Hi everyone,
I was at dinner one night after graduation with several lmt grads and I made the mistake of asking if they realized how much money the Bergers were raking in from all of the trainings and they quickly snapped at me saying I was totally off base.They quickly explained that the Bergers didn't make alot of money and that the Bergers were beautiful and compassionate people and the trainings are the best thing that ever happened to all of us.I knew right then and there my friends were more brainwashed than I had thought.Because of my feelings about what goes on in the training I've been told that I don't get it and it just isn't for me and that I don't like change.Most of my opinions about impact and other advice are disregarded and I'm the most stable person out of the bunch and I'm treated like I'm an outsider when in reality I'm the person who really loves and cares about my friends.Changing the subject a little these lgat's,cults and there are many types that use deception and mind control are all over the country and they all have their own twist, Impact isn't unique it has just evolved over time to fit our society here in Utah although people do come in from all over the country to attend.I've read up on scientology,lifespring,est, landmark,forum and many other groups and they all use the same methods to bamboozle people into their groups.I just hope at some point someone with some real clout will help put an end to these groups and their methods to recruit people and take their money.Anyway thank's for listening and thank's to all the people who contribute here and especially to those who have contributed alot which helps this thread continue on.OH! I almost forgot to tell you guys that on the Impact Trainings Critic thread I posted a few times with the name eximpact not to be confused with eximpact on this thread who has been one of this threads major contributers.I'm here reading and absorbing and I hope everyone is getting back on track.

concernedforall,

Your identity on the Website impacttrainingscritic.com is appreciated, as are your posts there and here. The distinction between eximpact and exImpact is understood and is still preserved. There is much to be said for anonymity, a most useful weapon against the secrecy and deception of Impact Trainings. Deliberate obscurity is often a virtue and a most effective tool when used as folks like Isaiah have done in their eliptical manner.

I have been looking through my notes and homework from the Impact core trainings. There is not much to be alarmed about there. It is interesting how different my memories of the oral training stuff differ from the written stuff. It's like living in two different worlds. The written stuff is the usual benign human relations touchy feely stuff. The memories of the oral training room stuff are where The Trainings bring back their malignant, coercive persuasion, thought manipulating and thought stopping aspect. The adjective "duplicitous" fits Impact Trainings upon reflection after being away from The Trainings for a while. My conclusion is that The Trainings are based on duplicity, that is, contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action; especially: the belying of one's true intentions by deceptive words or actions, to quote Webster. Impact has very cleverly put the malignant stuff in the oral portion of The Trainings where there is not much of a trail of evidence left and put the benign part of The Trainings where it is more likely to have the opportunity to cast a favorable light on Impact Trainings and be a tool of "enrollment," read recruiting. Enrollment is the one topic of Impact that is stressed in both oral and written training.

If someone were to read my core Impact notes, they would not see things like where the oral training substitutes the word "deserve" for "need" as just one example. This simple, subtle, yet profound perversion of the English language is a major tool or technique in fostering an entitlement mentality in the trainee. From what is posted here, it is clear that Impact fosters the seeking of acendancy in LMT. I'm thinking of all the ascended master stuff quoted here by LMT grads. My early impression of Impact was that it was concentrated, or intense PRIDE training at all levels. That has not changed. Impact has a way of fostering selfishness and preoccupation with self, the "I did it for ME" syndrome, while calling it training in being submissive, humble, teachable, accountable, being your word etc. What duplicity!

Youtube Impact traffic is growing a little, who cares, right? But I found this one interesting:

[www.youtube.com]

I noticed:

1. The staff, part of the cult's symbolic hogwash

2. The comments below the video sound like a broken record, programming at it's worst best.

3. The title, very indicating of what Impact focuses on, yet ironically what it takes away

4. The way he regurgitates his testimony of Impact like a monotone robot.


I watched them all, it wasn't fun, denial and delusion in their most hideous forms.


[www.youtube.com]

1. Mt. Shasta shirt, just another part of Impact's mythology

2. Look how "excited they are" to be in love again.



Want to see a cult talk about another cult?

[www.mormonapologetics.org]

[www.mormonapologetics.org]

There is some good common sense in some of the posts, but I laughed my ass off because of the sheer hypocrisy, ignorance, and ridiculousness of it all.


These actually call Impact a mental health or counseling center!

[www.trialscentral.org]

[www.depression-tests.com]

The phone numbers are the same as Impact's homesite (vomit on my keyboard).


Oh, and Robert Paisola, wtf? You really are the product of something fishy.

[sexoffenderissue.blogspot.com]

The stuff on this video is easy to say when you're Hans's son-in-law. Oh, I guess he forgot to mention that.

[www.youtube.com]

It is weird that some of the sites posted by Glaucon list Impact Trainings as a mental health institution. In doing some further research, those sites seem pretty obscure. Thank goodness.

The first youtube.com video above listed by Glaucon begs for some anal-ization, a though stopping word Impact uses in their process to disparage the word "think." This young man is so confused that our hearts should go out to him. He says that he has created an awesome person through being in Impact Trainings. It is true that he has been subjected to the sounds of the training room, the long, sleep deprived, late night hours with the bombardment of Impact LOUD music, inforced body motion, hypnotic induced trance mode etc. that trainees will remember. Impact has apparently taken the notion that youtube would be a good media to advertize because critics would not be willing to shed their anonymity by posting opposing videos. Well, we'll see. What this now more self-appreciating fellow does not realize is that he has been caught in the double minded school of Impact trap. Proof of this is that he says he finds it easier to UNDERSTAND people now, after Impact Trainings. But did not Impact teach him one of their axioms, stolen from the Werner Erhard aphorisms, that UNDERSTANDING is the booby prize of the universe? This fellow will find more double minded, double talk to think about like "There is no hope" and there is no right and wrong etc. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

[www.youtube.com]

Reviewing some of the Impact testimonials on youtube, I can't resist commenting on the above clip example of bland B.S. that these two folks are trying to convey. Their experience is so different from my own experience, and that of severall others I know about that I have to question their understanding about the sugar coated panacea cure all that they are trying to attribute to Impact Trainings. They are in deep denial induced by the very trainings they feel are so great. The way it really works is that families are quickly split into the pro-Impact and anti-Impact factions. The best way to heal the family splits caused by Impact Trainings is to stay away from the Trainings for good; months and even years are needed to heal the Impact induced divisions in such families. As the trainees come out of the Impact ether, they begin to realize that Impact Trainings does not give the promised favorable results and the real healing of wounded and weary souls caused by Impact can begin. The trainings take up so much time and energy that old friends are lost, and the new friends found through the Trainings are just as mind warped, indoctrinated and confused as the nice folks in this video clip above.

I don't deny that this couple feels good about what Impact Trainings has done for them. The real question is what are the long term effects of the trainings? What are the side effects?

Hello everyone, I have not been ignoring you. For some reason I am not getting the email notifications when there are new posts or when I get an email on this site. I did respond to those who had emailed me on here. :)

Anyway, just wanted to respond to a few posts.

Spiritual?: That makes sense what you said about support groups. It wouldn't work if someone became dependent on another group. I found that going through my own feelings with the people around me who support me in overcoming Impacts influences has worked. Slowly but it has. Also focusing on my own spirituality and not anyone else seems to work. Seeking out what makes me feel good and gaining back compassion, love, respect, reality, etc. For about a month I went through so much emotional crap that I actually thought about suicide. That's how bad the effects of Impact can have. And I am not a depressed or unhappy person normally. I'm a very bubbly, happy person with high energy. I've been doing all I can to gain that back. It's rough and I think it's really important that those who come out and realize the truth know there is hope and they're not alone. Just coming here is helpful enough for me. Helping anyone I can if possible since I'm finally starting to feel a little more grounded. I do feel the compassion coming back and reality is setting in instead of that fake happy when I'm having a crappy day.

Someone mentioned something about right and wrong being a major thing Impact teaches that doesn't exist. I hate that so much!! Because of that many people think that it's ok to do something wrong because all they have to do is take accountability and they are off the hook. Makes me sick. I went through something horrible because of the right and wrong they teach. The guy should be back in jail for it. But since he took accountability, Impact takes his side and accepts him instead of me. I hate that. Sorry for being so vague but it's a perfect example of how right and wrong can cause some major problems.

I do want to put out there that Impact does teach some very real and spiritual beliefs that I still to this day believe and practice regularly. But the problem is that Impact is such a negative influence because of how they teach these beliefs and the amount of money they charge makes it FEEL real. Because you're paying all this money you should be getting some great stuff right? Nope! I learned all the meditation and spiritual stuff that is on a much more real level before Impact and it does work. It does make life amazing. It's real. Don't think that just because Impact teaches it that it's fake. There are free and very inexpensive ways to learn this stuff. I've spent maybe $50 total in learning it all on my own (not counting the $2000 I put into Impact). And there are FREE places to go that do meditations where you can connect with others who are grounded, have a sense of reality, have real compassion, and really care about who you are without judgment. It's not religious and no one makes you pay or contribute anything. It's just very important for people to know that Impact charges thousands of dollars for things that are very real. Makes me sick that such great and real beliefs are being used to make large amounts of money and also taught in a way that is very harmful. In order to help someone become spiritual, they have to do it on there own and not forced. Impact forces people to make decisions they are not comfortable with and promises that they will get something amazing in return. They are so wrong. Anyway, just know that it's great to be spiritual but do it in YOUR way not anyone elses way. I do all I can to forget what I learned there and start over so I can be myself but still be spiritual and do good things for others on a real level. Impact is harmful and dangerous. I was suicidal and that's not me.

Sorry if that sounded preachy. I definitely don't mean for it to be. It's just that gaining back what I lost because of Impact on top of being spiritual has made a big difference in recovering from Impact. If that makes sense.

I just truly hope that those who make that decision to finally get out of Impact can be ok and do whatever it takes on a healthy level to be ok. :)

The following comment may have been brought out a while back, but because of things that I've been dealing with recently I wanted to emphasize it again. One of the main scare tactics used by Impact is to convince their "followers" that if they leave life will get much worse for them. They say that having "the truth" and then rejecting it will leave them with failures and disappointments beyond imagination. Well, it's true, but not for the reasons they state. Dealing with the PTSD and panic attacks caused by impact has been one of the hardest things in my life. However, they did not come as a result of LEAVING Impact. They came because of GOING to Impact and buying into their contradiction and lies. So, for those of you who have loved ones still involved with Impact remember that one of the reasons they may be staying is because they're afraid of what will happen to them if they leave. Not only because the Burgers often threaten law suits when one leaves, but also because they definitely threaten mental and emotional breakdown upon leaving. And while this breakdown does occur in the end it is much less painful then the years that could be wasted trying to achieve false miracles.

I have begun to realize that there is a good, though very discordant, fit between Impact Trainings and many of the writings of C. S. Lewis. I'm thinking mainly, but not exclusively, of "The Screwtape Letters," which has become classic literature. Anyone familiar with Impact, or any LGAT for that matter, will enjoy surfing the mutiple sites on the Web loaded with C. S. Lewis writings, that will provide much intertainment. I see a parallel in Wormwood and Hans in his earlier days, before Hans graduated to the Screwtape level. The training Hans then gave to Justin must have been scripted by reference to "The Screwtape Letters."

In August of 1941 Lewis began a series of talks on radio in England that became "Mere Christianity," 1952. One of his themes was, "Right and wrong as a clue to the meaning of the universe." One of the Impactish pieces of advice given by Screwtape to his understudy nephew, Wormwood, was to win a soul by a "...stream of immediate sense of experiences rather than argument." This is the basis of the experiential LGAT/Impact method. Lewis talks about trying to do good, loosing ourselves and has some good comments on pacificism that will resonate with Impact grads in a conflicting way.

There is easily enough good stuff pertaining to Impact Trainings in "The Screwtape Letters" to justify a separate thread on just that topic. I think I will wait a while to see if anyone else agrees with that notion.