wobbly thing, and Impact capitalizes on it.

I say, if you are going to believe in something, question it, attack it, put through rigorous stress, and if you are done and still believe it, then at least you know you believe what you believe. Many people just go with the flow of their faith, and when it is challenged, they fold. These TITLDS people don't even fold, but they say they believe in both. It's crazy.

Again, much respect.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2007 05:22AM by exImpact.

Impact Philosophy

I use the fourth definition of “philosophy” in my dictionary which is: the beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group. Along with this is an element of calmness of temper and judgement. I agree with exImpact that Impact does not do the academic discipline definition meaning of “philosophy,” which I find is a word with many meanings and uses. What they do definitely and temporarily satisfies, for some, the innate longings for religion by the human race. Even though what they do may be supernatural, it clearly is not of God. I find it more comfortable to think this way in view of the LDS 11th Article of Faith, “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where , or what they may.”

Part of the Impact Philosophy is pacifism. The Impact pacifism (calmness of temper and judgement) is supposed to ripple out across the world and eventually eliminate all war etc. There is also an element of shallow altruism in Lift-Off experiences in gathering food and clothing for the poor. This is a good thing, except it is so transient as to make one believe it is more designed to serve Impact than recipients. While these ripples are extending out across the world, reflected cash converges into the pockets of the puppet masters at the focal point in Draper. Rumor has it that this focal point may be shifting some northward in the Salt Lake Valley. A new center with diversified facilities is reportedly in some state of creation. This is a good business move to diversify operations when your main source of cash is something that could dry up if French type anti-LGAT laws were enacted in the U.S. , or if trainees awakened to the true, long term effects of the experience of the Impact philosophy so well articulated on these pages by those who have been there and done that.

Hopeful

What turned me away from getting sucked into the TITisms:

I'm trying to remember clearly. I don't remember a 4th Son of God thing, but that triggers a discussion we once had about how Heavenly Father had a choice between Hans and Joseph Smith, and how either could have done the other's work.

What I remember (and I want to be clear on this as my memory, not "truth" or spreading gossip or falsehoods, just what I remember) is that Hans felt he could have done a better job in either role. Either in bringing the restoration in JS's lifetime, or in doing basically the same thing in its next level now.

So many of those conversations, looking back on them, occurred in an almost trance-like state around that training center. During staff debriefings right after some powerfully emotional processes. Or in groundings after "clearing energy" in the room. It makes them hard to remember.

Sometimes I'd even see things there, like the floor turn into a bank of clouds, or the walls melt away.

In the context of that being how whacked-out (almost like a drug), my mind was in those times, I'm not sure I could be certain of the content of ANY conversations.

On another topic. Anyone been around the Impact Ropes Course lately? Is it true they have built their version of a temple's celestial room -- one with "the highest vibrations on the planet" there? What's now the "easiest place for Jesus and the Saints to manifest?" (at least until they get a new one built in the Valley -- apparently by this time next year?)

Impacted

(Realizing that if we are as wrong about Hans being one of the top four in Heavenly Father's plan, as say Judas was about Christ, or as your average TITer would have us believe, then we're all in deep doo doo here.)