too much,

Another source you should look at is the writings of Steve Hassan. Just google on Steve Hassan Moonie, and you will get a batch of references on his work. I found his "Releasing the Bonds" Empowering People to Think for Themselves, to be most helpful. He also authored "Combating Cult Mind Control." He was once a high official in the Unification Church, (Moonies). It was this literature that helped me to understand the true nature of Impact.


Disclaimer regarding Steve Hassan

The Ross Institute of New Jersey/May 2013

See [www.culteducation.com]

The inclusion of news articles within the Ross Institute of New Jersey (RI) archives, which mention and/or quote Steven Hassan, in no way suggests that RI recommends Mr. Hassan or recognizes him in any way.

News articles that mention Steve Hassan have been archived for historical purposes only due to the information they contain about controversial groups, movements and/or leaders.

RI does not recommend Steven Hassan.

RI has received serious complaints about Steve Hassan concerning his fees. Mr. Hassan does not publicly disclose his fee schedule, but according to complaints Steve Hassan has charged fees varying from $250.00 per hour or $2,500.00 per day to $500.00 per hour or $5,000.00 per day. This does not include Mr. Hassan's expenses, which according to complaints can be quite substantial.

Steven Hassan has charged families tens of thousands of dollars and provided questionable results. One recent complaint cited total fees of almost $50,000.00. But this very expensive intervention effort ended in failure.

Dr. Cathleen Mann, who holds a doctorate in psychology and has been a licensed counselor in the state of Colorado since 1994 points out, "Nowhere does Hassan provide a base rate and/or any type or accepted statistical method defining his results..."

Steve Hassan has at times suggested to potential clients that they purchase a preliminary report based upon what he calls his "BITE" model. These "BITE reports" can potentially cost thousands of dollars.

See [corp.sec.state.ma.us]

Steve Hassan runs a for-profit corporation called "Freedom of Mind." Mr. Hassan is listed as the corporate agent for that business as well as its president and treasurer.

RI does not recommend "Freedom of Mind" as a resource.

RI also does not list or recommend Steve Hassan's books.

To better understand why Mr. Hassan's books are not recommended by RI read this detailed review of his most recently self-published book titled "Freedom of Mind."

See [www.cultnews.com]

Steve Hassan's cult intervention methodology has historically raised concerns since its inception. The book "Recovery from Cults" (W.W. Norton & Co. pp. 174-175) edited by Dr. Michael Langone states the following:

"Calling his approach 'strategic intervention [sic] therapy,' Hassan (1988) stresses that, although he too tries to communicate a body of information to cultists and to help them think independently, he also does formal counseling. As with many humanistic counseling approaches, Hassan’s runs the risk of imposing clarity, however subtly, on the framework’s foundational ambiguity and thereby manipulating the client."

RI has also learned that Mr. Hassan has had dual-relationships with his counseling clients. That is, clients seeing Mr. Hassan for counseling may also do professional cult intervention work with him.

Professionals in the field of cultic studies have also expressed concerns regarding Steven Hassan's use of hypnosis and Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).

Based upon complaints and the concerns expressed about Mr. Hassan RI does not recommend Steve Hassan for counseling, intervention work or any other form of professional consultation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2013 08:46PM by rrmoderator.

There were some posts last month on Impact's online testimonial site:

[www.healedworld.com]

This type of thing may be a challenge or an assignment from the trainers to entry level trainees, to write about their ideal world, Impact style. Here's some examples, note similarities in language:

Free from sickness of the body and the mind

May 29th, 2008 by Impact Trainings

My vision of a healed world means that there is a world where there is love, happiness and joy. Materialism is a thing of the past. We focus on expanding our minds and enjoying our experiences with one another. We are free from both sickness of the body and the mind. The world is no longer with hate, jealousy, negativity is only a blip in our lives just so we keep in check. People no longer are afraid. They are guided and they radiate. We are one, we are many.

(Contribution from a graduate of Impact Trainings ~ Quest Training)


Freedom and unconditional love

May 29th, 2008 by Impact Trainings

My vision of a healed world is a world where everything is at peace. Where there is no hate or anger. A place where people are at ease and see the beauty in everything and everyone. When I think of a healed world I think of freedom and unconditional love towards everyone. A place where everyone knows who they truly are and live life to the fullest, knowing that anything is possible. Where everyone knows that they are perfect and can do everything that they desire. A world where there is not judgment towards anyone or any group of people. In general, a place where everyone and everything is happy.

(Contribution from a graduate of Impact Trainings ~ Quest Training)


Everyone is impeccable with their word

May 29th, 2008 by Impact Trainings

My idea of a healed world looks like everyone being impeccable with their word, has compassion and love for others, gives others the benefit of the doubt and always does their best ~ 100% + 1 moment to moment to moment. I get to inspire others and enroll others in my vision of this. I get to live my life, have unconditional love for others and be enthusiastic in sharing my vision of life with others. I know that I can change the world one act of random kindness at a time. That’s what I get to do each day through my stretches. I already know that my vision of a healed world is spiritually created, it just gets to manifest itself whenever time it does. And so it is.


(Contribution from a graduate of Impact Trainings ~ Quest Training)

Having a clear intention of respect for each other

May 29th, 2008 by Impact Trainings

My vision of a healed world is where all children are fed. My vision includes all people having a clear intention of respect for each other, assisting one another in work and in play. Everyone would feel safe because we would all assist each other. Kindness, sympathy and love would be the intention of all people. Small and large acts of kindness are expressed regularly. Smiling faces, happy hearts and love would abound. Abundance is shared with all.

(Contribution from a graduate of Impact Trainings ~ Quest Training)


Pure Compassion and Healing

April 7th, 2008 by Impact Trainings

My vision of a healed world is that of inspiration, honesty and joy where I create a world of compassion, healing, and forgiveness. I inspire others to be powerful creators in the very world of perfection and show unconditional LOVE. I am a powerful woman that I also can be honest and open in my actions and words by showering those I show beauty and passion with and bring great abundance in everyone that I come in contact with and radiate great joy!! My one single act will bring so much to my life that it will have such a ripple effect in this world that there will be pure compassionand healing for people will have forgiveness in all those things in life that one and all deserve. There will be nothing but unconditional love for this world that we live in for we all deserve healing in this lifetime. We will then live in perfection and therefore we will live as one in a healed world!

Peace and love to all


There is a consistent absence of the words "help" and "need", replaced with "assist" and "deserve". There is a ton of love bomb language, such as unconditional love. One of the first things a cult enforces is to manipulate language, this seems to be words in action. I would prefer to have hope and peace as well, just not at the cost of my identity.

Glaucon,

Manipulation of trainee language starts almost immediately in the Impact Trainings and is one of the first steps in the conditioning process. As far as the "My Vision of a Healed World" is concerned, I believe those are written on the last day of Quest but to be fair they have the trainees write stuff like that all the time.

The difficult thing with the "My Vision..." stuff is that it is not an accurate representation of the Impact Trainings results. Impact seems to produce calloused, manic-depressive trainees who can sound very grounded at one moment and completely insane in another.

This is evident in many of the posts that we have seen from active trainees on this site. In the "My Vision" writings the trainees talk about "Unconditional Love", "Acceptance" and "Everyone is Perfect" then they go on to address the anti-Impact group arrogantly and critically (all the while accusing us of being judgmental). Impact uses the "Manic" side of their training results in a deliberately misleading way to insinuate that their trainees are constantly enlightened and at peace, the sad fact is that for every high there is a corresponding low and it is the lack of consistency in the trainees that inevitably stops them from achieving the goals that they discuss in the training room.

I haven't met an active Impact grad that I would consider "normally funtional" outside of the training room. Either they break down regularly and drift from job to job (Like the Gunthers, Christensens, Leightons and others) or they become manipulative con-artists who take advantage of people and rationalize their lack of ethics (Like Hans and Sally, Robert Paisola, BooneTahoe-Jason Orvis, Doug Moore and others). I know A LOT of active grads and every single one seems to run into the same problems over and over. Its pretty sad...

Thanks for the book ideas.

Glaucon's quotes reminded me of being very coached on the first few assignments. Most people had only a few of their original words and even ideas left by the time we were finished. Yes, I liked the ideas of kindness and peace so much that I didn't notice that I was being force fed what to say.

The antagonism and hypocrasy of the trainings is glossed over by most people who seem to just enjoy hearing that it's possible to will the world into a better place. A few of the ideas are useful by themselves such as serving the community and being true oneself, but considering the lack of those traits in their own trainers and the fact that they contradict each other made it difficult to really believe any of it the more I realized it was just lip service.

I started having trouble going when it became clear that Impact was making the people around me emotionally and psychologically unstable. I was just talking to a fellow Impact grad, very gently, about how most people in my group were either just as bad off or much worse than when they started. There are people who were unhappy before Impact but now they are clearly clinically depressed but won't seek help from anyone but Impact. I've also noticed a lot of manic behavior in a few people, but I chalked it up to them perhaps being like that before Impact because I had never met them before. The people who seem hardest hit by it are the ones who really live the moment to moment thing. The impulsiveness is creating or increasing financial hardship for them.

Former Impactgrad, your comment made me laugh - "sound very grounded at one moment and completely insane in another" because that's almost word for word what one of my friends had told me I was doing. I think I'm shaking my head at myself quite a bit lately.

I do find it frustrating that so many people around me (including my new therapist) are impressed with Impact because while I was going I was able to get off a very addictive medication that only 2-5% of people are ever able to quit. But I feel like they aren't giving me enough credit - I was already doing things that I was told by doctors I'd never do and had already quit a fair amount of my medication. I also got a new set of doctors who instead of discouraging me from trying to stop all the medications actively helped helped me quit.

I wish that those people would realize that I'm just a big stubborn mule that had a driving desire to get my life back. Impact didn't do it, I did. After all, there were other people who could do it (even it it's only a few) and I know they didn't all go to Impact (or something similar) to be able to do it. Why should anyone else get the credit?

One thing I will give them credit for is that I don't think I'll ever have blind trust in anyone again. I had a blind spot for my religion in my skepticism because I wanted it to work. Now I look at things from the point of view that if it does make my life better (in some tangible or noticeable nonmanic way), then I'll use it but I won't tolerate guilt trips and browbeating any more. I look more closely at the other person's really wants from me and if their lives are any better than mine in any aspect before I listen to what they say when trying to get me to do something. Even then I'll take it or leave their advice as I see fit.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2008 02:27AM by too much.

Here's a question for those who have finished Impact's core trainings as well as the various levels of the LMT before making their 'break for it.'

As one progresses through the LMTs, do they become (even indirectly) more and more about simply 'enrollment'? I realize they bring in more of the pseudo-spiritual and psychic stuff then, but does a larger % of the training time get devoted to the 'technology' of enrollment? Or does the pressure to enroll their families & friends simply get put upon them outside the LMT trainings?

bobnar,

it's clear that one's mastery of life is measured by one's ability to enroll -- level of mastery = measurable results of enrolling.

The more you enroll the more you have mastered life.

So there is a not-too-subtle hiearchy of those in LMT. Hans and Sally at the top (becasue they have enrolled everyone. Without them no one would be here (there)), then the top enrollers (number in Quest plus percentage of those who go on and on and enrol others . . .) down.

If you never enroll anyone into Quest, then you clearly have not mastered life.

You've failed.

And you're not really interesting to them any more. They have your $5,000.00 plus, and unless you're bringing them in, they have no time for you.

hope that answers your questions.

--Ed

Thank you. It does. But it also brings up a new one. Since it seems that -- one way or another -- it all morphs into being "about enrollment" at the LMTs, then how do they manage to adroitly weave in all that psychic/magical thinking/lightworker stuff?

Or is it that by the time they finish their 'core' trainings the worker bees' critical thinking skills are so hammered that it doesn't matter WHAT those two spew at them?

I will try to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, but in order to understand what is going on at Impact all should read and ponder Ezekiel chapter 13. This for me is the explanation of the enrollment motives of Hans and Sally who are the "follish prophets that follow their own spirit." They deal in lying divinations, vain visions, folly, devine lies and seduced people. They keep saying peace and there is no peace. They prophesy out of their own heart. Their lies have made hearts sad. In short the key to understanding what is going on at LMT and the lower core trainings has already been treated in the Old Testament.

It all works together for the same end. It is all about enrollment because that's how Hans is able to buy his new Mercedes every time a new model rolls off the production line. The question is, why do people keep going back and pushing for the enrollment and where does the mysticism fit in? From my observation, it's all about creating a business that sells validation. "Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name ... where they're always glad you came ..." Herein lies the "genius" of Hans and Sally ... or their diabolical scam if you prefer.

Where else but Impact can a person have someone tell them they are God, or sob on their shoulders and thank them for tuning into their angels? Where else can one be an Ascended Master, equal with Jesus Christ or Buddha? Where else are people going to nod their heads in deluded "understanding" when you bear your testimony about how you were guided to an obscure shop in New Mexico to your special Lumerian crystal that you used to have in Atlantis? Where else can you find a group of peers who will share your excitement and joy about the particular energy of a smoky quartz? Impact creates a new identity for these people that is so fing "out there," they won't get validation anywhere else. They know it. So they can't leave it, and the more people they can get to enroll in it, the more validation they get. Creating safety in numbers is good for business.

How do they manage to weave in the mysticism? It's part and parcel of the product they're selling. Impact preys on the vulnerable who either already lack critical thinking skills or have set them aside for some reason. They feel unimportant, powerless, unloved, unappreciated. In this vulnerable state they are told they have guardian angels and spirit guides -- dead people who are "assisting" them in fulfilling their important destiny. When there are several people in a large group validating each other's strange beliefs, who is going to refute the absurd claim that it's all solidly grounded in quantum physics? Think of the thrill and validation such a vulnerable person gets when they are able to "tune in" to the energy of angels; when they "know" they are more enlightened than even the quantum physicist; when they "feel" the energy of a crystal. Most of these people barely passed high school algebra, don't have a clue what quantum physics is about, and wouldn't know the difference between real science and pseudo-science if it bit them in the ass. Given the fact that they've been brainwashed to shut off their minds and listen only to their feelings in finding their path to truth, they are primed and ready to accept the irrationality of mysticism. It's a perfect business model -- one that creates the need for the very product they are selling.

jk.genesis

Thank you jk.genesis for your clear and succinct summary. I definitely related to the validating behavior you talked about and at the same time was clearly reminded of delusional I was in the whole thing.

When I was attending LMT (then TIT) all of the "tools" (ie mysticism) were presented as opportunities to change the world. The law of attraction was taught intensely and the crystals/meditation/rites/mantras/decrees/etc. were all part of activating the law of attraction so we could find those that are ready to hear the truth of enlightenment. Some people saw the "tools" as means to attract money/lover/new home/etc, but in that end that was only useful because it would put us in a social circle of the enlightened. Yep, you poor folks out there aren't enlightened because if you were you wouldn't be poor! (Just in case you didn't know.) Also, poor people can't afford the training, so of course you're not enlightened unless you're willing to hold a neighborhood yard sale, sell some ridiculous product door-to-door or take out enough debt to leave you in the hole for 3+ years to pay for your training because you trust the law of attraction enough to give you the money faster than that. Of course those that were ready for the enlightenment were led to Impact as that was the only place that had ALL of the answers. Which, you guessed it, leads us back to enrollment.

So, even though all of the tools were taught from the angle of bettering our own lives, because of the "ripple effect" they better the lives of others as well and eventually lead them to the training.