Kinda like a big number 8. It all keeps flowing back to the beginning -- which is enrollment. Seems to be the business model of the entire LGAT industry. All their advanced courses for graduates suddenly become a lot more about enrollment, despite what the courses state they cover.

Is there ever a level that a worker-bee can attain there (w/o going on paid staff) where they will actually have to meet a monthly minimum enrollment objective?

There is never a minimum requirement for enrollment. Not even for the staff. However, there is a great amount of pressure put on LMT which amounts to feeling like a requirement. Let's just say that unless you're enrolling you're considered a second class citizen. There were some people that would donate expensive works of art or LOTS of crystals and things and these people were let off the hook in some regard as far as the enrollment goes. From what I could see, the paid staff had LESS of an expectation for enrollment because it was already assumed they had enrolled everyone they knew.

The whole "angel" thing is really just a way for them to keep track of whose enrolling and whose not. They keep stats of how many of the enrollments came for the Lift-offs, LMT, and other groups within the training so they can use the "results" to prove the effectiveness of the tools. When I saw the board it kinda made me sick because it reduces all of their "enrollees" to numbers.

Enrollment is a perpetual, soul-sucking, demeaning practice. People are told that if they do not enroll, their loved ones do not trust them. So, logically, there must be a dysfunction in the relationship or they would be in the training. This has the effect of these trainees turning on their healthy, loving relationships, making them question and confront the very people who love and worry about them the most. It is vicious.

So the last contact my wife had with Impact was 2 years ago. What can I, should I do to persuade her not to go back if she comes to a point where she wants to go back? We haven't discussed Impact for a long time, but I fear there will be a time when she wants to go to the woman's training or some stupid advanced training. I want to send out emails to all of the people in her family showing the ugly side--all of the messing with crystals and talk of ascended masters, the chants, the power staffs, etc.--but would it just be unprovoked confrontation? I swear, at the next family party if they get together and start praising Impact I'm going to give them an opposing argument.

Tell her to take a look at her life -- and the lives of the folks in her Impact 'Family' -- since her last training and ask her to take an honest stock of how things have gone for her and them. Have they been winners? Have they been accomplishing their goals? Has life been more or less of a wild roller-coaster ride since the trainings?

Often these folks set wild-eyed goals (like for going to Africa to become healers) after an LGAT, but then fail even to stay gainfully employed. And in lieu of all this supposed technology for making life work, their lives often get weirder and less manageable.

Catbus,

From your wife's perspective, you probably lack credibility because you have not been "enlightened" by the training. You have never learned that feelings are superior to reason. If your wife is going to be persuaded, she will have to persuade herself. She will have to learn to trust her own mind. My Impact friends often ridicule me for using my mind too much. In my view, Impact pats people on the back for being more enlightened than the rest of us while subtly tearing down their self-esteems because Impact teaches them that they cannot rely on their own minds. Impact literally banks on people accepting this feeling path to truth. It saves Impact from the harsh scrutiny of logic and reason and makes its adherents dependent on their Impact family for validation. If you want to save your wife from more brainwashing, find ways to validate her ability to use her own mind.

I recommend a few books, some or all of which you may already be familiar with. Of course, if your wife reads any of them it will have to be her idea. All of them are controversial so you'll want to research them before making a decision. "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand is excellent and both inspires and applauds the use of the human mind; probably my favorite fictional work. Many people claim Rand's book changed their lives. "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" by Carl Sagan, is also a compelling read. Thomas Paine's religious thesis, "The Age of Reason," has some awesome insights. Each of these books has helped me in dealing with the barrage of Impact-ites and -isms from my effed-up friends.

I hope this is helpful (I'm using the words "hope" and "help" here deliberately!). Best of luck!

"Atlas Shrugged" had a particular bit of logic that was the initial "Holy crap what the hell am I doing?" moment that was the impetus for my exodus out of Impact. It has been awhile, I don't remember the character names, but it went a bit like this: A very successful businessman with a dysfunctional home life is speaking with his closest friend. This businessman is passive at home and, well, businesslike and no-nonsense at work. His friend asks him why he is tolerant of behavior in his personal life that he would aggressively stamp out in his professional life.

A friend pressed me on this same subject, asking why I tolerate the dishonest behavior of the Berger's and other grads, but brook no such nonsense from my close circle of friends. This also lent itself to being willing to undergo humiliating feedback and tolerate condescending attitudes. I began to unravel all of the justifications I was using to cover up the obvious truth: The Berger's are sociopathic scam artists, and I was tired of having to cover up for them just so I could feel better about being utterly hornswaggled out of over 5 years of my life.

Nothing has helped me more than taking Philosophy classes in college. Nothing.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2008 06:16PM by exImpact.

exImpact makes an excellent point about philosophy: the study of philosophy exposes one to many different ideas about how we gain knowledge (i.e. epistemology). The 3 books I mentioned in the previous post all teach different philosophies. "Atlas Shrugged" details Rand's own philosophy of objectivism as it relates to happiness, love, and life. She also exposes the absurdities of mysticism in the real world of survival.

Paine's "The Age of Reason" explains his belief in Deism and makes some very compelling points about spiritual beliefs, such as these:

"But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe." ... and ...

"A thing which everybody is required to believe requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal."

Carl Sagan, as you may know, was a brilliant scientist. His book, "The Demon Haunted World," teaches the "philosophy" of critical thinking.

In stark contrast to these thought-provoking and intelligent books, my Impact friends introduced me to a sorry excuse for bullsh$* entitled, "Ask and it is Given," all about the law of attraction. It is their Bible -- seriously. They read it religiously and highlight certain passages and it is the biggest smelliest piece of crap I've ever seen. The authors claim they didn't write it. "Abraham" wrote it. Abraham is some collective conscience who exists on the "other side" and he apparently decided to contact the authors one day so they could take Abraham's dictation and make a lot of money selling this BS to the world. Another book that I have a really hard time swallowing is "Conversations with God." I'm told by my Impact friends that the Impact staff each have dog-eared copies of CWG and teach the concepts in the training. I'm slowly reading CWG when I can stomach it, with a thought similar to the idea that it's important to understand the enemy. I haven't quite been able to put my finger on just what it is I hate about it, but I want to read it so I can figure it out.

While I would agree that a few semesters of basic college level philosophy courses could be a great way to exercise the dot-connecting 'muscles' of the brain's left hemisphere, I'd be damn careful of swallowing Ayn Rand's bait "hook, line and sinker;" for Objectivism is simply riddled with contradictions of its own. And despite Ayn's Aristotelian bent towards reason and rationality, she also demands that a "Good Objectivist" accept her belief system 100% -- which means 'on faith' and with that alone, her supposedly integrated system of thought morphs into a house of cards.

Plus, folks who've ingested enough of HER Kool-aid end up behaving just as insufferably and arrogantly as any true believer of Hans Berger or Werner Erhard. That's the ultimate acid test, and exposes the fact that Objectivism is as much a Personality Cult as Impact, Landmark or the old Lifespring.

However, to read Rand's stuff alongside that of Descartes, Kant, Nietchce, Plato (and w/o really getting too 'stuck' in any of their points of view), can very much exercise the brain back into basic dot-connecting, and just as importantly: back into asking life's tough questions to one's self and to others.

I concur with bobnar. Balance is the key. The goal is to get people thinking on their own and not to go from one personality cult to a new one. The books I mentioned are relatively easy reads but with some profound ideas. They are each premised on different, and in some instances, contradictory philosophical beliefs.

Which leads me to another question as I have never been to Impact: What is usually the education level of those who enroll? The staff? None of my Impact friends have been to college or to a university. I feel like I have to make a disclaimer here. I personally believe that everyone ultimately is self-educated and thus a degree does not always mean much. I know plenty of college grads who are not the brightest lights on the Christmas tree and non-college grads who are brilliant. However, undoubtedly those who have graduated from college and took their studies seriously had opportunities to develop critical thinking skills while being exposed to many different points of view. I guess my question is: do you see many Impact enrollees who are scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc?